Modern Fashion: Sarah Carson of Leota On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Get a coach. I’m really good at leading groups through strategy, figuring out what needs to be measured in order to be improved, zeroing in on the problems to be fixed. My view is that business is ⅓ vision, ⅓ execution, and ⅓ trouble shooting. Even though I am a strong coach and strategic facilitator, I always bring in someone else to lead me through it. Having an outside perspective help reduce group think and allows me to be doing the work rather than leading the work.
Many in the fashion industry have been making huge pivots in their business models. Many have turned away from the fast fashion trend. Many have been focusing on fashion that also makes a social impact. Many have turned to sustainable and ethical sourcing. Many have turned to hi tech manufacturing. Many have turned to subscription models. What are the other trends that we will see in the fashion industry? What does it take to lead a successful fashion brand today?
In our series called, “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today” we are talking to successful leaders of fashion brands who can talk about the Future of Fashion and the 5 things it takes to lead a successful fashion brand in our “new normal.”
As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Sarah Carson of Leota.
A former Wall Street investment banker, Sarah was on the hunt for the perfect dress that could do it all whether it was for work, going out, or travel all while ensuring comfort and quality. Unsatisfied by what the market had to offer, Sarah decided to make it herself. One perfect dress made on Sarah’s sewing machine turned into a multimillion-dollar brand sold in over 500 major retailers globally.
Sarah is a two-time Inc. 500 CEO and SmartCEO Future 50 award winner. She’s also been honored in Women2Watch in Retail Disruption and won Game Changer of the Year for two years straight.
Sarah believes in giving back to the community whether that’s through donating excess stock to women in need or serving as a Director on the board of the LGBT Center in New York. Her commitment to philanthropy, mentorship to emerging entrepreneurs, and mission-driven philosophy are changing the game. Just like her first dress. ‘
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
I grew up in a tiny town in southwest Michigan drinking well water where my dad was the only doctor. My little sister and I learned quickly how to be socially acceptable because we had to represent the family appropriately. My dad had delivered every baby and cared for everyone’s elderly relatives so everyone knew us. This was the 80’s so we wore a lot of matching Laura Ashley outfits, puffy paint sweatshirts, and itchy wool next to the skin. My curls got brushed out into a frizzy lampshade shape and my sister had a blonde bowl cut. My mom was a community organizer, always mobilizing the town for a project. She campaigned for a School Board seat and was active with Planned Parenthood. I saw the backlash she received as an uppity woman but that never stopped her. In spite of my parent’s ambition for me and sharp intelligence, my life dream as a child was to go to Stanford, become a check out lady at a store, and have a Ken Doll husband.
My family moved to California when I was a tween, and my mom signed me up for kung fu lessons after I saw a demonstration at the Fourth of July parade. For the first time in my life, I felt strong and competent in my body. It was an amazing feeling. I became obsessed with kung fu and was willing to do anything to succeed. I realized quickly that symbols of femininity were not going to get me any respect in the ring or on the mat. There was no way I was going to let being a girl stand in the way of dominating this sport I’d come to love so much. I shaved my head, wore my groin cup on the outside, and showed everyone how serious I was by behaving and appearing as traditionally masculine as possible. Over my martial arts career, I hid every aspect of my femininity to gain respect. It worked. I ended up a national and international Kung fu champion many times over.
I came out when I was in college at Brown University. It became clear at that point that my life was going to be different. There was not going to be a Ken Doll husband, for one thing. I’ve always been out in my personal life since I was 19 but not professionally. We all know how women need to obscure our personal lives in business because it could be held against us professionally. I’m not sure how much of my code switching was sexism and how much of it was homophobia, but fear of both kept me compartmentalizing.
