[Note to readers: If you are pregnant, or if have an infant or toddler, there are many meaningful ways the New Parents Expo can help you on your journey into parenting and family, including hearing Liz Lange give a talk. The New Parents Expo is taking place on October 15 and 16 in NYC. Click here for more info and to register.]
Pregnant or not,
there are probably very few women in America who are not well acquainted with Liz
Lange and her role in maternity fashion. After years of running her own
high-end maternity boutique, Lange has come to define cool, affordable
maternity fashion in her pioneering partnerships with major retailers like
Target and Nike. Her sensibility honors a woman’s desire to be fashionable and
comfortable during a highly transitional stage in her life. But if you spend
some time with Lange, you’ll discover that her world is more than working with
fabrics and fittings.
This New York native and mother of two credits her own
mom with introducing her to the thrill of getting her hands on that perfect
buy. But she hadn’t really considered fashion as a career until after college,
when she was inspired by an up-and-coming designer. These days, in addition to
her thriving maternity line at Target, Lange has a ready-to-wear women’s line
with the Home Shopping Network, a fashion website called Shopafrolic.com, and she
speaks regularly on the importance of entrepreneurship. As a devoted
mom to Gus and Alice, Lange deeply values family time. And apparently there’s
another designer at home who’s even more talented than she is!
When did you decide
that you wanted to have a career in fashion?
I studied
Literature at Brown and thought I was going to be a writer. After college, I
went to work at Vogue. I loved fashion, so it was a great place to be,
but I worked for the Books and Culture Editor. While I was there, I met a
struggling young designer and fell in love with what he was doing. I actually
begged him to let me come and work for him. So I left this glamorous world at Vogue
and went to a very gritty office in the Garment Center. Because there were just three of us, I
learned everything out of necessity. It was kind of a crash course in the
business of fashion. But even then, he was the designer, not me. Being a
designer never crossed my mind.
How did you
make the transition into maternity fashion?
I was in my
twenties and my friends started getting married and getting pregnant. The
designer I was working for had a struggling business and my friends would shop
wholesale from us. They would come in wearing something oversized and then put
on one of our more fitted dresses, which I thought made them look so much
better and thinner. When I asked why they weren’t shopping at maternity stores,
everyone would say, “You don’t understand, maternity clothes are awful!” They
were spending a lot of money on clothes that were too big, paying a fortune to
have them altered, and the clothes were still ill-fitting. It made me realize
that pregnancy is a time when women need to shop. You’re going to spend money,
because none of your old clothes fit. I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind,
so I went to my designer friend and said, “I know how you can turn your
business around. Do a maternity line!” He thought I was crazy. It was so
unglamorous and there were no pregnant celebrities at the time. But I found
myself up at night sketching—even though I can’t really draw!—and thinking
about stretchy fabrics I could use. No one was using stretch fabrics back then.
I finally realized that if I didn’t do this line and someone else did it, I
would never forgive myself. So, I did it.
So how did your
partnership with Target come about?
I was making
clothing one at a time for women who came to see me, so it was really
expensive. I began to grow and within three years, I was dressing pregnant
celebrities and getting a lot of press. I opened a flagship boutique on Madison
Avenue, one in Beverly
Hills and one
on Long Island. But I was also getting letters from
customers who wanted to wear my clothes but didn’t have a celebrity body or
budget. It got me thinking about how I could bring the line to more people.
After September 11th happened, the marketplace changed. I thought about how my
high-end business would survive and all of those customer letters and decided
to approach Target. Back then they hadn’t started partnering with designers
like Isaac Mizrahi and Cynthia Rowley. Within a year, we rolled out a secondary
line of Liz Lange to all of their stores. They also had their own private label
maternity designs, but in a few years, I had taken over the entire maternity
department as it exists today. After almost ten years, I think it has been one
of Target’s longest standing designer partnerships. People told me that if I
partnered with Target, my high-end business would suffer, but everything worked
out and it’s just been amazing. Even prior to the Target deal, I was approached
by Nike and did a line of Liz Lange maternity athletic apparel from 2000 to
2005. That was also unusual because prior to me, Nike had only partnered with
athletes. I’ve been really lucky to have had licensing deals with Nike and
Target.
