But, there are conditions: Brex insists the card be paid in full every 30 days, and it monitors the company’s bank account balance daily to ensure the start-up is not recklessly burning through cash. “If they’re spending $50,000 a month and have $60,000 left in their bank account, I know they’re going under in the next month so I’m going to stop giving them credit,” he said.

The automated online application process is fast. “We can issue a card in five minutes,” Mr. Dubugras said. He added that he hadn’t seen a single default.

And investors are clearly optimistic about the company’s outlook: Brex’s latest round of financing last month valued the firm at $1.1 billion, making it one of the youngest start-ups to be valued at $1 billion or more.

Silicon Valley Bank, which has been offering corporate cards to start-ups since 2008, goes one step further than Brex, offering charge cards, whose balances are due monthly, and regular corporate cards with revolving lines of credit.

“We do not use the personal credit history of the founders or FICO scores” to assess risk, said Eduardo Vergara, head of Global Treasury Services at Silicon Valley Bank. “We’ll look at how much capital they’ve raised, who the investors are, who the founders are, and what’s their track record as entrepreneurs.”

SVB also relies on instinct, having extended financing to start-ups for the past 34 years. “We can really see and assess which ones are more likely to be successful — which ones we should be offering credit, which ones to lean in on,” Mr. Vergara said.

Some disrupters require the entrepreneur to personally guarantee the corporate card, said Mr. Dubugras, which means, if the business fails, the entity could go after the founder’s home, car and assets to cover the credit card losses.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/business/smallbusiness/start-up-brex-offers-credit-to-other-start-ups.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

In most other countries, young and old freely mix together, with several generations often living under one roof. But in the United States, that mostly happens in the workplace. Even so, millennials and baby boomers tend to stick with their same-aged cohort, rarely associating out of the office.

This is a limited way of socializing that cross-generational groups seek to expand. “A lot of people think if they’re mothers they can only be friends with mothers; if they’re single they can only hang out with single people,” said Shasta Nelson, 41, the author of “Friendtimacy,” a book about deepening friendships that was published in 2016. “But research suggests that it doesn’t matter what commonality we have, only that we find a couple of commonalities. If I say, ‘I’m in my 40s and I only want to meet people in my 40s,’ it’s as much of a predictor of friendship as saying I can only be friends with people born in September or who like Madonna or who have my name.”

According to Ms. Nelson, only three things are necessary for a relationship to flourish: positivity (it has to feel good); consistency (you have to be in touch on a regular basis); and vulnerability (you have to feel safe with each other). None of them has to do with age.

“A friendship is any relationship where two people both people feel seen in a safe and satisfying way,” she said.

Ten years ago, Ms. Nelson created GirlFriend Circles, a kind of match.com for women to meet online and take it offline if they choose. She later started Travel Circles, which helps women of all ages take trips to meet other women around the world.

Angela Wilkinson, 48, a self-described “suburban housewife in Middle America” (in this case, Marion, Iowa), went to Greece, Italy, Rwanda and Peru with Ms. Nelson. With two sons now in their early 20s, one of whom has special needs, Ms. Wilkinson said she always felt isolated at home, and unable to meet new people.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/10/style/intergenerational-womens-groups.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Wone’s offerings also aren’t the most expensive out there. Katie Warner Johnson, a founder and the chief executive of Carbon38, which sells fashion forward active wear, said that women’s willingness to pay about $300 for Michi leggings was “essentially the foundation of our business.” One of the first items Carbon38 offered was a style called Medusa: a swirling patchwork of black spandex, mesh and heather gray fabric that made it look as if the pants were growing up the wearer’s leg. And women were lining up for them back in 2014.

“We’ve been really able to play with the price spectrum since then,” Ms. Johnson said.

Elizabeth van der Goltz, the global buying director of Net-a-Porter, said the site was initially “nervous” to stock leggings over $200. Now there are $490 blue and black Fendi leggings printed with scribbled hearts and $345 Lucas Hugh black leggings with opalescent tape stripes and pinhole mesh inserts for ventilation.

These brands have “high sell-throughs,” Ms. Van der Goltz wrote in an email. (Their cost continues to accrue after purchase: The Fendi leggings, though designed to sweat in, require hand washing or dry cleaning.)

What does $300 and up buy you? In the case of Wone, not strategic color blocking, or extra ventilation. Instead, Ms. Hildebrand touts personalized finishing and Italian and French fabrics, which cost $20 to $25 per yard, as opposed to the $3 to $4 for fabrics more typically used in active wear.

