Before COVID-19 hit, Christine Callahan and Samantha Brody,
founders of
Ella & Oak, a company that focuses on bridal fashion for
plus-size women, opened their first pop-up showroom on West 29th Street in
Manhattan. Word-of-mouth spread quickly. The boutique shop, which showcased
designers offering sizes 12-32, was busy. One-on-one hourly appointments were
filled weeks in advance. Partnerships with other stores were being offered.
Designers started approaching them rather than the other way around. The
business had netted more than $20,000 in revenue in their first month.
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“We were doing better than expected,” Callahan, 36, said
from her home in Charleston, South Carolina. “We thought we had finally helped
solve a problem in the industry: that plus-size women who have little options
and have long been ignored, especially in bridal, finally had a place to go
where samples fit, made by designers who understood them.”
Then came the pandemic.
“We shut down the showroom and watched the world crumble,”
Callahan said. “Brides were still contacting us for appointments, and we
couldn’t take them. That was heartbreaking. Then weddings stopped.”
By mid-May, Ella & Oak was in trouble. Fundraising was
canceled. Their business model based on customers doing in-store shopping
became nonexistent, followed by the realization that COVID wasn’t going away.
“As a startup, we needed to show proof points and that our
business model worked,” said Callahan, who, along with Brody, 34, had used her
savings and money from friends and family to start the business. “COVID
canceled our fundraising plans and our ideas of what the business looked like.”
Summer brought more bad news. Four in-store pop-up events
planned on the East Coast during the spring were canceled. Custom orders became
impossible to fill. Cash ran out.
“We met with our advisers at the end of June and decided the
only way to keep our mission alive — helping plus-size women feel beautiful and
confident on their special day — was to focus on our private label and
wholesale,” Callahan said. “We didn’t have the capital for marketing, but we
were lucky because we didn’t have employees or W-2s or even a lease. Keeping
the label gave us the option to move forward. But we would have to let go of
the store.”
That also meant letting go of a business partner.
“I was working directly with brides and re-imagining the
plus-size bridal experience,” Brody said. “When they decided to do only retail,
there was no need for my focus or expertise, which is e-commerce and consumer.”
Brody left the business in June, and in September, she found
full-time employment as a brand developer for a spirits startup. “We put our heart
and soul into the business,” she said. “It was hard to see that go. But I
understood the need to do it.”
Callahan, refusing to give up on the brand, stayed put in
South Carolina and searched for manufacturers. She also set up meetings with
retailers, stores and boutiques.
“It’s been hard, not a lot of wholesalers work with
plus-sizes, and not a lot of stores want to invest right now, especially in
plus-size bridal,” she said. “Plus-size women have been forgotten about, again.
They are the first thing to be cut. The Loft is getting rid of their plus-size
division to save money; that’s not fair. It became even more important to move
forward with this label.”
Callahan needed to get a full-time job, and in November, she
became director of operations for the Geyser Group, a real estate investment
company. “It’s the first time I went back to work in two years,” she said.
“It’s hard not to get a paycheck. At some point you have to eat.”
Callahan and Brody are not alone in the sea of
wedding-focused businesses that are closing. Designers especially have been
forced to thrive on a diet of determination, desire and drive.
Before COVID, Rebecca Schoneveld, 38, who owns
Rebecca Schoneveld Designs, had a store in Brooklyn with 16 employees. She
operated two 4,000-square-foot studios. Within months she was forced to close
her shop, retain only two staffers, find a smaller studio in Irvington, New
York, which was only 800 square feet, stop production and work from home.
“I started my brand in Brooklyn on Etsy in 2010,” said
Schoneveld, who lives in Pleasantville, New York. “I was not going to close. I
was going to survive this, even if it was me doing everything.
“Making dresses was my joy,” she added. “I spent the year
reflecting and turning my focus to making beautiful, one-of-a-kind dresses out
of scrap material, appealing to a higher-end customer, and one-on-one
connections with my clients.”
Schoneveld’s husband tended to their two children during the
day, including kindergarten Zoom, giving her room to work. The result was a new
collection, a partnership with Kleinfeld Bridal and a new store expected to
open in June in Irvington.
“I feel like I survived a fire,” she said. “I grabbed the
parts I loved the most, and I rebuilt with those. I feel clarity I haven’t had
in a long time and more connected to my business. I regained my love for
design. I feel personally connected to this new collection.”
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