Join us at Glossy's Beauty and Wellness Summit from November 11th through 13th in Napa, California. Influential Beauty and Wellness leaders will meet to discuss strategies and pain points, discover innovative tech, and ultimately make valuable business connections through one-on-ones and casual networking. For a limited time, we're offering $200 off with promo code GBS24NoSpaces. Again, that's GBS24 with No Spaces. Go to glossy.co/beautysummit for more information and to secure your past today. Thanks for tuning in to this New York Fashion Week edition of the glossy podcast. I'm your host Jill Manoff, and today I sit down with Christian Joel Nielsen, the founder and designer of Akhenvaz, which launched in 2019. You likely know Akhenvaz, it sells at Saks, Neiman, and Forward, among other luxury retailers, as has been worn also by it girls, including Sabrina Carpenter and J.Lo. And you should know Christian. He worked under Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, Raspimins, and at brands, including Oscar de la Renta, Jay Mendel, or Valerge. The list goes on. So in 2023, Christian left Herveilge to exclusively focus on Akhenvaz, which has become a New York Fashion Week staple. On Monday, Akhenvaz will host a runway show featuring its spring 2025 collection. So I wanted to ask Christian how he approaches fashion differently now, now that he's only reporting to himself. And I also want to ask about the business of a Fashion Week show, including the sponsors and selling opportunities often required to make a go of it. Welcome, Christian. How are you? Hi, thank you. I'm very good. How are you? That was a mouthful. I mean, there's a lot to say about you. I'm great. How are you? Are you excited? Are you like how many days before the show now? We are at Wednesday. We've got... Is it Wednesday? I think it's Wednesday. We've got a good couple of days. Are you ready? How are you feeling? I feel pretty ready. I mean, I try it before fashion week to reach out to people. I trust and like being around. And I try to surround myself with these people. And that way I get a nice smooth intro into Fashion Week. Yes. What does it mean to find people that you trust? You know, they're hard working. You know, they're positive. Like, what are you looking for in these people? Well, one of my assistants that comes in to help me, a creative assistant, I've worked with him since I was at Dior. And back in the days, he was my intern, actually. And he used to make the most beautiful flowers for me for runway pieces. And he still comes in whenever he can't find time in his schedule and my schedule and we create things together. I love that. Well, before we get too deep, well, I want to go a little bit broad. And you have this wealth of experience across brands, largely high fashion brands. What learnings are you bringing into your own brand for those who don't know it? And how has that really informed your approach, all that experience? Well, the first thing I feel I've really learned is that there's a big difference between working in America and in Europe. That was when I moved out of Europe, I was very thinking in my European way that everything is about buzz and press and the more glam part of it. But what I've really learned in America is also, I mean, if I'm referring to Akhenwas in particular, is that I want this to be a real business that works. And in order to do that, I focus a lot on like, who are the girls I want to address? Like, who do I see as my client? Where do I see this brand represented? Like, what is the brand about? And not just about some... I don't want to say random buzz because I love random buzz too. But like, I think since I've started up, what I've really learned in my experience is you have to figure out what is your brand about and what is it you're trying to do. And who is it you're trying to sell to? Yes, who is your girl or guy? It's funny because in the beginning, I envisioned her older actually, but what the feedback I mainly guess is that we definitely have a younger girl. We, as you mentioned, work with forward. We also work now with Revolve, which is both very young platforms. I think our girl is, I usually say it's a girl who earns her own money. Just because I like the idea of a girl being independent and making her own decisions. And sort of, I spent a lot of time on making very good quality within my price point. And I think when you pay for your own clothes, you pay more attention to the details and you want to know, well, what is it I'm buying? Why am I getting this and why is it this price point? Yes, absolutely, as someone who buys her own clothes. But do you oversee the business side as well as the creative side? Or do you have you got a business partner that you're working with? It's actually myself. Oh, my gosh. Well, I was wondering, this is not a small operation. All of the retailers that I mentioned, did you have, again, you have that amazing design experience, but did you have the same type of experience on the business side of things? I'm sure you had your hands in a lot of things along the way. In Paris, I was only creative. In Paris, I was only designer. And my job was a lot of the time, especially in my Galiano days, it was like draping, always like make it more. Then he would leave it with me and I would like add flowers or pleated little roughly things or tie dye or what have we. And with Raf, I was more sketching and researching was more what I was doing. So it was more in the like flats and in the like concept. And then the business side, to be honest, I was part of starting up a brand out in LA. And I saw the business part because they were just starting up. And then I started interacting with other people who were starting their own businesses and just learning about it. And then I started getting