As opposed to the standard promise of holding up through 50 machine washes, Wone’s are guaranteed through 50,000 washes — that’s every single day for the next 136 years, or at least through your lifetime, no matter how much exercise might extend it. (What will future archaeologists think when they excavate large amounts of indestructible athleisure?)

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/style/expensive-leggings.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Wone’s offerings also aren’t the most expensive out there. Katie Warner Johnson, a founder and the chief executive of Carbon38, which sells fashion forward active wear, said that women’s willingness to pay about $300 for Michi leggings was “essentially the foundation of our business.” One of the first items Carbon38 offered was a style called Medusa: a swirling patchwork of black spandex, mesh and heather gray fabric that made it look as if the pants were growing up the wearer’s leg. And women were lining up for them back in 2014.

“We’ve been really able to play with the price spectrum since then,” Ms. Johnson said.

Elizabeth van der Goltz, the global buying director of Net-a-Porter, said the site was initially “nervous” to stock leggings over $200. Now there are $490 blue and black Fendi leggings printed with scribbled hearts and $345 Lucas Hugh black leggings with opalescent tape stripes and pinhole mesh inserts for ventilation.

These brands have “high sell-throughs,” Ms. Van der Goltz wrote in an email. (Their cost continues to accrue after purchase: The Fendi leggings, though designed to sweat in, require hand washing or dry cleaning.)

What does $300 and up buy you? In the case of Wone, not strategic color blocking, or extra ventilation. Instead, Ms. Hildebrand touts personalized finishing and Italian and French fabrics, which cost $20 to $25 per yard, as opposed to the $3 to $4 for fabrics more typically used in active wear.

As opposed to the standard promise of holding up through 50 machine washes, Wone’s are guaranteed through 50,000 washes — that’s every single day for the next 136 years, or at least through your lifetime, no matter how much exercise might extend it. (What will future archaeologists think when they excavate large amounts of indestructible athleisure?)

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/style/expensive-leggings.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

Mr. Molnar said he hoped to work summers as a captain but planned on attending college and pursuing a more lucrative career.

Many of the ferry company workers followed a family path.

Don Guinta, 60, the company’s freight manager, brought his daughter Kristen Chance, 27, into the business. She’s eight months pregnant, but recently helped him log in a mountain of packages being sent over to Fire Island, a task he called “organized chaos.”

Favorite parcels included food sent from Dean Deluca, Zabar’s, Citarella and other Manhattan markets, he said, standing next to a pile of Amazon deliveries, a surfboard and a tall bass fiddle.

The traditional Sunday-morning freight boat is known as the “bagel boat,” for its principal cargo.

Another tradition is spotting celebrities who use the ferries, often disguised by hats and sunglasses. The list of passengers with boldfaced names includes the actors Tina Fey, John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes.

“Every personality in the world comes through these boats,” said Captain Villing, as he steered the 85-foot Belle up the West Channel toward Fair Harbor.

He recalled how the actor Tony Randall used to buy candy for groups of local children in Seaview, and how the comedian Mel Brooks and his wife, Anne Bancroft, rode the ferry to their house in Lonelyville. “She kept a low profile but you always knew when Mel was on the boat because he was always doing his comedy,” Captain Villing said as he pulled into Fair Harbor and helped his crew unload luggage.

He got a welcoming hug from Fred Fahrbach, 77, who has a summer home nearby and who said of Captain Villing: “I don’t think the ferry would run without him.” Then Captain Villing headed for the mainland, with Fire Island astern.

“It’s been a good living,” he said, adding that he hoped to remain working as a summertime captain. “As long as they got a space for me, I’ll be here.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/nyregion/fire-island-ferry-captain-retirement.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The federal government has a history of taking a hard-line view of this industry. In 2015, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City likened Colorado’s legalization of marijuana to allowing “trade in endangered species or trade with North Korea.”

But that hard-line is beginning to change, which could mean that down the road, federal regulations might loosen up.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said last month that he would introduce a bill decriminalizing cannabis. And President Trump recently suggested that he would be open to signing a law that would allow states to control their cannabis industries without threat of federal prosecution. A business group, the National Cannabis Industry Association, recently produced a video encouraging citizens to ask Congress to “support legal small businesses that are successfully replacing the criminal marijuana market.” More than 200 of its members will visit Washington starting Monday to lobby Congress on issues including banking and taxes.