I found my covering to be exhausting and it made me angry after a while. It struck me as quite unfair that some people got to show up and be themselves and some of us had to leave a part of ourselves at the door. This inspired me as an entrepreneur. What if there were a workplace where you could truly be yourself and not have to worry about your intersectionality being an issue? I decided to create that environment myself and made inclusivity a cornerstone of our workplace culture at Leota.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
I had never worked in the fashion industry before, but I had a good idea for a brand. I was 30 years old, cooped up in my tailored work clothes at my investment banking job. Fashion was moving toward more casual dressing, and it made me think: What if there was a fashion option that felt as comfy as yoga pants or jeans and a tee-shirt, but was actually appropriate for women’s lifestyles today? I looked all around for this elusive garment, but I couldn’t find the perfect thing anywhere. So I made it myself. I received a lot of interest in the clothes I was making on my home sewing machine, and eventually I decided to go for it. I quit my Wall Street job and started a fashion brand. I named it Leota, after my great grandmother.
Leota struck a nerve with women (women who control 73% of U.S. consumer spending). They love the effortless style and embrace the move away from the traditional power suit (inspired by men’s fashion) toward something completely our own: comfortable, vibrant clothes that are feminine, fearless and unapologetic. Gorgeous and practical. This was my idea of power dressing.
My business achieved astronomical growth — Leota was named on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies in America two years in a row. We were in the top 10 fastest growing companies run by women. At one point we had a 1228% three-year growth rate with zero outside funding. I invested around $10,000 of my own savings in 2011 and grew the business to the point where we just shipped our 1.5 millionth dress. My company became a global force in fashion on a literal shoestring.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My original career plan was to become an attorney. I went through the recruiting process at a few firms and got a job at one of the most prestigious corporate law firms in NYC right out of college and was set to do a couple years as a paralegal before law school. I was thrilled! After graduation and a couple days before my training began, I was chatting logistics with my HR onboarding rep and asked her if she knew how many of their partners were women and/or people of color. I was just curious because diversity was important to me. HR said they didn’t have any idea what the demographics of their leadership was, but they’d see if they could find out. The next day I received their answer via email. Their response? They rescinded my job offer. I think I was so stunned that I changed course completely. I ended up getting an internship at a digital agency and then taught myself investment banking because I couldn’t afford my rent. I am decisive and strategic, but still, some random events shaped my direction.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Compulsively forward moving. I am compulsively forward moving, meaning that regardless of what impossible-seeming obstruction occurs, I keep the rhythm of doing the work. I ask myself what is the logical next step, and do that. Big things get built out of lots of small decisions and actions, and I keep it moving no matter what. That didn’t work? Ok, try the next thing and the next thing. Just because I’ve never done something doesn’t mean I can’t figure it out (examples: navigating the PPP and SBA situation, China shutting down in Feb 2020 with all my product half done, suppliers stealing my designs and trying to work directly with customers). I attribute some of my success to being relentless. And impatient.
- Comfort with chaos. Behind the scenes, growth is messy. I call it the “scrappiness olympics”. There’s no manual for how to start a business from scratch, so I had to find creative ways of getting information. I followed delivery guys around the garment center and hopped in freight elevators with them to find my fabric suppliers. I found sales reps on other brands’ websites and went door to door in the showroom buildings. I got a lot of no’s. Mostly “no’s.” That’s why entrepreneurship requires nerves of steel. I learned to take action quickly and move on quickly, and there’s definitely no time for hurt feelings. I was always in a rush during my years of fastest growth. I hustled everywhere and never did one thing at a time. You could find me literally jogging down 8th avenue in my uniform of colorful flats, patterned dress and red lipstick, with an 80-pound roll of fabric hoisted over one shoulder, a heavy sack of samples on the other, while inhaling a slice of dollar pizza from the corner joint and talking on my cell phone to my sales rep. I’d think my day was over, then there would be a blizzard and the freight elevator would break and suddenly we’re running pallets down 15 flights of stairs to make our first Nordstrom delivery. This is the reality of fast growth. It was thrilling to be building something from scratch, and without the sense of urgency, there’s no way I would have been able to compete in wholesale and e-commerce with my larger and better funded competitors. Fast fashion would have eaten me alive. You have to be pretty hardcore to build a fashion business during the decade that Amazon was eating everyone’s lunch, and every other headline was about the latest retail apocalypse.
