Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#266: Gita Omri (Fashion Designer) (pt. 1 of 2)
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with New York-based fashion designer Gita Omri. She's an Israeli-American fashion designer who focuses on inclusive fashion design for women. Her intensive design process is made doubly rigorous given the range of sizes for which she creates. Gita fits every garment in several measures before the pattern is finally graded for production. Her brand's mission is to reintroduce fashion as a tool to enhance one's confidence and self-esteem—so we hope you'll tune in to hear how Gita uses her creativity and passion to help empower women to "present themselves to the world in their true form with pride, acceptance, and authenticity." https://gitaomri.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:Gita Omri is joining us today. She's an Israeli-American fashion designer based in New York City who has made it her mission to focus on inclusive fashion design for women. After earning a degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of New York City, she attended the prestigious Central St Martin's College at the University of Arts London and completed her education at the Academy of Art University of San Francisco. We'll have Gita's website in the show notes so you can read more about her and see her latest designs. Quick shout out to our friend Scott French from Very New York, who helped us arrange this interview. Thanks for being on the podcast, gita.
Gita Omri:Thank you for having me. This is really exciting.
Nick Petrella:Let's start by having you tell us why inclusive fashion is so important to you.
Gita Omri:Well, I think in any category that requires inclusion, right, it sucks to be the one on the outside, and usually those are the ones that are. The people who are on the outside are the ones fighting to get in. So, as someone who's been plus size my entire life, it's been a battle to get in and say you know, I love fashion, I love dressing up, I love putting myself together and feeling beautiful, and why is that not available to me? So that's a big driving force in creating clothes that are fashionable for all women.
Andy Heise:Great, and was that one of the driving factors behind why you went to school for fashion design, or has fashion always been sort of something that you've wanted to do in general?
Gita Omri:I'm not one of those designers who you know. Oh, ever since I was a baby I knew this was going to be, you know. But I was a dress up queen. I was obsessed with dressing up and I actually my first love was musicals and musical theater and I thought that I would be a Broadway star. But I grew up in Israel so that channel really wasn't available to me. And second, I didn't know there could be plus size or fat actresses or so. So that was quickly not a path to take. But I always love clothes, I always love dressing up.
Gita Omri:From the majority of my youth I really had to focus on accessories because there really wasn't fashion available. So when I was in my military service, actually, I decided to take. At the end of the service, when your time kind of opens up a bit because I'm training the person to replace me I said you know what I don't like free time, let me take a course. So I took a styling course and I quickly realized that that wasn't enough for me. Everything is, it's fun and it's a great career path, but I'm a creator.
Andy Heise:I really wanted to see my vision from sketch to model, and that's really kind of when I decided to pursue fashion design, and so styling would just be taking existing accessories and clothing and putting them together for a client or something, versus designing, where you're actually drawing it out.
Gita Omri:Yeah, I mean that simplifies it a little bit, but because there is more. Well, I used to be in your mindset of oh, styling is just like you know, we put stuff together, but actually, throughout time in this industry, I've realized that there's so much more to it, and so, yeah, styling, though, is another way of being creative. It's more about curation rather than creation.
Nick Petrella:Got it, and do you do that with your brand or is purely design?
Gita Omri:So up until this season, I did all the styling, and this season this show was the biggest production we've done, and so I brought on a stylist. Her name is Yael Goldman and she actually did a really great job and this last collection, working with her, really made me appreciate the stylist and what it is that they actually bring to the table, because it's a big part of it, yeah.
Nick Petrella:Yeah. So did you jump right into owning a brand or did you work at other brands before launching?
Gita Omri:I did not work for other brands. I dabbled here and there when I was really hungry, but mostly when I went to school I knew I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to create something that wasn't there. When I started school I was practically told like you can do plus-ice fashion or you can do luxury fashion, but there is not a meeting of the two and I thought, well, that's ridiculous. I want to do luxury and not just plus-size. I don't want to be pigeonholed as a plus-size designer. I want to be a women's wear designer. So I kind of knew right away that I was going to do my own thing. I also am not great with being told what to do, so I figured that would be the best path for me.
Nick Petrella:Spoken like an entrepreneur.
Gita Omri:Oh yes, but it was really really difficult for a very long time because I didn't know what I was doing and I would have benefited, I think, so much from learning, from going to another company and learning for a few years. And my grandfather, who's in finance and business and has been his whole career, he was always like well, maybe you should get a job, maybe you should go and learn from someone else. And I was like I'll figure it out. And 10 years in, I'm still figuring it out.
