Why Colleen Allen Turns Away Retailers That Won't Pay Deposits

Imran Amed (0:04)

Hi, this is Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion. Welcome to The BoF Podcast.

Colleen Allen learned to sew sitting on her grandmother's lap, holding the fabric, while her grandmother worked the pedal. Growing up in the Midwest, far from the industry, she found her way in through magazines, the first fashion blogs, and old McQueen shows on YouTube.

She studied menswear at Parsons, moved to London for a semester abroad at Central Saint Martins, and then asked to stay on to complete her degree. She landed her first job designing menswear at The Row. But then something shifted. She decided to venture out on her own and create a womenswear label in 2024 Since then, she says the business has grown by triple digits year over year, with no outside investment and no full-time team other than herself. So how did she do it?

Colleen Allen (1:00)

We are really only working with people on a deposit basis. Otherwise, it's impossible. And so I'm very grateful that within the current retail clients, people have been accommodating for those terms, because it's the only way it works.

Imran Amed (1:18)

This week on The BoF Podcast, Colleen joins me to talk about the making of a women's wear label, the discipline behind self-funded growth and what she's building next. And just to note, we recorded this conversation ahead of the LVMH Prize final in Paris, where she was one of nine finalists. Here's Colleen Allen on The BoF Podcast.

Hello, Colleen.

Colleen Allen (1:45)

Hi, Imran.

Imran Amed (1:46)

Nice to... This is the first time we're meeting. Well, did we meet at the LVMH Prize, actually?

Colleen Allen (1:51)

We did. Yes, very briefly.

Imran Amed (1:53)

So it's not the first time we're meeting, because I did a flyby visit for my judging last year, because I don't know what happened. Yeah.

Colleen Allen (2:02)

It was a crazy day, so I totally understand.

Imran Amed (2:06)

So we have met briefly. Yes. But I'm glad to have this opportunity to speak more in depth now for as long as our hearts desire.

Yeah.

Colleen Allen (2:19)

Thank you so much for having me. Such an honor. I'm really excited.

Imran Amed (2:22)

It's a pleasure.

So take me back to your grandmother's sewing machine. Why was that such a defining part of your growing up, and how did that lead you to what you're doing today?

Colleen Allen (2:41)

I was always making something. I think no matter what I was doing, I was making things. And I think my grandmother was the same way. She spent all of her free time. She was a quilter. And so she couldn't sit still, and she had to have some sort of craft happening. And so when she would visit me, we got a sewing machine for the house for when she would visit, because she had to have something to do with that. And so she taught me how to sew. I would literally sit on her lap and hold the fabric as she would press the pedal, and we would make quilts, we would make pillows. I was always like kind of creating a landscape out of my quilts. I remember we were making Halloween pillows, and I was probably five or six, and she wanted to just do strips so I could just learn how to sew straight lines. But we had gone to the fabric store, and I had picked out all of these different kind of Halloween-themed fabrics, and I had picked the pumpkins for the bottom, and there were some haunted houses in the middle, and there were witches flying in the sky. I had composed a landscape.

And so that was always the way that I spent time with her. And then we just had this sewing machine sitting in our house. And she lived on the East Coast, and I'm in the Midwest. And so she would come over just for visits. And then that sewing machine sat in my bedroom, and I would just kind of use it and figure it out and teach myself how to sew.

So that was the beginnings.

Imran Amed (4:26)

I mean, you could have been sewing curtains, or you could have been sewing, continued to sew quilts. Like, how did that become an interest in clothes?

Colleen Allen (4:37)

I mean, I loved fashion and I didn't really have any of people in my life who had any connection to fashion. And so it was something that I really had to seek out and create for myself.

So I was buying magazines and taking apart my own clothes and reconstructing them to be closer to the things that I wanted. And I would take hand-me-downs from friends and family and it was chopping things into something new. And that was just my way of getting closer to that world.