- Willing to have the hard conversations. I have challenging conversations all the time but there is no way around it. I have to say no all the time, tell designers that their color ideas aren’t sellable, kill projects that people like, nudge teams to hedge against future risks even though things seem fine right now, explore why this or that metric isn’t being met, and negotiating, negotiating, negotiating. All the bad news usually goes with the leader’s job. This is very uncomfortable. When an organization is going great, only the worst news gets funneled up because the rest is being handled. This is the beauty of replacing yourself in the organization. My view is, there is always a way, and unfortunately for those work with me, I’m usually right.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Leota delivers amazing dresses that are beautiful, trend right, crafted with care and intention and with an unrelenting focus on comfort. Those that know us love us for our buzz-worthy prints and comfortable designs that are inclusively sized, figure-flattering with the added benefit of being wrinkle-resistant and fast-drying. Beyond that Leota stands out as a brand with our commitment to eco-minded practices and inclusivity whether that’s through the clothes we create or in the workplace.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?
“i don’t pay attention to the
world ending.
it has ended for me
many times
and began again in the morning.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt
To me, this poem is a meditation on how to handle crisis, which I have gotten very good at. Your body can only take so much crisis physically, because the panic has an effect on your body chemistry. I obsessively prepare for crisis, and try to recognise it as early as possible, and then just do my part. The pandemic showed me that some things are out of my control and that was hard for me to accept. I’m a former professional athlete so I grew up on a steady diet of limitless self-talk. In my mind, everything was within my reach as long as I put more perfect practice into it than anyone else. If anything didn’t work out, literally anything at all, it was my fault no matter what. The pandemic was humbling. During Leota’s early years, I became a scholar of entrepreneurship. I consumed start up and operations books like they were my last meal. I drank the kool-aid of those mantras such as “work on your business not in your business.” “Hire slow, fire fast.” A solution for every fool, as the Indigo Girls song goes. When the pandemic shut the world down, no amount of “1-page business plans” or Myers-Briggs optimizations were going to reopen the supply chain or stop the spread of a lethal disease that killed over a million people in the US alone. All the strategy in the world, all the hard work and effort in the universe would not reopen things. I accepted that I could only do my part, and the rest is out of my control.
Do you see any fascinating developments emerging over the next few years in the fashion industry that you are excited about? Can you tell us about that?
Mission driven brands continue to be the ones that can compete with the big girls. Independent brands continue to struggle though, because the fixed costs of doing business are burdensome, and founders burn out. That’s why I’m creating a conglomerate of mission-driven wellness centric brands that can benefit from economies of scale and world class shared services, and the unique point of view of the brand can reach more people.
Can you share how your brand is helping to bring goodness to the world?
Fashion’s feminism-lite, toxic positivity has resulted in vapid calls for self-confidence, while pushing the same dangerous beauty standards limited to the young, thin, straight, light skinned, and surgically enhanced. Leota makes fashion for all, with a radically inclusive message. I want to bust open the definition of beauty and welcome everyone to the party. I want anyone to be able to put on Leota and feel like a million. Leota is for all — I mean men, women, non-binary, trans, everyone. Fashion is about self-expression and I want to be a part of the freedom that comes from dressing up as yourself. My contribution to fashion and culture is coming from a diverse team of creators.
Fast fashion has an advantage, that it is affordable for most people, but it also has the drawback that it does not last very long and is therefore not very sustainable. What are your thoughts about this? How does your company address this question?
Ethical business, meaning adhering to a strong set of core values that we establish early on, is foundational. I went into the fashion industry to change it. In an industry — and economy — that is chronically discriminatory and wasteful, doing the right thing isn’t just innovative — it’s disruptive.
Let’s be honest: Our industry has a reputation for being kind of icky. Underneath the shiny, contoured veneer, it’s still largely run by dudes obsessed with women being young and thin and is perfectly content with questionable production processes.