really involved with all my sales appointments, I think is such a big part of the business part because you got to know like what is working for you, what is selling. I mean, I get my weekly sales reports and I interact very like a lot with all my wholesale partners. Is it majority of your sales are through those channels wholesale? Are you also building up your own e-commerce and all of that? We have actually, I just updated my e-com yesterday. So you'll see it's looking very pretty. Yeah, I do and I'm involved with, yeah, we just updated fall is fully up on the website. We're still adding some more pictures, but all pieces are now on the website. So that I mean, when I said doing myself, I don't do everything manually myself. Like I work with a photographer and I work with a great model coming in for the shoot. And then different people help me where they can. Then I have somebody who helps me in the production of the collection and I have somebody on sales. But in terms of strategy and all that, I do it myself. Oh my gosh. Talk to me about the size of the business and like, is this ideal for you? You've been at these large conglomerates and you've seen it all and right now it seems like you have amazing, an amazing handle on your business like you control over, over what happens and how it's portrayed. Do you want to kind of grow it from here? Like what are the goals and how are you feeling about like investors or what may be needed to take it to another level, if at all? So the way I've filled it up is actually that the brand is now supporting itself. I started up with the personal savings and now we're at a stage where the brand is running. So I have within the big partners I work with, the only one you didn't mention was a shop up. Yes. That's also being like a really important like they've been great as well. So I have great wholesale partners now and our website is definitely a business as well. Plus we do some custom things. I just did a bride. It just came out yesterday actually. It's in Vogue. Yeah, I do write sort of my little couture projects, which I love doing. But for our customers, we plan it out how fast do we want things to grow because you can't grow without marketing. I mean, you can to a certain extent. So where we at right now, it's stable. I think I would take on business partner for sure in terms of you're referring to an investor, right? Yes, correct. I would definitely take on an investor if it's a right investor. I would love to take an investor who either wants to let me do it completely myself or who somebody who has experience and actually knows the industry. So it's something I'm very open to, but my business is not struggling. Yeah. So like I can run it, but as you know, I mean America has a big country. There's a lot of people to reach out to with various ways of marketing and that's, you know, at the end of it, it's dollars. So an investor would be very welcoming this on top of the marketing. We do ourselves. Yes. And a big part of that is fashion week. Like it's fashion week. You're super bowl. You do it twice a year. Do you do it more than more fashion shows than I know? I think twice a year. But yeah, tell me about the importance of fashion week to the business. I actually was advised not to do shows. Everyone said to me like it's too early. You do this. You shouldn't start this yet. It's so much stress and it is. But I have to say, I like this way of, first of all, we only do two shows, yes. And I like this way of like a couple of times per year to really show the world. This is where we are. This is what I can must look like. This is the energy that we are sending out now. Of course, lots of things are not going on the runway that are maybe more commercial and easier to wear. Like, for example, this spring show is going to be a very, let's say, sexy. Flirty summer collection. I'm sure we'll get into that later. There's going to be a lot more wearable pieces in the show room for buyers as well. But yeah, I love having the show. I think it's a great way to show this is what we're doing and this is what we had. Yes, for sure. So that's a big moment. Also, and it's another big moment when the Sabrina carpenters of the world like wear your clothes. Does that do anything for business? Or it's just, again, it creates a little buzz. It really varies. I mean, I think it definitely does something and it puts a certain prestige to the brand. Because not only is she wearing it, but it also means that her stylist likes the brand and wants to pull it. You know, and I respect the stylist so much because it's not easy to find clothes from random photos and showrooms and make it fit perfectly to all these artists. So I would say whether or not it creates direct dollars, I think it's part of like growing and part of like having a buzz and being someone in the industry. Are you a brand in the fashion or luxury industry? The glossy fashion and luxury awards provide the opportunity to recognize your company's work with categories including sustainable brand of the year, best collaboration, best experiential marketing activation and more. Don't miss the chance to be recognized alongside past winners from good American skims and Gucci. Learn more and start your entry at glossy.co/awards/fashion. Tell me about Spring 2025. It's flurdier, it's sexier, it's more maybe wearable than prior collections, or how would you describe the approach and what feels fresh to you. All right, let me talk you through it. And there's also a little surprise to this season that I'm going to tell you about. Okay. Okay, so usually with my shows and my collections in general, because we do four collections a year. I usually have some kind of reference that goes back to Denmark or something about Denmark where I'm from and where I grew up. So this