The founder tells how he escaped Beirut and built a $100 million fashion empire.
He and his brother escaped war-torn Beirut in the 1990s and came to New York. The brothers established this national women's luxury clothing store in 2001. Acquired this month for $. The company tells the story of the growth of this company that has been established for many years
If you live in a brutal civil war, you will become stronger and you will become a real survival master. You never know what will happen next second but you have to do your best to survive.
When I was growing up we would often go on vacation. Our plan was to go away for a few weeks but we ended up staying there for months. The reason for this was because my father was afraid of what we would do at home. bomb attack. We have been to France, London, Greece and Cyprus. This kind of life is very unstable, always wandering on the road. But this kind of life allowed me to be exposed to different countries and cultures at a young age.
My sister was the first person in my family to come to New York. She got accepted to Columbia University which was definitely a big deal for us at the time and I would come out here all the time to see her. A very unfortunate incident happened to my family in 2001. After that incident, I started going to school.
I live with my brother and sister. Every day after school, I work part-time to clean up the messy sweaters from customers and clean the fitting room. There are many customers and tourists who come to the store every day. I need to communicate with people from different countries around the world. I find that I am better at selling than packing clothes. Soon I was responsible for selling clothes to these tourists. I won't rush them to buy, but I can always know their expected price. I understand my customers. Growing up having clothes to wear was a big thing I would spend a portion of my paycheck on these clothes every month. If you can wear the same clothes as your customers, you can establish a connection with them. This connection can play a big role in your sales process.
Soon after, I was discovered by the managers of a shoe store called Shoe Store and they asked me to work for them. While working here, I gradually became exposed to fashion products. My brother and I would often buy these products, but the prices were not cheap. Every time we bought a suit, we spent US dollars. I understand the function of these fashion products but I can't understand the high price. The prices in almost every fashion store were so high that we started thinking that maybe we could build a fashion brand at a price that would be affordable to younger consumers. If we can do that we will achieve great things.
We started imagining it when I was 18 years old. My brother and I both saved some money and of course we needed to borrow some more to start the business. We pawned my mom's jewelry at a pawn shop. Even so we didn't have enough money to open a store and it wasn't even close.
Our store finally opened on a Wednesday of 2015 but had to close the following Monday because we were out of stock. When we were renovating the store, people nearby saw us, which can be said to be a disguised advertisement. When we opened, they were very happy to buy up our inventory. This can be said to be a question of happiness.
After that, we officially embarked on the journey of starting a business. A water pipe burst in the block next to us and water poured into our store. We had to close down again, this time for two months entirely to rebuild the store and deal with insurance matters. While we were out of business, customers continued to come to the store and provide us with funds to rebuild the store. At the time we thought these people were crazy. What can we provide them that they are willing to pay for us to open early? At that time, we realized that our brand already has a certain value.
That was also the first time my brother and I realized that we could run this brand without being in the store. Then we would have more time to deal with other things and we decided to open another branch. We came to Madison Avenue in 2006 and opened a store here. Then we found that consumers here would go on vacation in Miami, so we opened another store in Miami. By the year, we already had a home base and won the favor of countless consumers.
After the incident happened, our business fell into a low ebb. Like everyone we were devastated but because we grew up in a war-torn country we weren't as alarmed as others. Our survival instinct kicks in again. In addition, we have a large number of customers and they have helped us through the difficult times. The question we faced at that time was how long would it take for us to get back on track?
It wasn’t until 2008 that our business finally turned around. The following year we sold a small stake to an equity company. Because we found that to continue to expand we needed more capital. This equity transfer also allowed us to increase the number of retail stores from 1 to 3 today.
Now our goal is to lead the company further into the international market. To achieve this goal we will need not only capital but also an excellent strategic partner. We want to continue to focus on our strengths, which are procurement and retail, and leave the legal and international logistics to our partners.
So we hired an acquisition integration agency called Acquisition Integration Agency to help us find partners. We didn't waste much time and after meeting with several company representatives we made our choice. They have a global platform and they understand our vision. Our purpose is not to change but to become better.
I can’t reveal too much about our future plans yet. What I can say is that we now have an online sales platform. Also my brother and I are both men and we are doing women's clothing now maybe we will open a men's brand. The question now is what we should do next.
WhatsApp
