Telfar
company on 1 show · 15 statements across 1 episodes · said 29 times in 1 episodes since 2022
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How I Built This 27
2022 27 mentions in 1 episode
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15 statements about Telfar, every show
Clemens plans to open physical retail stores with apparel and lifestyle goods
“I want it to be accessible. Like, you can go to a store and get the things that you want to get, you know. A Telfar store. Definitely clothes, definitely accessories, and definitely an experience. Candles, pianos, bath bombs.”
Telfar only collaborates for manufacturing capabilities, not financial checks
“The whole reason why we collaborate changed because of our material position. Like, we're not looking for that check, actually. We're looking to develop a product that somebody is better at making, or that would take us two years to do.”
Telfar's first pandemic-era bag drop in March 2020 sold out in seconds
“It was the end of March where finally China opened up. We got a shipment of bags. We post a bag drop in the middle of this crazy pandemic... And they sold out in seconds.”
Telfar decided in early 2019 to fully exit wholesale by 2020
“But we made the decision January, 2019, that by January, 2020, we would be completely out, which was a very difficult thing to do.”
By early 2019, Telfar's wholesale accounts were doubling every season
“And at that time, you know, our wholesale accounts were doubling every season.”
Telfar was generating only a few thousand dollars monthly through early 2019
“We're still only making like a few thousand dollars a month. Right. Through 2018 and into 2019.”
Telfar based signature bag price on DJ earnings, making it initially unprofitable
“That, that was a big part of it, is that Telfar wanted to base the price on how much you would make in a night DJ. And that absolutely didn't square up with how much it cost to make the bag. Like, at all. But it's like the price of the bag was part of the conc…”
White Castle renewed Telfar uniform orders every six months
“So we became a supplier to White Castle, and they're renewing them every, you know, six months, and like, that Became a revenue stream, not just a kind of press release.”
Telfar secured an order to manufacture 20,000 employee uniforms for White Castle
“So with White Castle, we had the opportunity to make unisex clothes for a 20,000 unit order.”
Radboy: Most fashion brand collaborations are superficial PR stunts with small fees
“Well, think, you know, these things are usually for show. They're for press. It's just, you want a press release saying that happened, and then you get a little check for your design fee.”
Telfar generated over $1M converting fashion show marketing into revenue
“Like, at some point, we were bringing in over a million dollars just from doing shows, so what you would consider marketing is actually, it wasn't an expense, it was Our income.”
Telfar had never sold over two dozen units before its shopping bag
“And then we had produced the Telfar bag, the shopping bag, and we put the entire production in the store. So it's like hundreds and hundreds of this bag, you know, for a brand that had never sold more than Maybe a dozen, a couple dozen of anything.”
Radboy: Vogue and Style.com act as historical gatekeepers of fashion
“You have to understand that when people, you know, you have these institutions like Vogue and Style.com, and they're like the Library of Congress of fashion. So they, their, your entry means that you happened. So when they refuse to even record that you had a …”
Supima gifted fabric samples to Telfar when Clemens could not afford it
“I was getting the fabric as a gift from Supima. You know, I couldn't even afford the fabric that they were giving me.”
Telfar Clemens cannot sew and relies on collaborators to construct garments
“I was bad at it, and I'm still bad at it. Like, I can't sew for shit, and I wouldn't want to. That's when I, you know, I really, like, you know, I'm blessed enough to have, like, great people that work with me that make things the way how they should be made”