season, the collection is about, I call it urban scout. It's not necessarily the final title, but I have like a couple of titles that I'm working around. It's about, in my childhood, we would go to summer camps like boy scouts and girl scouts and there's something a little bit uniform about it. So you'll see little pieces like this with like little bandanas around the neck. Oh, cute. He's holding up a denim jacket that has like a utility flare. Nice. And everything is style. So it feels very arcing by. So instead of boy short, she's got little hot pants on that has a cute little ruffle going around the the hips. Oh my God. You said hot pants. I love me a hot pant. I do. That is so cute. So you'll have a few of these almost like uniform looks coming in in denim like one after the other. Then we move into the vegan leather section, which is the same. Well, again, to give it flirty and fun, we've done this little kind of look. They're like bloomer hot pants. So have you done leather for spring before vegan leather? It's vegan leather. Yeah. So yeah, we've done that. I use it a lot. Actually, I like it a lot. This one looks really. So good. It's very authentic. Yeah, it really does. It really does. So did you invite some maybe celebs, maybe influencers who will be wearing some of these little pants to your show? No, they'll be watching it. Yes. Next season they can wear. No one's wearing it front row. No, I like that. Like people can wear it the season like when it now is a surprise. And now they're going to be wearing a fall. Yes. Hopefully. So yeah, anyway, then the idea is that like boy scouts and girl scouts are going on camp and it's summer. And then it's some sort of the summer nights where we move into the second part of the collection, which is called monochromatic florals. Okay. Which have all these, like, sort of very arcing must colors. Keep pure, which is like 3D lace. Is this a dress? It's a gown. Yeah. Like a high note gown. Ooh, the drama. With a halter neck. Yeah. I like to put a little drama into the show. I mean, of course. As you should. You'll see this walked. This will walk down the runway. So this is kind of like a crochet. Is it like a lace? Like a... It's a lace. Yeah. I mean, in French, we call it gipeur. Yeah. When it's like lace, it has lace, appliques, 3D on top of it. Is this closing the show? It's really dramatic. So this is like a head to toe, like a gown. I like to put this in the middle. Okay. So this, you have to envision more that it's like during the night and the kids are playing around and like they're in the flower fields. And you'll see little bits of flowers coming out of the little details like this will be coming out of the waistbands. And necklines. So you're sort of thinking Danish summer, running into the forest, running into the field, catching some flowers. This is a dream. And then at the end of it, you know, when it's sort of the end of the night, you end up in some kind of euphoria. Where things start sparkling, the stars are shining still a little. Okay. There's a lot of... And you have these little outfits. Silver. Is it sequins? Glitter. Yeah. Oh my God. It's like you can wear this for your night on the town or you can wear this for... I don't know. I needed some performance to wear this on a stage. You could be Sabrina Carpenter. Yes. Oh my God. So good. So you'll have a lot of these. And then moving into like when you get really flirty, like some super light slip dresses with open backs. Oh my God. Oh, but with just like a light little flower attached to that. Is that long? That looks like a good skew bridal for sure. It's short. Okay. So cute. For the bridal, for the... What do you call it? Rehearsal dinner. Except sexy. It could be. Yes. Or at the end of the wedding at night. Yes. Yes. And then to accommodate the whole show we have now, the surprise I'm referring to is that we are now launching middle handbags. I was going to ask about accessories. Now, accessories, this is a debut. First time. Yes? Yes. A hundred percent. Oh, good for you. Okay. Is your audience demanding it? Tell me about what inspired this or what queued this. Well, first of all, I think where the brand is at right now, it's time to add accessories. I mean, we've built the sort of the platforms and the knowledge of the brand. Yes. And now I think it's time to add accessories. I mean, it's a lot of work and it's sort of a whole different thing to start on. So I thought it could be. I was like, what kind of back do I want, but do I want it to be? I mean, first of all, I love the idea of this almost being like the boy scout carrying this. Yes. A girl scout with all their little like practical things in it. Yes. But on the other hand, like I think when I see girls when I'm out, it's like these little purses get thrown into the sofa and like swinging around and like they have a tough life. They need to be stable and then need to like be, you know, a decent quality or good quality. So we've made them like this with a little, you know, this little credit card. Oh, it's got little compartment and little pocket for the lipstick. Oh my gosh. Perfect. Or a gloss. If you're a gloss girl. You know, we're very open minded here at the house of Arkansas. But it's perfect. You're right. That little almost like canteen kind of an inspo, but it's like almost like a little, I don't know, cosmetic trunk case or whatever we call it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a vanity bag. Vanity bag. It's so cute. And I'm. That's a mole, but I see it more as a girl scout bag. Yes. Is that the name of it? Because that would be really be amazing. The girl scout bag. I'm still very close to finalizing the name. I need to finalize it before Sunday and I have a few ideas. Tell me about the pricing strategy because we hear a lot like people will