CoutureCast

Read Karanina's CoutureCast Interview | All CoutureCast interviews are copyrighted and property of CoutureCandy.com 2007

CC: This is Jill Johnson, CEO of CoutureCandy.com welcoming you to the Couture Candy November podcast featuring Kara Smith and Nina Firestone, the fabulous designer duo behind the line Karanina. Good morning ladies.

KS: Hi.

NF: Hello.

CC: Hello. I'm sure you guys have a very busy life now that your dress line is doing so well. It sounds like you have a very enviable story; best friends living in Santa Barbara, California, collaborating and designing the hottest new label of the dresses on the market. We're so excited to hear about it. How did you two meet?

KS: We actually grew up together. Our families knew each other, so we've known each other since we were kids. So, we didn't really 'meet' each other.

CC: Oh, was that in Santa Barbara?

KS: It was in Los Angeles.

CC: Oh, then how did you get to Santa Barbara?

KS: Our families moved here when we were like, 12 years old.

CC: How did you come to the idea that you were going to start making dresses?

KS: Well actually Nina and I about three years ago just decided that we really wanted to go into business together. Just growing up together we really always loved fashion and thought it would be really fun and exciting to create our own clothes. Stuff we really were looking for out in the market and couldn't find. We were really obsessed actually with finding really great printed tops at the time. We'd always call each other if we found something really great and cute. We just started it; we really didn't have any fashion experience. We had a friend that we knew who had gone to The Fashion Institute and had been in the business for twenty years. We used her guidance and that's how it started.

CC: How do you both define and divide your roles within the business?

KS: It really happened naturally which I think was good. I get more involved in the business and marketing and Nina more in the practical aspects of the design and the production. But then we both really come together to design each season and come up with the prints, and come up with the overall style.

CC: How many seasons do you cut a year?

KS: We actually right now are cutting seven deliveries a year and our two major seasons are spring and fall that we do two deliveries for.

CC: Do you have to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles for business?

KS: Yeah we're there every week.

CC: Wow. You said that neither one of you really have a design background. What were you doing prior to launching Karanina?

KS: I was working at an interior design company.

CC: How was the transition then?

KS: It didn't transition much except for what I learned in terms of business management, and kind of running of a company and maybe being out there in terms of marketing and PR and just understanding the way business works. But it has really been a big learning experience and I feel that we grow so much every season in the design and in just knowing how to navigate the industry.

CC: Yeah. You guys have been growing very rapidly and very successfully which is wonderful to see. I love seeing success like that.

KS: Thank you.

CC: Yeah, of course. Since you were into the interior design, do you miss it?

KS: No, not really. I mean I'm still involved in it somewhat and it was never a passion like designing clothes has been for me.

CC: So do you have any thoughts about expanding into home fashion?

KS: Yeah Nina and I have been talking about expanding into house wares and just maybe kind of like bedding or just things that we could apply our Karanina image into the home.

CC: Right. A lot of designers are doing that and I think it is just wonderful because if you have a fan of your dresses they're going to love your interior design work too I'm sure.

KS: Yeah I think we'd like to create a product for our market, really affordable but fun and trendy and bright. I think that would be a good direction for us.

CC: I'm sure you'd do a really good job. Are there any other fields that you want to encompass?

KS: Right now we're looking to launch knitwear for next fall.

CC: That would be fabulous.

KS: Yeah we're trying something really different in knitwear, maybe fun and funky with a really distinct feel about it, and also very practical for how we use knitwear today. And also to make dresses in knitwear...

CC: I'd love to see more dresses in knitwear. I loved in the 70's when they did all that.

KS: Exactly.

CC: It was so great. Great A-line dresses. I could see your silhouettes being done in knitwear. It would be fabulous.

KS: Yeah, in really fun colors...

CC: Wonderful. So, you launched Karanina in 2003. How did you go about it? What were the steps that you took?

KS: Actually in 2003 really the way we started was we picked a name, we combined our names together, and we worked with our friend on a logo. Nina and I just designed seven tops. We went downtown, found fabric, kind of created tops that we really like. I took them around to Fred Siegel, Horn, tons of stores in L.A. and we got in all those stores. We produced and shipped them and we decided 'OK, let's start a business'.

CC: How exciting!

KS: Yeah.

CC: I'm sure it's really thrilling the moment you realize it's going to work.

KS: Yeah!

CC: [laugh] With all that hard work put into it.

KS: Exactly.

CC: Is there anything that you can think of in particular that helped propel the success of your line?

KS: Yeah definitely. Obviously the dress we made, the convertible halter dress...

