When Design Becomes Big Business

For many aspiring fashion designers their dream often includes, starting a small label and watching it flourish. But, how large do you really want your “small” business to become? Many prefer to keep their brands small, tight, and controllable, while others take the, “go big or go home” perspective. And of course, what constitutes a designer being labeled a success? Well, there really is no right answer for what success is in the fashion industry.

Perhaps this is the reason why the recent Marc Ecko news struck a cord with us. Ecko is a large presence in the Garment Center, owning clothing lines like Rocawear, Mossimo, and Joe Boxer. To some Ecko could be deemed more successful than an indie label sold only at local boutiques. At the same time, Ecko is a drop in the bucket compared to giant conglomerates like LVMH and Federated. Ecko sales are estimated to be at around 1.5 billion and has 750 employees in NYC alone. However, Marc began his business small, by selling just t-shirts in the 80’s, which then became the Ecko brand about a decade later. Certainly he followed the, “go big or go home” mentality.

While there is much discussion in the blogesphere regarding starting a fashion line and the struggles of small indie designers; there is little on what happens after. If a designer/entrepreneur like Marc Ecko makes it big, what’s next? Well, many successful growing companies end up going public, licensing out the majority of their product, or simply getting bought out. There are pros and cons to all these situations. For Ecko, lavish spending styles, management issues, and a poor economy have forced Marc to sell off a majority stake of his company. The Iconix Group has bought a 51% share in the Ecko brand taking control of the company while keeping Marc on as Chief Creative Officer.

So we had to wonder, would this be considered a failure on Marc’s part? We think not. Had he stayed small, just selling his Ecko logo t-shirts, that would have been a failure. Clearly he had more vision then that and brands like Rocawear would never have been developed. Bottom line, Marc Ecko has accomplished more then most designers and fashion entrepreneurs could dream. At 37 with 63 million in cash and 90 million in financing from Iconix, he could retire or start a whole new brand if he wanted. We think he agrees since he told the NY Post, “I’ve had a crazy, wild ride. I’ve done a lot of things that have been naive. I’ll take my lumps for a lot of things that, in retrospect, were a little indulgent. Life happens. I don’t regret any of it.”