Kara Schwartz went from designing knitwear as a New York City fashion executive to building a shoe line from scratch on her home kitchen counter.
After years of commuting from Westchester to the city for her fashion career, Schwartz had foot and back pain from carrying different pairs of shoes for the walk to the office, the work day and evening events. “I was just constantly schlepping them back and forth,” said Schwartz, who lives in Yorktown, where she grew up.
Schwartz graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a specialty in knitting and began her career in menswear soon after. She worked with companies such as Ralph Lauren, The Apparel Group and Tricots St. Raphael. She would wear comfortable shoes to work ”” never sneakers, she said ”” and go through the day changing into different shoes that she brought with her or kept at her desk.
- Kara Schwartz holds the prototype of a pump in her Yorktown home office. Photo by Danielle Brody
About four years ago, she came up with the idea to create a comfortable, quality shoe that would be suitable for multiple occasions. She spent about two years prototyping, a process that involved molding and casting using clay, glue guns, sewing machines, mixing containers and chemicals on her kitchen counter ”” also known as “the lab” to her two sons ”” on nights after work and on weekends.
In December she launched Flop Girl, a line of shoes with interchangeable heel clips and clip-on accessories that make them wearable for different styles and occasions. Schwartz is in the process of changing the company name to Kara Mac.
Her full-time commitment to the shoe company started last year when she attended a three-day workshop with Daymond John, a fashion entrepreneur and judge on ABC”™s “Shark Tank.” A week later, Schwartz received a call asking if she wanted to meet John. She stayed up until midnight in the days leading up to the meeting, hammering molds and creating a presentation in a metal suitcase that came with her husband”™s barbecue set.
Last May, she met John in his office in the Empire State Building for what was booked in his busy schedule as a 45-minute meeting. It ran an hour and a half.
“The four words that made me quit my job the next day were, ”˜This can be huge,”™” Schwartz said of John”™s reaction to her business. She gave up a fashion executive”™s salary of nearly $300,000 a year.
John”™s team wrote her business plan and helped her find funding. Schwartz said creating the boots ”” and shoes and accessories ”” took bootstrapping. She said she drew heavily on her savings and took out an installment loan.
A few months ago, an old friend in Los Angeles invested in the company and joined as a co-founder and partner, Schwartz said.
Schwartz has patents pending for her design of the interchangeable heel system, in which horseshoe-shaped clips called “sole sisters” fit into the heels, and the accessories for the front of the shoe called “clipsters.” She hired an engineer to turn shoe models into digitized three-dimensional images. Schwartz said she spent about $60,000 to develop, engineer and build a rapid prototype using 3-D printing, apply for patents and set up the business structure.
For manufacturing, Schwartz worked with two agents who helped her find leather in a factory in Brazil that also produced shoes for Tory Burch and Kate Spade. The leather is high quality and is hammered so her shoes mold to women”™s feet in about two hours of wear, she said. She invested an additional $35,000 in the initial production order and shipment costs from Brazil.
The three shoe types currently for sale are the “patent party,” a ballet flat with a heel, the “smokin hot slipper” and the “Betty boot.”
“I live in these,” she said, gesturing to the Betty boots she wore under cuffed jeans. Grabbing a crystal sole sister and holding it up to her heel, she said, “This was my New Year”™s.”
- Shoe prototypes and accessories line a table in Kara Schwartz”™s home office. Photo by Danielle Brody
Accessories, which range from casual to formal, cost about $12 to $15, with the most expensive handmade jeweled clipster priced at $45.
She is prototyping a pump, a sandal with accessories that clip into the shoe”™s T-strap and bridal shoes.
Schwartz said the design, production and delivery of products to customers in her business is much faster than the fashion industry”™s traditional pace. “It”™s so different than the way I”™ve worked my entire career. Because we worked one year to one and a half years ahead of time to design, merchandize, style, price, sell, so on so forth.”
Doing all aspects of production is also a change for the former fashion executive. She taught herself to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. “For all those years that I worked in the fashion industry, I had assistants to do all that stuff for me,” she said.
Schwartz sells directly to consumers online and on Etsy, an e-commerce site for handmade goods. She recently put some merchandise in Beehive, a designer collective boutique in Mount Kisco.
She gives other women the opportunity to host trunk shows to sell her products. She supplies the products and the women keep a portion of their sales earnings. More than 11 women have hosted parties, and more are joining, she said.
Schwartz has also sold her products at trade shows. At the Massachusetts Conference for Professional Women, she said she reached her desired audience of women who often travel for their work. “I could not run my credit card swiper fast enough,” she said.
Schwartz works from her home, which serves as her office, design lab and fulfillment center. Her inventory occupies the back half of her kids”™ playroom.
Schwartz”™s long-term goal is to open a store on Fifth Avenue where women and children can design and build their shoes on site. It would be like a Build-A-Bear Workshop for shoes, she said.
“They”™ll come home and the dad will say, ”˜Did you make a purchase?”™ And they”™ll go, ”˜We didn”™t just make a purchase, we made a memory,”™” Schwartz envisioned, with a sweep of her arm.