With ever-tightening profit margins and constant supply chain drama, running our companies ethically is a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity that pays off in brand loyalty. Our customers want us to keep ethics front and center in everything we do. Leota customers pay attention to the details. They want fabrics that are tough, durable, easy to take care of, AND still feel great on. We’ve developed our own stretch knit fabrics that are machine washable because it’s what our customers want. It eliminates the expense of dry cleaning and the toxic, polluting chemicals of dry cleaning.
Leota fabrics are comfortable and breathable, but they also last longer, which means less waste, smaller carbon footprint. Low price, high-volume Fast Fashion falls apart after an average of 5 wears and gets tossed after about 35 days. Leota garments are worn an average of 300 times. Our silhouettes are timeless and figure flattering so our gals keep them for years.
Some say fashion is the second most polluting industry, after oil and gas. A big part of that is the less-than-ethical production practices, but it’s also what we do with our product after the season ends. Most brands destroy excess merch…incinerating it, dismembering it and putting it in landfills. Google it, it’s shocking to me. This waste and pollution is just the tip of the iceberg.
That’s why Leota made a decision early on to never trash a dress. We donate all our excess inventory. In 2021, we donated 2,000 dresses to women re-entering the workforce, escaping domestic violence, and living with HIV/AIDS. We worked with breast cancer survivors to tell their stories and raise money for life saving research in women’s health through the American Cancer Society, and donated to the LGBT Community Center in NYC where I am a board member. It’s the right thing to do, and frankly it’s what our customers expect from a socially responsible company.
One more thing about the trend toward ethical operations. It’s not just about what we make and how we make it. It’s about how we treat our employees. Leota is a diverse meritocracy that is absolutely, 200% dedicated to a workplace free of harassment and discrimination. And in the wake of the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, it is — and should be — expected of all workplaces. Safe self-expression matters. Representation matters.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand”. Please share a story or example for each.
- Focus on your core. What exactly are you selling and how is it differentiated? Stick to that in order to avoid having a product that doesn’t have a reason to exist, and a team that is spread too thin. Feel free to say “no thanks” to opportunities and ideas that are a distraction. My business makes one thing really really well. Just one thing. I wasn’t trying to be everything to everybody. I make wash and wear comfortable clothes that are unapologetically body positive and come in all sizes. That’s it! No one else does this exclusively. Maybe other brands have a random comfortable item or try plus sizes once as a fad (which is offensive). We stand for those things, are authentic about it, and are fiercely committed to empowering our customers with convenience, comfort, and body positivity. They reward us with their loyalty. When I did expand my products, I did so thoughtfully — for example selling separates in the same fabrics. In this way, I expanded the customers I could sell to while increasing the products I could sell to my existing customers, and the new products could go through the exact same manufacturing process and be sold through the same channels. This is part of how we grew so fast without breaking.
- Hire for your weaknesses. I’ve made tons of hiring mistakes but the one thing I did right was hire for my weaknesses. I am honest about my knowledge and experience gaps and hired people specifically for those things at first. I’m willing to be wrong. There was no way I could know everything, so I need to have a direct and immediate connection to people that fill in my gaps. Since I am self-taught in fashion, my first hire was a classically trained designer who also knew manufacturing. I purposely hire people who are different from me and people who will disagree with me. Not people to make me feel special. If I want to feel good about myself, I’ll call my mom and she’ll tell me how awesome I am. In many cases my vendors and customers became my best teachers: I let them teach me the business. I’m proud that Leota to this day is a 100% women, LGBTQ+, and minority owned and operated company.
