Stitching Up Chicago Fashion

The Chicago Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) works with entrepreneurs to help them maintain, operate and succeed with their businesses. In May 2007, there was an additional program added to the CEC. Stitches is a program aimed at the fashion end of entrepreneurship. It helps up and coming designer and boutique owners learn the technical aspects of running a business and being successful in Chicago.

“Fashion is a strange Industry because its still romanticized as a industry that if you create beautiful designs beautiful things will happen to you.  At the end of the day a fashion business is just that, it's a business.  Stitches tries to always bring the discussion back to how designers can be better business people and run a profitable company,” said Jason Felger, Executive Vice President of the CEC.

Participants in the program are assisted in business planning, raising capital, review of their finances, marketing and public relations, legal advice, manufacturing resources, and business registration as well as many other things, but none of those are the most important things Stitches does according to Felger.

“The single greatest thing we can ever do for a fashion entrepreneur is introduce them to another fashion entrepreneur,” he said,  “We can help them raise money, land a new customer and generally speaking, help them grow their business but linking them with other fashion entrepreneurs who've experienced what they've experienced and can share their stories is invaluable.  Being a fashion entrepreneur can be a lonely experience and at any stage of business, but particularly early on, you need to have peers and mentors to help you along.

According to Stephanie Niedospial, the Fashion Project Coordinator for the CEC, the Stitches program is able to make these great connections through their use of seminars, events, contributions to web content, a message board and personal introductions.

Felger thinks that if every up-and-coming fashion entrepreneur started with the Stitches program, the Chicago Fashion Industry would be a little different.

“I’d like to think we’d have more multi-million dollar fashion businesses, but that’s a lofty goal for one organization. At a minimum, we’d have an industry of fashion entrepreneurs that understood the road map of building a successful business,” Felger said.

Since it’s recent launch, Stitches seems to be well on its way to building that kind of a program, as it has seen much success from those who have become a part of it.

“I see our success in our feedback and responses from our clients,” said Niedospial, “Everyone that we have touched seems to be extremely grateful that this program exists. This just goes to show that fashion business advice is really needed here in Chicago.”
www.stitchesfashionprogram.com
-Nora R. Silver