Who To Watch: St. Louis' Fashion Industry
Throughout the late 1800s to mid-1900s - St. Louis was a fashion and apparel production powerhouse. The city was Shoe Street USA, lined by “Castles of Clothing” (as Andrew Wanko reports in a Missouri History Museum article) and one out of every six Americans wore shoes made in St. Louis in 1910. In addition to being the shoe distribution center of the United States, the city led the country in “junior fashion” - clothing with modern cuts tailored specifically to young women. Hats, ready-to-wear clothing, and more made downtown Washington Avenue hum and buzz with industry and activity.
So what happened? As the apparel business started shifting in the 1950s, those businesses began shutting their doors, and by the 1980s Washington Avenue was a ghost town.
Now, industry - particularly the creative and fashion-based industry - is returning to St. Louis.
“We say fashion is as important to the fabric of St. Louis as baseball and beer (and the Blues),” said Susan Sherman, co-founder of the St. Louis Fashion Fund.
Among the big fashion brands with headquarters in the area are Caleres, Soft Surroundings, Stars Design Group, Summersalt, Aquarius, Weissman, Elan Polo, Walking Cradle, Diba Shoes, Carr Textiles, California Manufacturing, and Propper International. We also see some local corporate (non-consumer-facing) offices for national brands like New Balance, Columbia and more, including a manufacturing plant for Nike.
Among the independent designers basing their companies in St. Louis is Lisa Hu.
“My mission is to be able to show people that St. Louis fashion matters and St. Louis fashion can happen,” said Lisa Hu, the founder and CEO of Lux & Nyx. Lux and Nyx creates “innovative bags made for the woman who is going places.”
“People here may not understand fashion as well as [the coasts] but they are very supportive of you being an entrepreneur,” said Hu. “[On the coasts] they only know the traditional ways of doing things, and being in St. Louis helps me think of new ways of how to sell and how we can be resourceful.”
Hu is part of a growing trend of independent fashion designers growing their companies from here in St. Louis, they, the bigger companies, and new manufacturing start-up such as Evolution St. Louis are part of what makes the current fashion and apparel industry in St. Louis a $3.3 billion business annually - a figure Sherman has a plan to double in the next 10 years.
“I do think the success that can happen in St. Louis, is following in the path of Cortex here that [slowly grew and is now] creating a lot of innovation, and big companies are surrounding that. They're realizing that places on the Coast have become way too expensive to sustain a business, and we've created this opportunity for people to afford to develop a business, because the Midwest is affordable, and fashion can follow in that way, as long as we're conscious that it's a conversation about fashion and technology,” said Bret Schnitker, President and CEO of Stars Design Group, a firm that assists clients with a variety of different categories and needs - everything from design all the way through production worldwide.
Schnitker’s vision: “multiple cut and sews, districts, programmers, support structure, innovation and technology, design and technology.”
“I think years ago people thought we were crazy for opening in the Midwest. Today, I think it's a little visionary. I think there is a future here if we think bigger,” said Schnitker.
“People, at least in fashion and apparel, are used to come to St. Louis for years to work at May Company and Macy's. May Company was headquartered here,” said Jon Lewis, co-founder of Evolution St. Louis. “St. Louis is not out of the national mindset of the apparel. It's just been dormant.”
“We can absolutely be the center for fashion. We can make St. Louis the new fashion capital. Why not?” said Lisa Hu.