John Boehner, the former speaker of the House who had been one of the most staunch opponents of legal marijuana, said his views have changed. He recently joined the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, an investment firm dedicated to the cannabis industry. Bill Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts who also has joined the Acreage advisory board, said he believed cannabis could help wean people off opioids.

Shutting off access to the federal banking system presents a variety of risks, said Peter Conti-Brown, an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The chance of income being underreported increases, he said, as does the chance of employee theft or even armed robbery as large amounts of cash move through the business ecosystem.

“Marijuana businesses and banks are caught in the crossfire,” Mr. Conti-Brown said.

Some credit unions and small banks that are chartered by their state, not the federal government, have tried to fill the void by offering basic banking services to the cannabis industry. George Allen, president of Acreage Holdings, said the companies he has invested in have been able to find banking in the 11 states where they operate, which has, among other things, allowed them to pay taxes electronically or by check.

Tai Cheng, the chief operating officer for Aloha Green Apothecary in Hawaii, a state where marijuana is legal for medicinal purposes, runs his company almost completely in cash.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/business/smallbusiness/marijuana-companies-federal-taxes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Unplugging and Yet Not

Just like late-1960s hippies, right? But living an untethered life has gotten easier now that many people need only a laptop and a fast internet connection to earn a living. Websites like Nomadlist help people decide where on Earth to go. The rise of Airbnb makes it easy to rent space in most corners of the globe with a swipe of your iPhone. Roving parents can find global play dates and moral support on Facebook groups like Worldschoolers, which has about 40,000 members.

Lainie Liberti, an administrator of the group, said it’s not just the tense political climate in the United States motivating people to leave. “People are not seeing a future,” she said. “People are starting to focus on living now and focusing on their children. They are re-evaluating what is important to them.”

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Ms. Quain, who worked as much as 100 hours a week running her own company, worried about the values she was imparting to her daughters. “I don’t want them to grow up to be worker bees,” she said. “I want them to grow up to be freethinking entrepreneurs.”

Like many of the new expats, she is home-schooling (“worldschooling” is the more popular term.) Her daughters are learning Spanish at a Medellin day camp and spend their spare time playing Minecraft and Roblox, video games they sometimes play online with other traveling children. She hopes eventually they’ll start their own YouTube channel, if someone will teach them. “Once I get my business up and running,” she said. “I’ll hire people to teach them how to do things.”

What It Costs

Ms. Quain expects to spend about $1,700 a month on housing, day camp, activities and a nanny in Medellin. Paul Kortman, who, with his wife, Becky Kortman, wrote “Family Freedom: A Guide to Becoming a Location Independent Family,” estimates that a family could travel indefinitely on $60,000 a year, a salary he says could be earned with a little ingenuity.

“All you need to do is have a laptop and be an intelligent person,” Mr. Kortman said. “You don’t need a specific skill set.”

It does help, though. Matthew Gillespie, 31, works remotely full-time as a web designer, allowing him; his wife, Chelsea Gillespie, 30; and their 2-year-old daughter, Kailen, to travel indefinitely through Europe, blogging about it at Unsettledown. They left San Diego last May, finding it too expensive.

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Burdened by high rent, along with car and student loan payments, they did not see a future where they could buy a home in the area and still pay down their debts. “Our family was telling us to settle down,” Mr. Gillespie said from Prague last winter. “We just didn’t see the value in that.”

Last spring, he and his wife sold their car, their furniture and most of their possessions for about $10,000. So far, traveling has been cheaper. In Croatia, for example, their expenses fell by 60 percent, allowing them to pay down their student loans faster. “If we can make it work, then we’re going to keep going as long as we can,” Mr. Gillespie said.

Mr. and Ms. Gillespie travel with High Sierra backpacks. Kailen has her own pack, too: a tiny one shaped like a bumblebee. They pared down their belongings to the bare essentials, although Ms. Gillespie did carry an orange Bebe skirt and Zara top around Italy all summer because she thought it would make for a great photograph in Florence (she got her shot and unloaded the outfit). “It was totally impractical,” she said.

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A nest egg makes such trips far less nerve-racking (just be wary of traveling somewhere like Monte Carlo and re-enacting that famous scene from 1985’s “Lost in America” when Julie Hagerty’s character loses it all at a Las Vegas casino).

Jessica and William Swenson are financing an 11-month around-the-world trip with their three small children through a mix of savings, inheritance, a severance package and the income from renting out their four-bedroom house with a pool in Livermore, Calif.

Last October, the Swensons set off for China, alerting local media outlets about their adventure. Mrs. Swenson, 34, a photographer, has an Instagram account and a YouTube channel called LetsAdventureSomeMore to document the whirlwind journey, and, perhaps, monetize it.

