Last December, the audience at the American University of Beirut was looking exceptionally chic. Rummaging through their hand-stitched leather bags and adjusting their one-of-a-kind accessories, the 500-strong audience filed into the auditorium, artfully arranging themselves on steps and window ledges when no more seats were left. A mix of fashion aficionados and passionate designers full of exciting ideas, they had gathered together for the same reason: a debate on innovation and design organised by STARCH, a non-profit organisation that supports emerging designers in Lebanon. They had something else in common too, frustration with their often limited business opportunities.
So when Not Just a Label (NJAL) co-founder Stefan Siegel stepped up to the microphone, the audience was rapt. Slight and informal, the Italian entrepreneur, a former model turned banker, whose ideas are changing the lives of designers elsewhere in the world, needed no rhetorical fireworks to capture attention.
NJAL began in 2007 in London, when Siegel and his associates noticed that a huge pool of talent was struggling to adapt and market itself effectively. “Young fashion designers had no way of promoting their collections online without paying high fees for dubious services,” Siegel explains. “They were using platforms like MySpace that catered to a different creative industry. A digital space where emerging fashion designers could showcase and promote their latest collections did not exist.”
And so, armed with two laptops and six month’s worth of rent, Siegel left behind a career with Merrill Lynch to create a dedicated designer platform, something the fashion industry didn’t even know it needed.
Four years later, NJAL is a multi-million dollar enterprise representing over 7,500 designers from all over the world, including 19 from Lebanon, 11 from the UAE and 3 from Jordan. The website allows its members to upload their collections and by creating a global showroom where designs can be sold online, NJAL is giving creators “an opportunity to grow their business from their own studio.” Beyond that NJAL serves as a source for stylists, editors and buyers and runs influential awareness campaigns, featuring high-profile celebrities like Lady Gaga and Pixie Geldof wearing creations by young unknowns, many of whom are spotted at graduation shows and fashion weeks.
As Siegel noted in his Christmas 2011 Editor’s Letter, this approach has resulted in a huge percentage of showcase events at the 2011 London Fashion Week featuring NJAL-supported designers. ”Three years ago there [were] only a handful,” he continued, adding that some of NJAL’s earliest members have “grown into established brands, proving there is indeed a market for individuality, fresh ideas and authentic luxury in fashion.”
“We create thousands of small brands and urge customers to invest in emerging talent and to support ‘slow fashion’,” he said in our interview. “We support local production, don’t push designers to produce in seasons and stand for sustainable fashion.”
If it sounds a little like a manifesto, NJAL’s only rule is that there are no rules. By working its way up from nowhere to make a splash in a hugely competitive industry, NJAL has charted its own course to success, just like its designers.
Sourcing talent, supporting edgy designers and creating an online shop window, NJAL is a direct affront to the fashion industry behemoths. By championing so many unknown designers and responding to growing trends for individualisation, sustainability and craftsmanship, Siegel and his cohorts are upsetting the diamante-clad apple cart of High Fashion. “NJAL takes fashion away from businessmen and puts it back in the hand of creatives,” he explains. “We are [fashion’s] Black Sheep.”
In an industry where, according to Siegel, many trading associations and fashion councils are funded by high-street retailers, established companies have no interest in supporting individuality, authentic luxury or small businesses.
Simply put, for the companies and organisations that have held the industry in a vice-like grip, NJAL is a threat. The British Fashion Council, for example, won’t even answer the platform’s emails. But in a recession-ridden world where the unbridled consumption of luxe and bling is falling out of favour, NJAL’s fresh, young creatives present a different, more interesting future.
As he told Bespoke: “Individuality is on the rise, and stands for a new form of luxury,” Siegel says in the interview. “Fashion is no longer about owning something for the sake of owning it, every piece one buys should come with a story attached.”