Nick Petrella:Now, is that uncommon? It seems like we've had different fashion designers and merchandisers on the podcast and it seems like their path was to work with someone else. So is it uncommon what you're doing?
Gita Omri:I think that it is yes and no. It's uncommon in the fact that. You know it boils down to privilege, right? Those of us who can afford to just say whatever I'm doing my own thing, we can, and there's a lot of big designers who started out that way as well. They're just like oh, I have money, I'm gonna put money in and I'm gonna do it. But for the majority of creatives designers, artists they're not starting out with money, and so you do have to work to subsidize your creativity. I'm really fortunate that I came from a family that has been very supportive, both emotionally and financially, to my goals and my dreams, and so in that way, I got a leg up and I'm very privileged, that's great.
Andy Heise:And what have been some challenges and rewards of launching your own label.
Gita Omri:Ooh, challenges. I don't know if this podcast is long enough, but first of all it's again. The learning curve is just insane. I've made so many mistakes, many of which were very expensive mistakes, and you don't really have a mentor or a guide or something. I've tried to pick those up along the way and I've done the work.
Gita Omri:I don't want to sound like, oh, I just came in, I have all this money and I'm doing like I've worked really hard to kind of figure it out, but I still don't feel like I've fully figured it out. You know, it's very interesting, especially when you're trying to do something different. I'm trying to do a line that is a full-size range, so it incorporates two markets. It incorporates the straight-size market and the plus-size market, which kind of leaves me nowhere to be, because the straight-size market sees me as, oh, she's inclusive, which means she's plus-size which, by the way, inclusive sizing is not synonymous for plus-size, but a lot of people think it is and then the plus-size market, similar.
Gita Omri:So I find myself in this lane where I'm like I don't belong anywhere, which that's a huge challenge, and I get a lot of I've been for years so many responses of this is wonderful, this is great, this is what's needed. The designs are great, but then those people aren't buying or it's not being placed in the stores that I want, and so that's been a real challenge. It's kind of figuring out rather than belonging everywhere, which was the hope. It's almost as if I belong nowhere.
Nick Petrella:Interesting. Well, I'm wondering could you redefine the word and own that Well? It's so it's really challenging. It's really challenging, sorry.
Gita Omri:To what though?
Nick Petrella:I don't know.
Gita Omri:So it's remember when everything was green, everything was green to the point where green meant nothing. And now we say sustainable, even though it's the same scheme, right? So now everybody's kind of seeing inclusive as the new PC way of saying plus size, which it's not. It's supposed to be inclusive. And so what you're saying about trying to change the word, for years I was really kind of drumming on that we're inclusive sizing, we're inclusive sizing. And then when I realized that people just think that that's a nice way of saying plus, I've been really trying to pivot away and just say women's wear, we do women's wear. And our new tagline is not plus, not minus, just women's wear.
Gita Omri:And the inclusivity part is a challenge because, just like the green movement, anybody who recycled the paper cup was like oh, we're green If a new brand adds one or two more sizes all of a sudden, they're inclusive. But they're not really. You know, they're just jumping on that bandwagon of like oh see, we're inclusive. I remember an ad came out a few years ago for a brand I'm not gonna mention the brand because I don't rule that way, but their ad was a really beautiful dress on an average size woman and the ad said finally now up to size 18, finally, like they're doing this huge favor. And the average size in America is 16, 18 for women. So I'm like you just basically met the average and you're putting out this marketing as if you're the solution.
Nick Petrella:That's what I'm saying to do Redefine it. I'm not, I don't know that it'd work.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Nick Petrella:Right, anyway.
Gita Omri:Yeah, but it's a challenge with wording. It's very, very challenging because everybody can do. I don't think plus size is a dirty word, but some people and a lot of marketers think that it is. So now you have a huge variety of options for extended sizing. You have extended sizing, you have inclusive, you have curve, you have. You know, whatever it is that it's just. It's missing the point. The point isn't to create a more, you see packaging. The point is offer the products to more women.
Nick Petrella:Right, yeah, so sizing actually segues nicely into the next question. I found it interesting to read on your site that there is no standardised sizing in the US. Does that cause any returns from, say, mistakenly ordered clothing, or how do you handle that?