The family is traveling light, carrying only backpacks — even the children, Ezra, 8, Theo, 6, and Vesper, 5, have them — with a few changes of clothes. Mr. Swenson, 36, an accountant, bald with a full beard, wears a kilt. “He’s Scottish and loves the un-bifurcated life,” Mrs. Swenson said, speaking over FaceTime from an Airbnb in Bali, Indonesia. The family was waiting out a volcanic eruption, hoping their flight to Australia would not be canceled because of ash.

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Surprising Emotions

The Swensons embarked on the trip as a sort of lemonade-from-lemons move after Mr. Swenson’s job relocated, his mother died and the family’s live-in child care moved out.

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“We were like, ‘That removed all our obstacles,’” Mrs. Swenson said. But even though social media is accessible from around the world, they were also relieved to escape what Mrs. Swenson describes as “a general feeling of anger and bitterness,” that had descended on the progressive Bay Area in the months since Mr. Trump became president. “I’m not really political,” she said. “I try not to engage.”

Of course, sometimes people they meet abroad want to talk United States politics. This the Swensons deflect. “We kind of put the kibosh on it,” Mrs. Swenson said. “We’re here to be students, and not talk about horrible things.”

But not everyone who takes their life on the road does so to escape an unsatisfying one. Sonja Jernstrom, 37, and Chris Jernstrom, 36, left their home in Seattle in June to take a 14-month trip around the world with their two children, Ben, 7, and Emma, 4.

They’re driving through the Americas in a truck with a 70-foot camper before they head off to Asia, the Middle East and Europe. “It was an opportunity to take a midcareer break,” said Mr. Jernstrom, who quit his job in investment management; Ms. Jernstrom is a former environmental scientist. The family is financing their travels with savings and income earned renting out their four-bedroom house out on Airbnb.

Seeing Latin America has been eye-opening. When Mr. Trump was elected, “we both felt like, ‘Gosh, maybe we want to move to Europe,’” Mr. Jernstrom said from Chile. But “this trip has made me appreciate so much about how much we have in the U.S. It’s made me feel like I want to go back to the U.S. and make things better at home.”

Correction: April 14, 2018

An earlier version of a caption in this article misidentified a country the Swenson family visited in December. It was Indonesia, not Australia.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/style/moving-to-canada-jk-traveling-until-2020.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Whereas a fashion business class may teach students how to design and market a product based on demographic trends, Ms. Jung’s students explore the psychology behind consumer behavior. “We talk about perceptions and standards of attractiveness,” she said. “Where these come from and how we use them to judge others.”

The London College of Fashion offers what may be the field’s most comprehensive academic program. In 2014, the school introduced graduate programs in applied psychology in fashion and in psychology for fashion professionals. Last year, the school started an undergraduate major in the psychology of fashion.

“The fashion industry speaks so much about memory, problem solving and nostalgia,” said Carolyn Mair, who founded the programs and now runs a consulting firm. “And yet in the industry, these psychological concepts lack academic rigor and training.”

Ms. Mair gave the example of sustainably produced clothes. Brands have been good at raising awareness of the issue, she believes, but not at influencing our purchasing decisions. “If the fashion industry was to work with psychologists who understand human behavior,” she said, “they could implement scientifically based behavioral change programs” to influence what consumers buy.

Ms. Mair, a psychologist with a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience, is careful to call herself a “psychologist who works in the fashion industry,” because the term “fashion psychologist” isn’t recognized by any official academic or licensing body.

Ms. Karen has a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Columbia Teachers College, but she is used to skepticism. Some people think she made up her name for the attention. (Though she did drop her surname, Brown, during a modeling stint in graduate school, her mother named her after the designer Donna Karan and Dawnn Lewis, an actress from “A Different World.”)

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/fashion/fashion-psychologist.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“You heard it,” said David Shamouelian, the owner and C.E.O. of Romeo Juliet Couture. “There was power behind these triplets.”

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It’s not the first time multiple births have graced the fashion world. Identical twins who go by the names Cipriana Quann and TK Wonder appeared in a recent Kenneth Cole advertising campaign. In October the designer Jun Takahashi cast five sets of identical twins to close his show at Paris Fashion Week.

But triplets are rarer than twins, and for the past two years these sisters, 24 and living in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, have convinced multiple designers, television producers and filmmakers that their showcases will be better with their participation.

