How We Started Juicy Couture for $200 and Turned It into a Global Brand
May 1, 2014
With the assistance of Moore, the founders of Juicy Couture chronicle their real-life fairy tale in a "part memoir, part how-to-manual and part fashion industry field guide."Skaist-Levy and Nash-Taylor became friends in 1988 "while folding the guest towels that went on the sink in the bathroom" of the boutique where they worked. "We started gossiping and then got into deeper stuff. It was instant chemistry, like magnets, like we had been friends forever." They quickly discovered their shared love of fashion. Their first venture, started with $200, was in the niche market of maternity wear, which they discovered was stuck in a fashion time warp and "was a very specific targeted idea, which is the best way to start something." So they created cool maternity jeans and then moved on to T-shirts with the idea of perfecting the fit, fabric and color. The authors learned as they went along, constantly trying new ideas and products, failing on some but always building a work environment that was both enjoyable and financially viable. By the end of 1996, Juicy Couture had sales of $5 million. In 2003, Skaist-Levy and Nash-Taylor sold Juicy Couture to the Liz Claiborne corporation for "$56 million plus an eventual $200 million earnout" and began with a new line. The authors lace the fast-paced back story of the company with tips for the budding entrepreneur, including Learn From a Starter Business, Dos and Don'ts of Hands-On Branding, Competition Can Be Healthy, Build Your Staff Like a Family, Coping with Growth, the Problem You Want to Have ("If your infrastructure can handle it, spin out ideas for new products to meet demand"), and How to Prepare Your Business to Sell.A feel-good American success story recounted with candor, heart and attitude.
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