invest in a bag ready to wear as maybe like less off like you're wearing it more often. Maybe it's less of an investment. Like how did you think about pricing that we're hearing like bag prices are going through the roof. Like how in what way is it complimentary to your ready to wear line in terms of the pricing or not TBD. I wanted the bag to fit to the collection. So my number one focus was, again as I mentioned earlier, who's the arching bus girl. How does she dress? What kind of bag would she like? So she's running around in this little crop shirt with a deconstructed miniskirt. Oh my gosh. She's going to look great with a little pastel colored bag with it. You're not kidding. I see the whole load. Yes. So everything is thought together and looks to start with. With where I'm at right now, I can't just go in and say to my factory, this is the bag. This is the price point. This is where I want it to be. Ideally, I don't want this to be a mega expensive bag, but I'm still figuring out pricing a little bit to be honest. Yeah. It's early. Ideally. Yeah, definitely. It needs to be defined in the next couple of days actually. But it's definitely in the, it needs to be under 1000. Okay, that's a good price. For again, a girl who buys her own clothes. I like that. And do you think that your, all of your retail partners, like they buy into the collection? They'll probably buy into the bag. Like is it a question mark at this point? They want to see it first. And to be honest, I haven't sent out images of the bag in advance. I wanted, they've all been invited to the show. I always have my buyer at the show because I want them to see the energy of everything. Before we meet them at the showroom and the bags will be walking the runway. And I think they will see that the whole thing works together. And I'm envisioning that they will support it and want to have that as part of the selection. For sure. Tell me a little bit more about this show. You were advised to not do a show. You've been doing it now for several seasons. You're doing bags now. So there's an evolution. You're not yet doing shoes because I saw that Stuart Weitzman is maybe doing the shoes. Oh, they're really good. They're really good. Yes, I can see the whole log. So he's holding up some kind of riding boots. Are they black, leather, maybe vegan? Yeah, above the knee. So these are from Stuart Weitzman that we've worked around. We have a few different styles. I just wanted to show you these are above the knee. And they'll have little tights coming out like socks coming up to here. Sort of up on the knee. But I like when the clothes is so light and feminine. I like the sort of juxtaposition and the contrast of like big chunky boots. It gives me festival. It gives me summer. It gives me like run away from everything and have fun. And then so we're working with Stuart Weitzman on the girls. And then we're working with a brand called Kenner, which is sort of, I call it Boy Scout sandals. Yes, almost like a fisherman sandal. Cute. In my world, it's a Boy Scout sandal. So we're getting these also in black and we're getting a couple of different colors, but just little sandals so that it feels authentic. Fantastic. Well, I was going to ask if Stuart Weitzman is like, there are a couple of sponsors in the show and like talking to brands and kind of like, really, that's key to making no go of it and making it affordable, where these things can be upward of $100,000. But like you're showing at Hudson Yards, I don't know if that's like a partner. You've got a cannabis company on board or a cannabis store. Yeah, tell me about kind of the business of it all. Like, is it like these people are complimentary to what you're doing anyway? And they're coming on as a partner because they want alignment with fashion or tell me about how it all works. I think it's various, various reasons. I've done collaborations with Stuart Weitzman on all my shows actually. Oh, wow. I have a really good relationship with them and we find different ways to sort of support each other and they help me with the shoes that we then, this season we worked from somewhat some existing things. We add little details, we add height to them, things like this. And that's excellent because their studios are literally next door to whether the show is going to be in Hudson Yards. Oh, perfect. So they have been a great partner. And then this season I spoke to Kenna, which is a Brazilian shoe company, very cool sort of sporty. It's giving me very scout everything, which I like a lot. So I thought they were a perfect partner. And then for the travel agency, which is a cannabis store, I met them at an event and they wanted to, the things a lot of these cannabis brands, they're very fashionable in their packaging and the labeling now that it's all, especially with the part of it that's legal, right? Yeah. It's very beautiful and beautiful packaging and they wanted to expose that in a fashionable settings. So that's what we decided to do. So fun. I also know having been, I'm on all the PR lists that you're doing a fun event at the fourth season. Or like, there's a, there's a way to buy into the brand. I think it's like a pop up, a pop up at the fourth season. Have you done that kind of an adjacent selling opportunity around Fashion Week? I think that's really smart. Yeah. I mean, I've worked on different things with the four seasons as well. And they suggested that we're going to basically take over the lobby and we're going to have 12 mannequins with some of the ball gowns I've done in shows. Throughout the seasons and some, some recent stuff, some, some older stuff, more like sort of the vibe of the brand. And then the collection is available up in the spa at the four seasons downtown. Nice. Yes, please. You're mentioning, you're referencing