They have come down the catwalk for designers including Adrian Alicea and Andre Emery. They have appeared on “Good Morning America.” There is reality-show interest, they said. “We aren’t allowed to say who just yet,” Arianna said with a grin.

In September they plan to introduce their own feminine, but not too girlie, clothing line of denim and trucker jackets, jumpsuits and florals. They have a studio in their three-bedroom apartment, where they photograph themselves and other models and actors for extra pay. They also act and have appeared in a few short films including the popular video for Circa Survive’s song “Premonition of the Hex.”

Arianna is the stylist and designer, Andrea is the photographer, and Athena is the lead actress. But they almost always market themselves as one.

“There are a lot of pretty blond girls, but there aren’t that many triplets,” Athena said. “We should use it.”

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Many multiples try to differentiate themselves as individuals, but for marketing purposes this set is determined to be as identical as possible. If one of them wants a haircut, all must agree to get the same look. “I wanted bangs a couple of months ago, but my sisters told me they didn’t, so we couldn’t do it,” Andrea said. “They saved me.”

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They don’t always have to try that hard. The morning of the Romeo Juliet show they put on matching shoes, leggings and oversize sweaters without consulting one another, they said. The apartment is shared with Andrea’s cat, Arianna’s cat and Athena’s 55-pound dog. “The animals can tell us apart,” Athena said. “They know who their parents are.”

Since they were young girls, growing up in Hyannis, Mass., the sisters wanted to do things together. At 11 they wore shirts Arianna made out of old pillowcases to school. As seniors, they starred together in “Twelfth Night,” with Athena and Arianna cast as Viola and Andrea playing Feste, the singing fool. “Our teacher was so worried about how to give us all lead roles,” Andrea said. “He was so relieved when he found out I could sing better than them.”

After attending different colleges, study-abroad programs and graduate schools, they all moved to New York City to give modeling — something they had done for fun — a try professionally.

“Other careers were always something we could go back to,” Andrea said. “But modeling is something we can only do now. And it’s something I can do with my sisters now.”

And they have become more value as a threesome.

“We have done shoots with them individually, but the triplets is what makes a difference,” Mr. Shamouelian said. (Arianna also works part time as one of his assistant designers.)

“I don’t really know if I would have used them if it was just one because I tend to use models that are 5′9 and up,” Mr. Emery said. (The Levesques are 5-foot-6.) “But because they are triplets I knew I could be creative with them. I knew people would say, ‘Whoa, this is a new trend.’”

The triplets have a long list of bigger designers they want to model for, including Dolce Gabanna and Tom Ford.

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But there are downsides to the sisters working together, said Sara Ziff, the founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a New York City advocacy organization for models.

“Booking triplet models is a very specific choice on the part of the client,” she said. “I imagine it might be limiting for the models themselves if they are always sold as a package deal.” (The triplets respond by saying that they encourage each other to get big gigs on their own. It will only elevate all of them, they reason.)

Ms. Ziff also worries that the presence of identical-triplet models reinforces a notion in the fashion world that all models should look exactly the same. “It’s arresting to see people as carbon copies. With hair and makeup, models are often made to look interchangeable, and their individuality is subsumed by the brand,” she said. “Having the same DNA takes that to another level.”

Mr. Emery, though, dresses the triplets differently, with one in a robe for his debut, another looking like she was headed to a nightclub. “I want them to have their own individual style and taste,” he said.

And the models insist they don’t care so long as the clothes fit well and are flattering.

“The only important thing is that we are either all the same or all different,” Athena said. “I just don’t like it when two people are the same, and I have to be different. We are triplets.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/fashion/levesque-triplets-models-new-york-fashion-week.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

A 2016 study in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education found that the average American woman wore a size 16 or 18. Yet annual spending on larger-size apparel accounts for only 16 percent of the $112 billion market in the United States because the inventory was not available.

“We’re getting bigger, but the business hasn’t gotten bigger,” Marshal Cohen, a retail industry analyst at the NPD Group, said.

That has begun to change. Spurred by an underserved market, along with a heightened emphasis on inclusiveness in the fashion industry, new retailers are sensing an opportunity. E-commerce businesses that rent, as well as sell, larger sizes have grown. With some focusing on moderately priced clothes and others concentrating on the designer market, these sites are finding an eager audience. Social media influencers like Jordyn Woods and Tess Holliday and actresses like Rebel Wilson and Chrissy Metz have also raised the profile of this market.