What is your
involvement with Liz Lange for Target Maternity today?
I spend most of
my time these days being the face of the brand. I record voice-overs for the
Liz Lange website within Target, do all of the press opportunities and answer
customer questions. I sold the brand in 2007, but I stay on and completely
manage the Target relationship. Additionally, I partnered with my new owners to
create a women’s line called Completely Me by Liz Lange which is exclusive to
HSN and soon to launch on the shopping network in Canada. It’s a line of mix-and-match women’s
ready-to-wear based on some of the figure-flattering design principles I
learned from doing maternity clothing for so many years.
You’ve been
able to pursue other projects, as well. Can you tell me more?
I started a
women’s shopping e-newsletter with my sister called Shopafrolic.com. Everyday
we post a beauty, apparel or accessory item that we really love. We both say
what we like about the item or what we might wear it with. A photo of the item
takes you to the website where you can buy it. We try to keep the price points
reasonable. Anyone can show a beautiful Prada dress, but we’ll show what we
found at Forever 21 or Zara. There are also designer interviews and picks with
people like Tory Burch, Nina Garcia or Tommy Hilfiger. We’ve even featured Kim
Kardashian. We really do it for the love of shopping.
If you could
collaborate with any designer, who would it be?
It would either
be Michael Kors, Prada or Oscar De La Renta. I just worship their work so much.
With Michael Kors, I love his classic, All-American, Upper East Side style—that classic “lady who lunches”
look. His understanding of American sportswear is just so chic in my mind. I
love Oscar De La Renta’s use of heavy embroidery, embellishment and Latin
influence. I find it so sexy, beautiful and feminine. And Prada creates those
perfect minimalist pieces that you just need.
Tell me about
your two children.
I have a
12-year-old son, Gus, and a 10-year-old daughter, Alice. My daughter is an
aspiring fashion designer. She’s much more talented than I am! She’s very
creative and a very good artist. My son is into skateboarding and getting into
trouble! They have very high-spirited personalities.
How would you
describe yourself as a mom?
I think I’m very
loving and pretty easygoing. I’m not a helicopter mom. Maybe because I grew up
in the city, I’m comfortable with them going places by themselves as long as
they keep up with me on their phones. My mom was very strict with me, so I
think I’m kind of a pushover. Plus they’re great kids who I can trust. I’m very
close with them.
What is it
like raising your kids in New York City?
I grew up on the
Upper East Side, so it never crossed my mind to raise
them anywhere else. We do get away to our house on East Hampton in the summer, so I feel like we have
the best of both worlds. I’m a diehard New Yorker, born and bred.
How do you
balance the demands of your career with the responsibilities of being a mom?
I think that’s a
funny question. When I hear it, I imagine myself perfectly balanced on a beam
doing a pirouette, but that is not the reality of my life. It’s a juggle and
pieces are always falling. Sometimes I’m at the office and I feel like I should
be at home and vice versa. It never gets easier. I feel really lucky to have
great help in the office and great help at home, which makes all the difference
in the world. I don’t want to pretend I’m Superwoman. I couldn’t do it without
great help. I really look up to women who do it with fewer resources. I think
as women and moms, we’re all just doing our best.
What do you
see in the future for your business?
It’s so hard for
me to see the future, because if you had asked me ten years ago I wouldn’t have
said deals with Nike or Target. I think the great thing in this business is
that anything can happen. You never know what’s next. I’m really excited about
my continued work with Target, my line for HSN and growing the Shopafrolic e-newsletter
and website. I’m also in the initial phases of working on a book about being an
entrepreneur. I speak around the country to entrepreneurs, and I’m really
passionate about the subject.
What advice
would you give women who want to start their own businesses?
The most
important advice ever given to me is that you have to remember that until
someone does something new, no one ever thinks it’s a good idea. You really
need to learn to shut out the naysayers. There’s always negativity surrounding
any new idea. And as women, we can be so hard on ourselves. Don’t focus so much
on what you can and can’t do.