the scout, the boy scout, the girl scout. Like, where do you get your inspo for the season? Like, do you, is it so old school to think like you're going on an inspiration trip? It just comes to you. No, no, I go on trips. I try to travel a lot. And whenever I do a trip, I always think, how can I use this trip as inspiration? Yeah. Last month, that was in Formantera in Spain. And that's most likely going to be the inspiration for my pre fall collection. And I spend a lot of time in Denmark. And I have a lot of nieces of nephews that are now going on boy scout on summer camps as boy scout or girl scouts. They are learning all these things now. And I just thought it was cute to hear their stories and see what they do. And yeah, I would say that's where I get inspiration, definitely. And then as I said, I always have some kind of theme, but I do really work the collection around. What do I find relevant right now? Like, what do I think a cool girl is wearing right now? How does she look like what if a girl is walking down the street in New York City? What is she wearing? If she's going to an event, like if she's coming to the fourth season event, what's she going to wear? What are her options? You know, I try to think a lot, like also, you know, out in the hantons, what are the girls wearing in the hantons? You know, these sort of things. I just got a little birdie just went to the, I know, just went to a hantons and came back and said, "Everyone looks like Haley Bieber." That's not bad. They've got the look. They've got the look. Anyway, I mean, I could see Haley wearing some of your looks. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Well, tell me this whole show, we go through it, you make it through. What would make it successful in your eyes? Like, the people come out, your bags are creating a buzz. What do you want to get out of this? I definitely want to create a buzz and an awareness around the brand so people know what the brand is about and what it is we do. That's why I do a show. It's definitely for PR, let's say. But I would definitely hope to potentially get new wholesale partners. We also, we have certain wholesale, well, we don't have certain wholesale partners that we've said no to, that we don't feel right for the brand. But as you go and as you grow, you need to always see, like, who would be the right next step to move into. And as these people get invited and hear about the show, that's a good way for them to potentially buy into the brand. And also just to inspire everybody that sees the brand from, like, buyers to press and editors just for everyone to get excited about the brand. For sure. For a retailer to be a good fit, is it about their, like, alignment with the other brands they carry or maybe they offer some services, like international shipping and all the things? Yeah, all of that. I think it's a lot about how do they present you, if it's an online store, how do they photograph things? Like, what does it look like? Who, how are we photographed? Who are we next to on the website? How are we presented in the newsletter? All these things are really important. Just think of it yourself when you receive emails from retailers. Like, you look at it and you get a certain impression. There's certain stores you may get things from where you're like, that's not very me. Or, you know, I don't want to buy that, and I try to figure out who, where would the ideal Akhenvaz girl be shopping? You know? Totally. So we also invite a couple of, like, VIP clients, for example, to the show. Like, girls who are really interacting with the brand a lot and who loves the brand and who are buying it and who are supporting, like, I want them to be there as well because they are technically part of the brand. Yes. Oh, my God. Is there, because you'll have, you'll have these wholesale partners or potential wholesale partners. You'll have them, and you'll have their attention at the show. Are there opportunities besides, I mean, is this a collection? Tell the story. Like, that is the whole idea. Or will there be kind of, I don't know, extra storytelling components? Like, you have some notes there in the seeds or anything else necessary to really, like, showcase who we are as a brand. Basically, on the seed, there's, like, apart from the number and the name of the person sitting there, there's a little sheet with the inspiration of the show. That was some of the notes I was reading out for you about monochromatic flower field and urban scale. Like, I'm trying to find names that feels going into euphoria. You know, these sort of, I need to finalize it all and that'll definitely be described to them. And then my head of sales will reach out to all the wholesale partners and see where they're at and whether they're open to see new brands. And furthermore, we'll take the collection to Paris at the end of September. Oh, fantastic. Where we are already meeting with, we have already gotten meetings. It's more international there for obvious reasons, but we have some Japanese buyers coming and we have, yeah, some various new things going on in Paris. Oh my gosh, it's an exciting time for you. I'm excited to see how you grow the brand from here. I'm excited for your show. Thank you for being here and for chatting with me. I took up more of your time than expected, but you're fun Christian. Very. It was great. I haven't packed yet for fashion week, but now I'm like, all I can think is the hot, I need hot fans. Yes, exactly. Nobody wants to see that. Oh my God, thank you, Christian. All right, thank you so much. That's all for this episode. Our theme music is by Otis McDonald. If you liked this episode, be sure to share it with someone else you think would. Thanks for listening to the glossy podcast. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
