A mother-daughter duo is transitioning their specialty clothing business from a company that sells at specialty boutiques to a pop-up shop that entertains guests at parties and gives female entrepreneurs a crash course on starting their own businesses.
The original concept behind Ava Gray Direct was to market a multipurpose brand of clothing for women of various age groups.
“We started this line originally because we wanted something that was fashion forward but comfortable,” Lynn Zachos, CEO and founder of Ava Gray Direct, said. “We created this line so that women could transition from the office to lounging at home in the same clothing. I was that woman with an office at home and an office outside the home.”
Zachos started her business in 2009 by asking her daughter Brittany to help design and sell clothing at high-end boutiques. Without a storefront, the business partners avoided the costs of a brick-and-mortar business altogether and built an online presence instead. This year, the company generated enough revenue to transition to its new pop-up shop model.
The company chose three women from Mount Kisco, Peekskill and Pelham who want to start their own businesses and about 100 “independent stylists” who will work with them from across the nation.
“We use the model of Mary Kay, and we”™re the type of company that sets up women in their own fashion business,” Zachos said.
Each woman purchases her own startup kit, which includes samples of apparel, traveling clothing racks and the business supplies including flyers to market the brand. All the clothing and undergarments are manufactured in the U.S. The company provides the technology and software to set up a pop-up shop, and the fledgling storeowners get their own personalized e-boutique Ava Gray website to manage their own software system, place orders and keep track of their customers. Ava Gray manufactures and carries the inventory for these budding stylists in a warehouse.
“Most of the ladies work full-time jobs and do this on the side as an extra income,” Zachos said. “The start-up costs for a stylist to have their own pop-up boutique can range from $199 to $699. They would have a store for under $1,000.”
With 30 states involved in selling Ava Gray products, Zachos said there”™s still room for growth. She said one of the biggest sources of revenue are the fashion parties that Ava Gray organizes, at which stylists come to women”™s homes or office spaces and display all the merchandise in a room, essentially a big walk-in closet. Then one by one, the women can try on everything and decide what size, shape and color suits them.
“The average we make from these parties are $700,” Zachos said. “Our stylists make about $85 and up to about $240 an hour. A stylist averages 25 to 32 percent in commissions and can receive bonuses of 2 to 7 percent.”
The clothing designs work for the chic teenager and the fashionable senior who enjoy keeping up with the latest trends, Zachos said. She added that working with her daughter allowed her to design clothes using jersey-knit material that caters to customers ranging from college students and young professionals to teachers and 60-year-old retirees.
“Our cuts, styles, patterns and designs are flattering to women in their 20s, 40s and 60s,” Zachos said. “My daughter and I are the dual design team, and we make sure our pieces work with all these different ages and descriptions. We contribute to two different generations and together we”™re conquering multiple age groups.”
Zachos said “Ava Gray” suits her because she wants her company to represent an independent woman who gives off the “classic Hollywood vibe, wears 10 hats, dresses comfortably on the go and conquers it all.”
Zachos said she hopes to expand her business throughout Westchester.
“Westchester is a great area for this kind of business,” Zachos said. “I would love to see it grow because it”™s a fashionable community with lots of business-minded people.”