Gita Omri:Yes, it's a really big challenge there is, from what I've noticed over the last, you know, few years, is that there is a, there's a basic guideline for the sizing. So even though it's not standardized, it's not going to be a difference of four or five sizes. You'll be up or down one or two and I think that's really frustrating for consumers, because most of us don't measure ourselves every time we want to buy something. Most of us don't know what our actual measurements are, and so we go based on what we think we are and we also go based on what our vanity will allow us to be. So there's so much importance in the size tag that has been drilled into us. So if you tell a woman and store A that she's a 10, but then she goes to store B and you tell her she's a 12, that is an emotional Sure. It's just no one wants to hear that You're a bigger size or the opposite. When you're a 12 and store A, you go to store B, you're a 10, you feel like you won the lottery. You're like, oh yeah, oh my gosh, yes, now I'm a 10. But it's not. It's really cut the same exact size, pretty much. So most women probably they learn their sizes in different stores, but it makes it challenging to try new brands. One of the ways we've tried to tackle that is I offer a free fit kit, which I would send to anybody who requests. It's a card that shows you how to measure yourself. It comes with a branded measuring tape and you can go home, measure yourself and compare it to the size charts. The wonderful thing about shopping online is most brands will now have a size chart available. So if you do know your measurements and you're smart enough to figure that out before you shop online, then you can do that.
Gita Omri:But the truth is, people buy. There's a few things that we see. Some people buy the size they think they are and then return. Or people buy multiple sizes and then return. So there's a lot of returns. But I think we're in a point now in our culture where we're having it's a big problem with returns the fact that you can buy anything, anything on Amazon. You can return it, and even if it's like a $5 thing, as a business owner, I think about how can you ever know A how much money you're actually making, how much product you're actually losing? And we just, I think as consumers, we don't even think past that. We just think of our own convenience, like, oh, I'll order it, I'll return it, easy peasy. And I'm guilty of that too. I'm not saying that, I do it all the time. So that is a different issue that I think we really need to crack down on. And how do we limit that or stop that? Or you know, I think yeah.
Nick Petrella:Well, that question it was prompted actually. So I wear, you know, whatever size I wear and it's very consistent. I went to another brand I was looking at a suit and the pants sizes that fit me from that brand were three sizes bigger and I was like, how can that be? But now it makes sense. Why don't they come up with standardized sizing? Wouldn't that be easier for everybody? Wouldn't that eliminate waste and time?
Gita Omri:You'd think so. I think a big part of it is also to do with. A big part of it is vanity sizing, right? So if, for example, pattern makers do have somewhat of a standardized sizing so a 26-inch waist is size whatever and that's kind of how pattern makers on the back end create it. But this started back when size double zero was the end thing. Double zero, that's not even a number. How can that be so if you, you know, my great-grandmother was a size 16, but in today's sizing she would probably be a 10. And because it goes down enough to make you feel like you're smaller than you are, even though you're, it doesn't change your actual body. It literally just changes the little tag in the yeah.
Gita Omri:And I've been all kinds of sizes and at my highest, you know, I was really really large and it would make me feel bad seeing the tag. I'd come home, I'd cut that tag out and never think about it again, and I think that that's also been something that's been a driving force for me, and my brand is to try to eliminate that power that we whether you're a size four wanting to be a two, or whether you're a size 20 wanting to be an 18,. We give so much power to this stupid little label, whose only job is to help differentiate between products, so that when I have it on the rack, I know that this one is this and this one is this, and that's it's only purpose. But we put so much importance and our own self-worth into this dumb little tab. Yeah, it's a problem.
Andy Heise:So what are your primary channels for, first of all, making people aware of your brand, of your label, and then how do you transact most of your sales?
Gita Omri:So I before COVID, it was mainly social media and I took a break for two, two and a half years during COVID because I, well, I just had a baby and my goal was to, you know, go home, be with the baby for six weeks and then get back to work. And then COVID shut us down. Yay, and I noticed right away when COVID shut us down, like all the brands started panicking and sending out these ridiculous amount of emails of sales and this and that. And we're doing it. And I just thought we don't know what's going on. Like so many people are dying, the world's in chaos, like this is, I felt like that was so tone deaf and like this. So I just shut everything down and I said, look, let's wait and see what happens in this, you know, to the world, because nobody needs a designer dress when she's locked in her apartment for a year, right, Unless, it's on sale.
Gita Omri:Unless it's on sale. No, I say that, but in the second year of like going into the second year of COVID, I started buying a ton of handbags and I wasn't going anywhere. But I think, maybe subconsciously, I was feeling like one day I'll leave the house again.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah, and it was inspirational.
