Q&A - One to watch: Activewear designer Charli Cohen
Activewear designer Charli Cohen is one of fashion's rising stars. Using her combined love of design and sport she anticipated the boom in "Athleisure" (recently named 2015's most influential fashion trend) with her line of premium activewear. She has just launched her first etail site and has plans for further growth.
“Athleisure” has been named as the most influential fashion trend of 2015; when you were studying did you see the potential or was it more a case of designing what you wanted to do?
Both! It was a natural direction for me due to my combined interest in fashion and fitness (I qualified as a personal trainer alongside my fashion degree) but I could also see the gap in the market and need for active fashion. The showing of my graduate collection coincided with the Olympics in London - it was perfect timing as I feel the trend really started to gain traction in the UK after that, not just athleisure but wellness in general.
You were granted sponsorship from Lycra owner Invista, shortly after graduating, how did that help your career?
It was an incredible boost, not only in terms of much needed financial assistance and mentoring in the start-up phase of my business but also the credibility it gave the brand.
You are a personal trainer, as well as a designer, is there a particular type of fitness you promote and how does is inform your design?
Personally I really enjoy Olympic lifting and martial arts - this is quite useful for product testing because if a piece can endure my workouts, it's a safe bet that it will work well across a wide range of disciplines! My PT/sports science background helps me understand how to make my designs ergonomic - but in addition to this, it has also made me hyper aware of how to make my pieces more practical (pocket sizes continually updated for the latest iPhone) and more confidence-boosting (super opaque fabrics and compression in all the right places).
Tell us a bit about your approach to design, where does the creative, and indeed technical, process start for you?
My creative process can start in a number of ways but more often than not I'm inspired by my travels - people watching and architecture. I always have a sketch book with me. Or sometimes it's a new fabric that I'm desperate to use, so design something specifically to do it justice. The technical side comes in when I start refining the designs - I prefer to start with a more "fashion" idea and then work out how make it perform, as I've found designing from a purely functional standpoint tends to limit creativity. The finished design of course needs to do both things really well - otherwise it's back to the drawing board!
How do you research fabrics and manufacturing options and where are your clothes made?
The Lycra sponsorship enabled me to develop relationships with some of the best mills for tech fabrics from day one, which has been a great advantage - I mostly source from Italy. I used UKFT to find the UK factory I've worked with since launch (who amazingly invested in activewear facilities purely for CC) and have recently started manufacturing in Portugal as well, through a freelance production manager.
Wearable technology is another big trend at the moment, is this something you have investigated?
I'm a bit of a geek and find wearables a really exciting space. At the moment though, the applications for clothing feel a bit too gimmicky to be on brand, so I'm waiting to see how that evolves. I would be very interested in coming at it from the other side though - collaborating with a tech brand to design the look and feel of a product.
Congratulations the launch of the new e-commerce site, how long has that been in the making and what were your biggest learnings from the process?
Thank you! The e-store has been in the works for about eight months though we’ve been planning to launch e-commerce since day one. I wanted to be in a position to do it really well and create a great customer experience, so I decided to wait and build the brand through wholesale first. My biggest take away has been to create at least twice as much image and video content as you think you’ll need and even then you’ll probably wish you had more!
As well as your own site you have some great stockists, such as Yoox and Avenue 32, are you trying to expand that list and is your own physical store in your sights?
We're working hard to grow our wholesale distribution - especially in the US (which is already our largest market) and the Far East. A physical store is definitely in our sights down the track - meanwhile we're working on having regular pop-ups and events.
You only graduated in 2012 but quite quickly you achieved some impressive press coverage, how did you achieve that and what effect did it have?
A combination of luck and persistence. The timing was perfect - not only was the whole fashion activewear movement just taking off, but there were a really limited number of premium brands on the market (there are still very few, relative to the number of mid-market brands) - that made CC an easy brand to feature. I also took the time to make connections (and subsequent friendships) with editors myself, before starting to work with a great PR agency. The press allowed me to raise awareness of the brand very quickly and gave CC the credibility to open international wholesale accounts (UK, US and Australia) from our first season.
What would you say is the Charli Cohen signature design?
Either the Laser Leggings or the Athena Body. Both have been staple pieces from early on, making a comeback each season and they’re a good example of CC's signature design lines, colour blocking and fabric quality.
Product images: Saskia Lawson