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Retail giants are also expanding their presence in this market. In March, for example, Walmart acquired Modcloth, an e-commerce site that sold clothing in a range of sizes. Other e-commerce sites, like Stitch Fix, have also begun to offer larger sizes. But industry experts say large retailers lack the personal touch that shoppers seek.

“While Walmart and Amazon could be formidable competitors, this customer wants a company that understands her, and isn’t just selling to everyone,” Mr. Cohen said.

So some retail start-ups are trying to meet those demands. Christine Hunsicker, a tech entrepreneur, and Jaswinder Pal Singh, a computer science professor at Princeton, started Gwynnie Bee, a subscription-based clothing rental service.

“We became interested in apparel because of the size of the market and the need,” Ms. Hunsicker said.

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In the Gwynnie Bee model, women who wear sizes 10 to 32 receive regular shipments of clothing. Once it’s worn, no laundering is required; clients simply return the options to the company for a fresh selection. If the customer loves an item, she can buy it, Ms. Hunsicker said.

In contrast, Eloquii is a reincarnation rather than a start-up. The company was originally a brick-and-mortar retailer owned by the Limited, which, despite protests from a loyal customer base, shut down the brand in 2013, Ms. Chase said.

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The founder and chairman, John Auerbach, who has held a number of e-commerce positions, bought Eloquii’s assets from Sun Capital in 2013, including intellectual property and the customer list. Ms. Chase joined the same year. The company has already been through two rounds of venture capital financing, and now has backing of close to $40 million, Ms. Chase said.

Most of these businesses are focused on online customers, but some are experimenting with physical stores. Eloquii has opened three, in Chicago; Columbus, Ohio; and Washington. Two of them are pop-ups.

Most physical stores with plus-size apparel do not “offer a great experience,” Ms. Chase said, so Eloquii is focusing on fitting-room aesthetics and other amenities

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Gwynnie Bee had a pop-up store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan that “went really well,” Ms. Hunsicker said, adding that her company is trying to determine what role a store plays in its business model.

A bigger challenge for the companies is finding inventory. Designers have become more accommodating, spurred both by an untapped market and the desire to appear inclusive. But entrepreneurs are not waiting for manufacturers to make the first move.

New York Fashion Week, which officially began Thursday, offers an opportunity for these entrepreneurs to get noticed. Dia took out a full-page ad in The New York Times during New York Fashion Week last February, encouraging designers to look anew at the market with the line “Fashion she can’t wear is becoming a bit unfashionable.” The gamble paid off: Ms. Boujarwah said the ad had led to two new lines, one with Ms. Wilson, the actress, and the other with the designer Nanette Lepore.

Entrepreneurs are learning to be more flexible, too. For instance, Gwynnie Bee will add smaller sizes to its lineup after determining that designers would be more willing to work with it if it offered a wider range. The site, Ms. Hunsicker said, will include only items that are available in all sizes.

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Yet fabrication remains a hurdle for some. As a result, founders like Ms. Boujarwah of Dia, which counts Sequoia Capital among its investors, are designing their own products. Similarly, Ms. Hunsicker said Gwynnie Bee had, “for a number of vendors, taken on a lot of pattern design,” in addition to offering the site’s private label clothing.

“It’s their aesthetic and vision, and we’re helping to make it fit,” she said.

Many, but not all, of the sites primarily feature moderately priced clothes; as a result, those seeking designer apparel in larger sizes remained underserved. Enter 11 Honoré, which opened in August, shortly before New York Fashion Week last fall. The site was created by Patrick Herning and Kathryn Retzer, whose mothers wear larger sizes and often had difficulty finding higher-end clothing.

“We were adamant about building a luxury brand and bringing the best designers we could, including Michael Kors, Zac Posen, Badgley Mischka, Monique Lhuillier and Prabal Gurung,” Ms. Retzer said.

As they began formulating their idea, friends encouraged him to reach out to Kirsten Green, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist known for her retail investing acumen. They pitched their idea and obtained seed financing from Ms. Green’s firm, Forerunner Ventures, as well as from several others, for a total of $3.5 million.

Most of the companies do not yet offer intimate apparel, although Eloquii plans to offer lingerie in the future. To reach that market, Deborah A. Christel, a co-author of the study on women’s sizes, left her position as an assistant professor at Washington State University to start a company that would encompass all sizes for lingerie.

Ms. Christel said her company, Kade Vos, would begin selling next summer. “It’s my hope that one day, women’s clothes will just be women’s without referring to plus size,” she said.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/smallbusiness/plus-size-fashion.html?partner=rss&emc=rss