BizNews FEATURE STORY FAR LEFT: Laura Bavlnka in one of the handdyed shirts she makes at Bavlnka Brand. LEFT: Foley & Lardner attorneys Cynthia Rigsby and Jan Pirozzolo-Mellowes started the Milwaukee Fashion Initiative last year.
Fashion designers forming connections in new industry collectives
LAUREN CONANT
By Molly Dill, staff writer
16 / BizTimes Milwaukee DECEMBER 17, 2018
IT’S A PATIENT PROCESS, shibori. That is, it takes twisting and wrapping and scrunching a large piece of silk onto a wine bottle. Then dyeing and shading and drying. Finally, unraveling it to see the result – each time unique and unpredictable. The Japanese process is a medium of choice for Milwaukee apparel designer Laura Bavlnka, founder of Bavlnka Brand. She also embroiders and paints fabrics, all of which become shirts and scarves, accessories and home goods. Bavlnka, a Mount Mary fashion program graduate who established the company in 2017 after a stint at Kohl’s Corp., plans to open a studio and showroom in Milwaukee’s west side Uptown neighborhood in January. She’s among a small community of fashion designers in the Milwaukee area that have recently started to become more organized and connected. Bavlnka launched
her company at the fourth edition of Milwaukee Fashion Week, a fall fashion show program aimed at giving local designers a platform to reach a wider audience. “I think (Fashion Week) definitely stirred a lot of interest,” Bavlnka said. “Before then, there were a lot of people that were kind of doing it but not really having the courage to put it out there.” She’s also a member of the Milwaukee Fashion Initiative, a group aimed at connecting and providing resources to designers and fashion companies in southeastern Wisconsin. “I’m still really new in this business and still trying to find my footing,” said Bavlnka, who has found MFI to be helpful. “We meet once a month and in past meetings, they’ve brought in people that already have established businesses or they brought in WWBIC one day, different people that can