- Manage financial strain and personal risk. “Growth” is essentially another word for “financial crisis.” The lumpiness of the cash cycle and the personal risk are things I never got used to. Fashion has a particularly challenging cash cycle, wherein we design, develop, and produce garments (cash out the door) 6–12 months in advance of when we can actually sell them (cash in the door). We have humongous working capital requirements because we need to pay for next year’s growth on this year’s receivables. Forget about getting a deposit from retailers. Underfunded businesses have to be ruthless in how they spend money. At Leota, this discipline has made us highly efficient and more profitable — I never had the luxury of making tons of financial mistakes. I didn’t spend money on PR or runway shows, I only spent money on sales. I learned exactly how to spend money to make money. They call that “capital efficiency,” but women and minority owned businesses are often having to do more with less, since we have access to a tiny fraction of the bank and investor funding. One season I received a gigantic order for Spring dresses from a retailer I’d been chasing for a while (one of the no’s I turned to yeses) and I was over the moon with excitement. It felt like my idea was being validated and made all my hard work feel worthwhile. Amazing, right? Then I realized this huge purchase order came with a new problem that took the fun out of it. In order to make these dresses I needed help beyond my vendors floating me for 30 days. My factories came to me saying, look, we need to pay our workers. I felt horribly guilty for putting my vendors in this position, but they actually understood. They told me that’s the way it is for everyone. It wasn’t personal. It was financial. I cashed in some of the goodwill I’d built with these partners and they and my banks floated me for a couple months. Not everyone believed in me. Most people underestimated me and thought my vision wasn’t going to happen. But I didn’t need everyone. I needed a couple of people to want to be a part of the massive growth trajectory, and decide to take a chance on me. Now we’ve done over $100M at retail, so I guess I was right.
- You need endurance and intensity. Leading a company through a 1228% growth rate was very intense and required a lot of personal sacrifice. Growing that fast meant that I had to learn to embrace the unknown, and that is scary. Of course, I do my best to analyze every decision and set my team up for success, but ultimately, I have to just go for it and hope for the best. That big order went through just fine and the retailer became a consistent and reliable customer. But I learned the hard way that there is so much out of my control — things that could kill my business. I can never be 100% sure of anything, no matter how much I prepare. I once had a senior employee fail to submit invoices that the company owed to suppliers even though we had a process for doing so. I started getting calls from my factories asking for money, and that’s when I found out that over a quarter million dollars of bills were past due that I didn’t even know about. Of course, we didn’t have the money. When something gets screwed up (which it inevitably does because startups are a shit show no matter how organized and well-funded you are), there is no time to be upset. I learned to recognize the crisis, act swiftly and move on. Entrepreneurship requires endurance. The press loves stories of people whose businesses skyrocket after working on it part time for 5 minutes. They look all perky and well-rested. The fact is, being an entrepreneur takes endurance. You have to be in it for the long term. I studied martial arts, so I’m the queen of getting up after being knocked down. It’s all about using failure to begin again more intelligently. I think balance is overrated. To strive for balance is to strive for mediocrity. Strive for something that matters. Balance itself is not really meaningful. We’re not going to win this game doing Yoga all day. The way I’m going to win is by working the hardest and the smartest in my chosen field. I didn’t stay in business during the age of Amazon by following the “4-hour work week” myth. My biggest challenge professionally has been within myself, finding the courage to continue no matter what. Sure, I’ve faced obstacles like sexism and cash cliffs and having my designs knocked off just like everyone else. Next! I’ve come to think those external challenges are inevitable. All I can control is how I bring it every day. Make no mistake, growth is hard. This has been the ultimate test of my drive. But it’s the best job ever.
- Get a coach. I’m really good at leading groups through strategy, figuring out what needs to be measured in order to be improved, zeroing in on the problems to be fixed. My view is that business is ⅓ vision, ⅓ execution, and ⅓ trouble shooting. Even though I am a strong coach and strategic facilitator, I always bring in someone else to lead me through it. Having an outside perspective help reduce group think and allows me to be doing the work rather than leading the work.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
In general, focusing on the helping the most vulnerable people makes the most difference. Right now that is focusing on the safety and rights of transgender people.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Follow me @sarahcarson_leota and @leotanewyork
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Modern Fashion: Sarah Carson of Leota On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.