CC: Love the convertible halter dress!

N: ...has been and continues to be every season a huge success for us and has also inspired us to create designs around it. The two-tone halter which is huge for us right now.

CC: I love it.

N: Yeah, it's doing really good and also we just developed, which I'm really excited about, for summer of next year, really cute mini-halter dresses and braided-halter dresses and we're going to be doing three-toned for fall. It's just very creative ways to mix it and we find that we sell those really well and it really puts our name on the map.

CC: They're so flattering and the fabrics for each are always so nice, I love them.

N: Thank you.

CC: Yeah, we do really well with that dress. Do you remember the first time a celebrity wore something of yours? Maybe in one of the magazines that you noticed a big boost from as well?

N: Well, the InStyle, getting the convertible-halter dress in InStyle magazine was a big thing for us. We were getting like hundreds of calls.

CC: Wow.

N: You know, half the people looking for the dress and that was like a really thing to pick in.

CC: Yeah, getting it out there really helped.

N: Yeah, and in terms of celebrities, like a couple years ago we got a call from a celebrity who pulled a bunch of stuff for Angelina Jolie and she sent us pictures and that was like our first kind of celebrity that requested the clothes and gave us pictures of them in them. Since then, obviously, it's been incredible, the celebrities that have purchased or requested our clothes.

CC: Yeah, I really ask that question because a lot of the designers I speak with usually have a moment in time where your Angelina Jolie was wearing J Brand Jeans or something happened and overnight people all wanted the stuff.

N: Yeah, I think that styles really are landmarks for that.

CC: I think your fit and your fabric for sure and the styles. It's such a great package, but when you think about it, so many celebrities have everything at their fingertips as far as style goes and people who are out there looking for clothes all the time. That's what they do for their full-time job and so they see so much and sometimes when they pick that one piece, over and above everything else, and it ends up getting photographed and a lot of more people are aware of it, it kind of naturally follows a progression that lends some success to the label, it's great.

Another thing I wanted to ask Nina about, that I was thinking about your lovable movies and I was wondering if the wardrobe in old movies has influenced your vision for the Karanina line.

N: It definitely does. We get very influenced by either an old movie that we've seen or by you know seeing a vintage piece. You know, we do vintage shopping whenever we're in New York or we spend time in L.A. doing that just to look for things and get inspiration for different things.

CC: Right.

N: Definitely we get inspired by, whether it's a movie or you know, pieces from the past.

CC: What would you say your favorite era or the era you most identify with would be?

N: Well we tend to get a lot of ideas from the hardstain in 60's and 70's throughout all of our collections.

CC: I've seen a lot of boardings influence that thing lately too.

N: Yeah, for different seasons it's different but I'd say consistently through all the seasons we always have a little bit of a late 1960's-1970's feel.

CC: Are there other silhouettes that you are going to launch your network line and do some more dresses, do you think about doing other things like jackets?

N: Yeah we have done jackets and we probably will continue especially for fall, to do jackets and maybe pants but for us we feel like they're so many people doing great jackets and pants out there and we would really like to focus on what we can bring that's unique to the market.

CC: Right, I hear you. I agree with that too because the dresses are perfect. They're really perfect. When we shoot them here on our models, I can put almost any body type, I mean of course they're models though. [laughs] You know, usually when I'm dressing the model there's different brands that fit different models and their body shapes are all different. And any one of those girls looks amazing in your dresses. It's so good.

N: That's so great.

CC: Yeah, at the end of their interview I love to ask the designers little short-answer questions. My first one is, what is your favorite era in fashion history?

N: I think probably it's the 40's.

CC: 40's, I love the 40's. Keira?

K: The 70's.

CC: What Nina is your favorite item in your closet?

N: My Dior bag.

CC: Your Dior bag, good choice. Keira?

K: My Gucci pumps.

CC: Is there an item you wish to own that you don't?

N: Bottega Veneta bag.

CC: I love them. Seriously, a big, huge one, right?

N: Yep, right.

CC: OK, girls, if you could go anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?

N: Bora Bora.

CC: Bora Bora is my favorite place in the world! It is, both of you?

K: I go to Italy.

CC: Oh, where in Italy?

K: Capri.

CC: I've never been to Capri, but I'd love to. OK, well that's everything for today. Thank you so much ladies for talking to us. I know that everyone would love to hear about how you got your start and what you're up to. The dresses did so well on the site and we really appreciate working with you and having you working with us at CoutureCandy.

N: Thank you so much.

K: Thank you so much.

CC: Have a great day.

N: You too, bye.

CC: Bye.