Karen Sabag Rises

To The Occasion

Bridal Wear Business Holds

Steady During Downturn;

Eyeing Expansion

By Richard Collings

Published: September 10, 2009

   Designer Karen Sabag could provide a tutorial to young aspiring designers hoping to make their way into the fashion business.

   By focusing on an underserved area of the market, custom-made wedding gowns are her specialty, and setting up shop in a neighborhood of Brooklyn where there is a demand for such services, Sabag has established a strong foundation for her private New York-based label.

   As a result of her bridal wear business, the revenues for Karen Sabag have held steady during the recession despite the downward pressure on price points, Sabag said.

   Though a gown now goes for less, Sabag has netted more clients as her reputation has grown. “What holds me up are my clients,” she emphasized. Even with a tightening of wallets, “people still get married,” Sabag added.

   She is now scouting the Upper East Side for a new store location to significantly increase her business, likely upping the number of employees from three or four to seven seamstresses.

   With commercial real estate prices declining, and an increase in empty store fronts, there may not be a better time than now.

   The expansion will be funded with money invested by family members and from the company’s own revenues, which are likely between $1 million to $5 million, according to figures provided by Sabag.

   While bridal accounts for most of the sales generated by the label, Sabag offers an assortment of design services to produce that special dress for a wide-range of occasions.

   According to one industry executive, who declined to be named, at an apparel company with over $100 million in revenues, while that entity’s revenues are down by about 20 percent, the sale of garments for special occasions is weathering the downturn.

   Sabag has found women desire to invest in a wedding dress they can keep as a momento or hand down to their daughters. And while Sabag usually charges between $10,000 to $30,000 for a wedding gown, and above $3,000 for a cocktail dress, each garment is uniquely made for each client.

   Sabag said clients will sometimes shop around, eyeing other well-known high-end designers’ creations, but come to her even though she might charge a bit more, because they don’t want to spend a lot of money on a dress other women may also have.

   The Israeli-born designer moved to New York City with her family when she was 10, and inherited her passion for fashion design and the production of custom-made garments from her mother and aunt, who taught her everything from how to interact with clients to embroidery techniques.

   As a child, Sabag would raid her mother’s supplies, taking fabric to make skirts for herself to her mother’s dismay, for the fabric was always for a client’s dress.

   Yet it was through those kinds of experiences that Sabag gained the skills you couldn’t learn in fashion school, she said, and it enabled her to start her business at a much younger age.

   The knowledge is useful, as Sabag must train her seamstresses in many cases as to how to properly fit a garment for a 200-pound woman versus a mannequin, for example. She also takes on student interns, teaching them the craft of the business.

   Good seamstresses are difficult to find, Sabag interjected, and it is one of the foremost challenges in running her business.

   In terms of design, Sabag said fashion is changing in her view, with more of a focus on richer fabrics and more details, to provide customers with unique design that commands a premium.

   She doesn’t think, however, that consumers are as label-conscious. Many of her clients, while they will invest a good deal of money in a garment for a special occasion, will often buy clothes for the daily demands of their lives at places such as fast fashion retailers H&M and Forever 21, which offer compelling design for the price, Sabag said.

   She also thinks that consumers are only willing to spend “on a dress no one has,” with a desire for comfort and fit, and classic enough they can wear ten years from now.

   Veering into what the designer is currently interested in, Sabag said her upcoming runway presentation is inspired by the architecture of Barcelona, and the palette of the buildings, which tend to morph from a mint green into a pale pink into a verdant green, for example. And stones, particularly in gold and silver, with a three-dimensional, holographic quality. All of the looks involve a great deal of detail. The finale dress for the show comes at a price tag of over $30,000.

   Sabag is able to offer such runway presentations because she sells most of her samples.

   As concerns the internet, Sabag does not mince words: “I don’t like the internet.” Even so, she has developed her own Web site to reach out to potential customers.

   As for the future of printed fashion magazines, Sabag said there will always be a role for such, and hopes to be featured in one of the major books, as it would bring her much more visibility. Print magazines, she said, are still more important than the internet.

   In addition to scouting for a new store location, Karen Sabag will have its dresses featured in Kleinfeld, one of the largest bridal stores in the world, hopefully this October, Sabag said.

   Over the long-term, Sabag imagines growing her company so that she has several small boutiques, maybe one in Los Angeles in addition to New York City. But she said she has no desire to offer mass-produced ready-to-wear or visions of becoming a really large company. And she plans to always focus on custom-made garments produced domestically.

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