Gita Omri:Yeah, so that's something that I actually did. But so I shut it down and then, after having my second kid during COVID and things kind of calmed down, we started going out of the house and we just got so sick of wearing sweatpants that I I said, all right, we're starting up again. And that's when I hooked up with Scott and he's been he's been on my team ever since and really pushing the PR and and marketing strategies and all of that and producing my fashion shows. So the main objective of the first year and a half was really to build up the buzz again, because I practically was starting from scratch.
Andy Heise:Right.
Gita Omri:Yeah, and then I was much more educated, much more educated, but definitely starting over, and so really focused there on sales and not on sales on on PR and getting the name out there and showing consistency, because unfortunately a lot of buyers they won't buy your first season or your second season, you know. They want to see that you have staying power. I see, and this is another place where having that privilege of the funds comes in, because most designers you can't survive two, three collections without any sales. It's really difficult and so that's why a lot of them fizz out and so I was lucky that I could do another collection and do another collection and do some direct to consumer sales through the website and social media. But my big goal is breaking into the wholesale market and getting into boutiques and getting into specialty stores and you know, and the department stores that are struggling but they're still. You know people who go and and that's really my big goal for for this year is to start breaking into that. But it's challenging. So sure you know we have our. We're trying to fire on most cylinders right now with PR going.
Gita Omri:We've got you know I'm so glad to be on this podcast and we've got our social media is being more consistent than ever before and the collections are getting better and that's important too is that. It's that the collections have to be good, and sometimes it's really hard to you know to know if they're good to. Yeah, I think one of the things that's got and I discussed about the first couple seasons is that people don't talk up, didn't talk about my collection at all, like not good reviews or bad reviews. I don't think that the first one was super great because it was really focused on driving the point across that inclusive sizing is possible. So I focused more on that rather than the actual design. But all everybody ever talked about was the inclusivity, which is great. It's great for the change that I want to make, but no, one's talking about the clothes.
Gita Omri:No one's talking about, no one's giving me feedback with. This is good. This is not good, but this last collection that I just showed in this month Was great. It was great. I got a lot of positive feedback. You know a lot of people commented about the progress they're seeing and how it's getting improving and getting better. So that's good to hear and and, but yeah, that is that is it now. Now is the time where I'm juggling the three. I got the collection that I'm promoting, that I just showed. I'm starting marketing sales for September's collection and I got to start designing for next September. So it's a fun time.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's interesting, and so you've, you've launched, you've done two launches.
Gita Omri:I've done. I've shown three collections so far.
Andy Heise:Great and and you're planning the this this fall, fall 24, but you're saying you're already thinking about.
Gita Omri:I'm already starting development for spring. Spring spring 25, which will be shown in September. Wow, and I'm now On March 19th, the first day of June. I'll be starting the first day of spring. I'll be marketing the spring collection that I showed this past September and selling Spring for this year.
Andy Heise:Yeah, so the main awareness tool or the main like PR, marketing thing is, is doing these releases, doing these shows and Inviting press to them, influencers to them, to help spread the word about.
Gita Omri:Yeah, and the place in the market where I want to be, I want to be Right, you know, in the luxury market. Yes, that is what. From what I, yeah, from what I have engaged, the best way to go about it is to really Show, you know, do be part of fashion week, that's. That's an important thing, I think, and then to Support it with the social media. Scott and I also did a trade show Last September, which Ended up being not the right fit, but I'm glad we did it because it was a really important experience.
Gita Omri:Yes, and my my goal now is to get into Showrooms, to get into showrooms who have those relationships with the wholesalers and who can get my collection into a broader no market Do you work with any boutiques Locally I have one boutique near me that we are planning a trunk show, but Other than that not yet.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah, and so you said in a Ideally you'd like to wholesale to larger retailers or boutique retailers.
Gita Omri:Yeah, they don't have to be large. They can be small specialty boutiques as they are. They can be small specialty boutiques as well. But I do want to get into brick-and-mortar places where women are shopping and you know, and again that's so challenging because so many of these specialty stores they have a very specific Client. So, yeah, you know, boutique a might only carry up till size 12. Which boutique?
Gita Omri:that's ridiculous, but that's their, that's their Customers yeah and they would have to put in a lot of work to train their audiences and to build an audience for the bigger sizes. And it's it's like I said, it's hard to find where exactly I belong and I think the strategy is gonna have to be to, on a sales point is, split the collection and try to sell half of it. The smaller sizes one way and the plus size of the other way, yeah, which is frustrating because it kind of defeats the purpose. But you know you can't, I can't have it exactly the way I want when the market's not ready for it. Yeah, and so hopefully we can start. I'm hoping that.
