Rachel Roy to women: 'designers are reading your comments and they very much matter'
Rachel Roy pays attention to comments on Instagram. And Twitter. And blog posts.
And she's not the only one. We talked to the designer ahead of her new book release, website revamp and the launch of her Curvy collection, and she gave us some insight into the fashion industry, and how customers can help change it.
And she's not the only one. We talked to the designer ahead of her new book release, website revamp and the launch of her Curvy collection, and she gave us some insight into the fashion industry, and how customers can help change it.
So what would she tell women who want to see more diversity, especially with clothing sizes and body types?
"Voice your opinion," she said. "I know it feels not heard, but I know for a fact having worked in the fashion [industry], editors read your blogs. They read your Instagram comments. They read your tweets. Your letters to the editors. Designers are reading your comments and they very, very much matter."
They mattered for Roy, who says he recently launched Curvy collection, which will be available on her new website on March 28, is a direct result of demand from her customers.
And it's an extenuation of her contemporary collection, meaning the vision, cuts, coloring are all the same. That may not sound revolutionary, but for years, many in the industry thought that clothes larger than a size 14 couldn’t match those at a size 2. And that women wanted more coverage, solid colors or other dated formulas to make them look slimmer.
“My customers don’t want anything different. They just want it to fit, they just want to shop, they want to look cute and they want to look sexy.”
That means women looking for sizes 14 - 24 can find Roy's signature flowing dresses, matching crop tops and skirts and sexy button downs.
In addition to diversity in sizing, Roy knows her customers themselves are diverse and are looking to see that represented in fashion. And while she thinks its on the consumers to help identify those inequities, she hopes the industry will shoulder more of the blame.
"Why are we not thinking in equal terms as much? It's not the shape or the size of humanity you come in it’s the work you are doing. Men and women in their roles, African America, white everything in between, to skinny to curvy. People should be looked at as people, now more than ever. Hopefully there is a little more shaming if you don't do that."
It occurred to us through the interview that Roy had been giving the topic a lot of thought. Which is when she explained that her book which hit stands today, Design Your Life: Creating Success Through Personal Style, wasn't so much a fashion book but a telling of how she went from outsider to in crowd in the fashion world.
"I grew up in a city where Macy’s was the most expensive store. We didn’t have a Neiman (Marcus), didn’t have a Barneys."
She was “on the wrong side of the tracks in terms of finances.” The daughter of immigrants (her father is Indian, her mom is Dutch), she was expected to do a lot of household work instead of planning her career in fashion.
“But I could always buy magazines. I created the life I hoped to live on my walls with mood boards,” she says. “Every choice we make, tiny or large, we are in control for designing the type of life we live.”
A message that she hopes to impart to young women, including her daughters.
Fashion doesn’t have to be that serious, she says. It's better to save emotional strength for the hard things in life, because “there are a lot of them.”
“Why can’t we just make shopping a little more effortless? ... You can go on and achieve the more serious things in your life with ease and style and, hopefully, grace.”
Fashion doesn’t have to be that serious, she says. It's better to save emotional strength for the hard things in life, because “there are a lot of them.”
“Why can’t we just make shopping a little more effortless? ... You can go on and achieve the more serious things in your life with ease and style and, hopefully, grace.”