retail spotlight
FROM BRICKS TO CLICKS In the midst of a challenging 2020, a Florida boutique transitions to online BY VANESSA MACHIR
BY IVANA CEPEDA ’10
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Spring 2021
The collaboration came about in 2019, after MeléndezEscalante, a native of Mexico City, interviewed the Francos as part of a panel discussion. MAZ Museum Director Vivianna Kuri proposed that she curate an exhibition about Julia y Renata. “In my current role at MFIT, I hadn’t done installation in a really long time,” she says. “I forgot how much I loved it, being able to touch garments and be hands-on.” Mounting an exhibition in a pandemic presented many challenges. Garment selection was done through Zoom, and garments on loan could be accepted only from local lenders and collectors, as they feared that pieces could not be shipped in time. While MeléndezEscalante oversaw the final stages of the installation in Guadalajara, a curfew severely limited the hours the team could work. Everything shut down at 7 pm, and people couldn’t leave their homes at all on the weekends. Her perspective remains consistent across her work as an educator and an exhibition curator. “I am always thinking about the person who is new to the subject matter as well as the scholar. You want to educate, inform, and delight. It is important to give everyone points of entry, make the content accessible, giving people interesting bits that spark their curiosity and make them want more.”
Courtesy of Lilac and Lilies
An MFIT curator plans an exhibition in Mexico
Above: Renata Franco, Julia Franco, and Tanya MeléndezEscalante celebrated a successful exhibition opening in November. Below left: Meléndez dressing mannequins for the show.
Itzel Hernández/courtesy of MAZ
Returning to Her Roots
As senior curator of education and public programs at The Museum at FIT, Tanya Meléndez-Escalante, Museum Studies: Costume and Textiles ’04, connects exhibition curators and fashion designers to create dynamic learning experiences. For a recent exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ) in Guadalajara, Mexico, though, she seized the opportunity to curate the show herself. Her show, Julia y Renata: Moda y Transformación (Julia y Renata: Fashion and Transformation), tells the story of Julia and Renata Franco, Guadalajara-born sisters and designers of the label Julia y Renata, which plays with silhouettes and shapes, structure and drape. Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, is a creative hub—home to architects, designers, musicians, painters, and curators. Meléndez-Escalante has admired the Franco sisters’ avant-garde, feminist approach for a long time. “They believe you can wear what you want and determine what is sexy and what is not,” she says. “They have been very influential for other young Mexican designers.” To capture their artistry, garments were displayed flat on the walls, like paintings. Others were hung from a cubic wooden structure. The exhibition, which ran from November 6, 2020, to February 14, 2021, was organized and designed entirely by women—which Meléndez-Escalante calls “a happy coincidence,” indicative of the growing number of women in leadership positions across industries.
For many kids, summer vacation means lazy days. Michelle DiMarco, however, spent her childhood breaks learning how to be a boss. “I grew up seeing how a small business operates,” she says of her family’s lawn mower repair and retail company. “My mom would pick us up and we would go to the store. We never really went away to camp.” After college, DiMarco got her start in retail working for companies like Wet Seal and Liz Claiborne, but she envisioned a more independent future. “I could never see myself working for anyone else, in part because of my family background,” she says. She enrolled in FIT’s Creative Enterprise Ownership program in 2008 and opened her Fort Lauderdale boutique, Lilac and Lilies, in 2009. Her merchandise reflects her attention to quality and trends without sacrificing affordability; nearly 90 percent of her items retail for under $100. She carries both established brands and Etsy finds, like necklaces made out of vintage Chanel buttons. DiMarco’s original plan was to concentrate on e-commerce sales, but she launched her brickand-mortar location and website simultaneously. “What took a lot of my time and energy was the storefront,” she says. “I ended up turning the website into a blog featuring inspiring women, and then we kept on growing the store.” During the COVID-19 lockdown, however, “I had time to take a step back and assess the direction I wanted to go in,” she says. “The universe was telling me to focus on e-commerce … and I was ready to do it.” DiMarco converted her storefront into an appointment-only showroom and is expanding her
website to reach a larger market. Previously, she featured about 60 percent of products on her site, and the majority of sales came from her storefront. Now she’s working with a small team to transition her full inventory online while also overseeing photoshoots, marketing, and public relations. Part of a successful transition is improved inventory management and more compressed scheduling. Previously, she’d shoot product and then have descriptive copy written. “By the time an item was ready [for online listing], I had already sold three to four of that item in the storefront.” But now, she ensures that the description is written in advance so that the listing can go online the day an item arrives. To support sales, she’s recently introduced a rewards program where customers receive redeemable points for shopping or even sharing purchases on Facebook. Another popular addition is “WineDown Wednesday” on Instagram and Facebook Live. DiMarco and her manager feature different products and promotions (while drinking wine, of course), and offer 20 percent off purchases for 24 hours. She’s also launching an affiliate program. Applicants, once approved, get commissions on the products they sell. “We don’t necessarily have to ship them products. They can take images from our website or we can send them a Dropbox link of items to feature during that week.” “It’s crazy, like opening up another business,” DiMarco says of her e-commerce transition. But she always keeps lessons learned from her family’s business in mind. “The grind is very real, but you have to stay super focused and have a can-do attitude.”
BEST SELLER DiMarco says her ideal customer “wants to look put together, but yet also needs [her wardrobe] to be functional.” Pictured here are the popular Shore Transitional Romper and Buddy Love Snakeskin Maxi.
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