Gita Omri:Let's say, I go to boutique a who only carries up to 12 and say to them you know, carry it to 12. I'll give you 14 and 16 and see if they sell, see if someone will come in and maybe you can extend your sizing Because there are women. My collection is inclusive in sizing, it's exclusive and price point it is. You know you can't give everything to everybody, but there are plenty of women who can afford it and who want it and who can spend the money and and and, but they're just not the right size. That's ridiculous. Why not cater to them?
Nick Petrella:and I'm wondering how much space and money At these boutiques, because I mean there's, there's not limited space, there's not, or there's limited space, there's limited money, yeah, and to have a bunch more skews with different sizes. But I think your solution to put it in on consignment kind of the exercises, maybe anything above 16, that might be the way to crack that.
Gita Omri:Yeah, yeah, and I'm happy to do that because I know Women shop together too, right, you know, I have I have three slim sisters, and so shopping with them is always. That's part of what drove me also to to this brand is into this model is because shopping with my sisters was a nightmare, you know, especially when we were young. We'd go to the cool stores and they get to go and buy all the cute, you know trendy stuff and I would go directly to the accessories wall and say, ok, what can I do with this? And it was disheartening and it sucked. And and then when it was my turn to shop at some like you know, you know, math teacher, grandma store and find something that would work, like it was, it was a bummer and they would be impatient oh, we're done, we don't want to look.
Gita Omri:I want to create a situation where shopping was fun again and joyful, like between clicking online, ordering everything from your phone, or knowing you don't not even going to a store because you know they won't have anything for you. The whole feeling sucks. Yeah, you know, shopping is a necessity, but it's more than that. It's, it's an activity. Yeah, it's a, you know, a fun thing that we do and should be found for everyone while you're offering a great service.
Nick Petrella:You really are Thanks.
Andy Heise:Are there? Are there wholesalers that specialize in selling to the, to boutiques? You know, you know what I mean. Like, like, I'm sure, like there's wholesalers that specialize in selling like sales reps?
Gita Omri:Yeah, maybe.
Andy Heise:I guess I don't really even know the right question to ask, but, like wholesaler, when I think of wholesalers it's you know they have relation, existing relationships with, with retailers usually. So I'm wondering are there specific wholesalers that specialize in relationships with you know, small boutiques maybe throughout the US or whatever.
Gita Omri:Definitely there are. There are sales reps that are have those relationships with the small boutiques or even bigger stores, chain stores, you know they all kind of have something that they specialize in and that's another problem is finding that one sales person who can do the full size range. It would need to be, you know, oh, this person or this showroom can sell this range and find someone this, you know, can sell this range. But the second option, you know, for the bigger sizes is you were in far and between, because plus size luxury is new. You know, only in the last five, six years has there really been options in plus size luxury. So it's a matter of convincing.
Gita Omri:I think the boutiques, the specialty boutiques, the, you know, the, even the department stores that they're that to convincing them that there is a market for this. There are more and more and more women are on the larger, larger size, and they're always with money. They want to shop. Also, speaking as a plus size consumer myself plus I was women tend to return less because if they find something that they love and fits well I'm talking about me if I find something that I love and fit well, I buy it and I'll buy it in every color and I'll keep coming back to buy it because I know it's like a safe item. This is my pant. It fits me, I love it. Or they have a new color, I love it, and so there's a lot of loyalty.
Gita Omri:I think that can be developed in that in that market, and it's a shame that it's. It's still kind of seen as a subcategory or a. You know, like when I started school and I said I didn't want to be pigeon hold as a plus size designer because at the time you were a plus size designer, you could not shed that title. That's what you chose to do, that's what you were known for and you couldn't really do much else because that's you were a plus size designer, which almost made it feel like you were less creative or less of a talent or less of a designer because of it. You know, just like, yeah.
Nick Petrella:Sure, so do you include that information, that stat about the customer segment of plus size women not returning as much?
Gita Omri:Well, I, I, I don't actually have hard evidence of that, that's just from my personal experience as a consumer myself and from you know, the people I know in a plus size community, and but it's, it's not, I don't know Like.
Nick Petrella:No, I get, I get you, yeah, and we don't know. Obviously, you can tell from the screen. We don't know fashion and we're learning a lot in this, so this is all. This is all new to us, yeah.
