Dress fashion fun game up

Lucero plays the game his own way - fashion designer Eduardo Lucero

Eduardo Lucero has been turning heads with his broad base of designer women's wear and flair for showmanship. And as his fashions and name become more widely known, he is determined to ensure that creativity is not sacrificed for the bottom line.

Days after high-flying designer Isaac Mizrahi's empire crashed and burned last summer, Mizrahi's fashion peer and competitor Todd Oldham was on ABC News lamenting about the changing winds of the apparel industry. Fashion, he observed morosely, is no longer about creativity and design, but is rather about business and the bottom line.

While Oldham is not alone in his belief that tough times, including cheaper imports and thinning profit margins, have blanched a once colorful industry, not every young designer starting out has given up the fantasy of fashion in favor of a hard-edged financial goal. A case in point is the hip Los Angeles, CA-based designer Eduardo Lucero.

In the four years since he opened his eponymous retail store and in the nearly three years since he began wholesaling his line, Lucero has refused to waver from his commitment to become a fashion - rather than simply an apparel - leader.

"I agree to some extent that it has become more of a business, but I think that there's also plenty of room for creative expression," Lucero tells Bobbin. "What I really have a difficult time with is the whole classification of apparel. What about fashion? Apparel is making T-shirts and jeans, but fashion is a much more creative industry. Fashion isn't about necessity; it's about want and desire."

Lucero has become an expert at creating - and then feeding - that want and desire. "The thing that always brings our customers back," he points out wisely, "is that there is something creative and fresh in the line ... because we're not just manufacturing another pair of basic brown pants."

Focusing on fashion has been good for Lucero. While the designer admits that his operation is still in the room-and-pop phase, with no state-of-the-art technology to aid its production and distribution, there's no doubt the business is steadily expanding.

Perhaps the best illustration of Lucero's success is the growth of his headquarters, which are part retail store and part design studio and quality control/distribution facility. Originally housed in a compact 450-square-foot atelier, the burgeoning business expanded to occupy 900 square feet last year when Lucero purchased an adjacent building and knocked down walls. Then five months ago, the company moved into a 2,400-square-foot location on Beverly Boulevard, a prime retail spot in Los Angeles that is also home to the stores of such hot designers as Oldham and Richard Tyler.

"We weren't really prepared to move again, but I had to jump on it," Lucero says, emphasizing: "In Los Angeles, it's all about exposure."

When it comes to getting exposure, Lucero is on familiar ground. For in spite of his newcomer status to the apparel industry, he has displayed an uncanny knack for marketing his line. Most notably, he doesn't sit back and wait to be discovered like many novice designers, but aggressively touts his collection through biannual, celebrity-studded fashion shows, which are an amalgam of fashion and charity fund raising.

"Doing fashion shows for charity is a wonderful venue for us," confides Lucero. "The last one we did [was] for the AIDS Health Care Foundation. We ended up getting a bunch of celebrities involved, like Jimmy Smits and Jennifer Tilly. We had a ton of coverage, everyone from E! Entertainment to all the fashion and celebrity magazines. The great thing about combining our fashion shows with a benefit is that it works for everyone. ... It's for a great cause, and we end up doing a bigger event that is much more fun."

Lucero's innate showmanship has made him into something of a media darling. Like some of the big-name New York designers, Lucero always produces innovative pieces for his fashion shows that may not necessarily make it into his line. "They have a special quality to them," he says of these special designs, "and we end up getting more exposure that way. There is a reason magazines call us - because we have those special pieces that they need.

"Other companies wouldn't take the time to do those pieces because they're more interested in the bottom line. We're also interested in the bottom line," he adds, "but we're going at things in a different way to arrive at the same place."

Indeed, the local editorial buzz has celebrities, socialites and savvy trendsetters trekking to Lucero's starkly designed store, with its putty colored concrete floor and white wails dripping with silver cable wire, to purchase outfits that range in retail prices from $92 (for a simple denim dress) to $700 (for a basic suit). Prices soar even higher for couture outfits such as hand-knit suits (around $2,500) and beaded dresses ($3,000-plus).

In 1997, Lucero's design talent also landed him the CaliforniaMart's Rising Star Award, which many in the industry see as the barometer for the West Coast's most promising designers. Despite the fact that Lucero has few ties to the mart, the CaliforniaMart believes in his creativity so much that it sponsored his entry in last month's Asia-Pacific Young Designers' Show during Hong Kong Fashion Week.

"His creativity and designs are truly reflective of what's happening in Los Angeles, and the spirit of a young designer," says Alanna Chaffin, communications director for the CaliforniaMart. "He leads a fashion business that is growing in size and sophistication, and because of his contemporary, original designs, we believe that Eduardo Lucero is a name that will soon have national recognition."

Already the brand is featured in a tight collection of upscale specialty stores in major metropolitan cities throughout the United States, including the ultra-hip Barney's New York. At the moment, Lucero wants to keep strict control over his retail distribution, which means avoiding the lucrative yet volume-heavy department stores.

"It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to selling to department stores," he contends, "but as an independent young designer, the department store can be a bit oppressive sometimes. In the past couple of years, we have worked hard to build this business, and sometimes a department store can kill you in one season. Maybe they end up returning a whole bunch of merchandise for whatever reason. ... I can't afford to take that kind of risk. I really want this business to grow, and I'd rather take my time and invest more in my company and make the foundation really strong, before I become involved with department stores."

For Lucero, making the company's foundation strong means fine-tuning the line, and letting the retail accounts multiply through word of mouth. In early 1998, for instance, he weeded out his 3-year-old men's wear line to concentrate solely on women's wear. His broad collection of 62 to 72 complete outfits per season includes elegant suits, daring leather dresses, fluid sportswear, feminine denim pieces and beaded evening wear. However, Lucero plans to resurrect the men's wear line in time for the fall/holiday '99 season.

"The groupings are like seeds, [which] eventually will grow into separate divisions," he foresees.

It seems that Lucero looks at his entire company as being in the seedling stage. Sample patterns and garments are designed the old-fashioned way - by hand - at the Beverly Boulevard location, while production runs are sent to local contractors in Southern California. The finished goods then are returned to Lucero's headquarters for quality control inspections before garments are shipped to retail store accounts.

As for having his own retail store and design studio under one roof, Lucero admits it can make for a chaotic environment, but he observes: "I think many of our customers enjoy being part of the creative process."

So does Lucero. Which is why, as other designers increasingly sacrifice creativity in favor of the bottom line, he is determined to have both. "I've started this company on a grassroots level because I want to be involved in everything. I could have gone to a large company and been a small part of it, but I actually wanted to see my business grow and be a large part of that.

Looking to the future, Lucero's goals seemingly have no boundaries. "While I want everything for the future, I want it when it's supposed to come, which may not necessarily be right now. Besides," he adds, flashing a confident grin, "I have the luxury of being young, and I can afford to spend the next couple of years making the company - and the line - perfect."

Julie McElwain, Bobbin's West Coast contributing editor, has covered the West Coast apparel, textile and retail industries for Bobbin for more than eight years.