Henri Bendel Open See in New York City

Ahhhhh, the Big Apple! The fashion capital of America! If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere…! Against the advice of a very successful designer who had already gone through the process, I hopped on a plane to New York so that I could get up at the crack of dawn and stand in line in the freezing cold for my chance to be seen by the buyers at Henri Bendel in their bi-annual Open See event.

The jewelry designer that I had been in touch with had previously gone through and been selected in the Open See process. She explained that after you’re selected, you’re actually asked to come back several times for your collection to be “tested” during their trunk show events. This is fine if you live nearby but if you have to fly over from the west coast each time (which is the case for both she and I), it can get quite costly. Furthermore, Bendel insists on taking a very high percentage of your sales during the trunk shows forcing you to raise your prices and in turn potentially lowering the volume of sales that you might have had. If you survive the trunk show process, you will then be invited to have a counter or station within their 5^th Avenue department store but you will be responsible for recruiting, managing and paying to staff your station and Bendel will of course continue to take their lofty cut. Not to mention that this would be a logistical nightmare for a company that is not based in or near Manhattan.

However, she is a jewelry designer and I’m an apparel designer, I thought. Maybe things might turn out differently for me, better somehow? So against all good sense and logic, I went anyway. I got in at around midnight and planned to be up by around 5am the next morning (which turned out to be more like 6am) and ended up taking my place in line, along with my gargantuan suitcase full of samples, just after 7am. By then, the line of hopeful, starry eyed designers had already wrapped around 56^th Street and onto 5^th Avenue. Everyone had an arm load of highly guarded samples of their work. Most were jewelry designers with more manageable bags but some even came wheeling their garment racks. The line continued to grow and within about 10 minutes after my arrival, the line wrapped around past 5^th Avenue and onto 55^th Street. I thought I came rather well prepared, bundled up in several layers under my Cashmere Classic Trench and ballet flats. I kept a pair of super hot leather boots with a 4” heel (which I was not about to stand in line with!) for me to change into along with swapping out my trench for my more eye-catching Cashmere Kimono Cape once I got closer so that I looked a little more fashion forward for my presentation. My trusty, although super heavy, suitcase doubled as a place for me to sit while waiting and shivering. Even though I heard and shared a lot of great stories with my fellow hungry, young designers in line, the wait still seemed like an eternity. But luckily for me, I managed to get inside just before it started to rain. Zoinks! The one thing I forgot to pack was an umbrella!

Once inside, I had to lug my big ‘ol suitcase down a set of very narrow and very steep stairs. They do have elevators, but appeared to take great pleasure in not allowing any of the designers to use it, forcing us instead to haul all of our wares down and up the stairs. I was then given a number and ushered into a waiting room where I had the opportunity to warm up and swap out my shoes and coat. About 10 minutes later, my number was called and I found myself standing in another line behind what appeared to be a very well prepared local NY designer and her garment rack full of gorgeous suiting! For the first time, I started to feel nervous. The suits that were hanging in front of me were so beautiful! They appeared to be very well made, very nicely tailored, very Armani-esque. More importantly, her presentation was impeccable. Everything was pressed, and hanging flawlessly on the rack. In her arms, I saw a set of beautifully printed and bound line sheets. I on the other hand had printed my line sheets off of my $99 inkjet printer just before I left for the airport and all of my samples were wrinkled from being stuffed into my suitcase. I didn’t think I stood a chance against her. Thoughts of fleeing crossed my mind. But no, I had come too far to not see this through!

I tried my best to listen in as carefully as I possibly can over the noise of all of the other conversations going on around me as the designer ahead of me approached the Bendel buyers and made her presentation. Part of me was so excited for her as a designer, even though I didn’t know her, as I was sure she and her beautiful suits would be chosen by the buyers. The other part of me was dreading having to go immediately after someone who was so much better prepared than me and was afraid that she would make me look bad. To my surprise, I watched the buyers cut her off a few seconds into her presentation. They explained that her work was too “classic” and just isn’t the look that they’re after. My heart sank for her as I watched her struggle to navigate her garment rack full of beautiful suits around the tight corners in the room, down a set of steps and the around the corner where she would have to somehow get that rack up the same super narrow, super steep flight of stairs that we all had to take get here. Then my thoughts turned to myself… “ If even she, with her impeccable presentation couldn’t get selected, then how could I stand a chance?” I thought as I approached the buyers table. Not surprisingly, I received the exact same reaction from the buyers who stopped me before I could pull my second garment out of my suitcase. They said that my look is too “classic”, too “sophisticated” and that they were looking for items that were more trendy. They were very polite, absolutely not condescending, but I still couldn’t help walking away feeling very dejected as I awkwardly kicked my giant suitcase to the side to make room for the next designer and struggled to put the only outfit I was allowed to show back in. Yes, I too walked the walk of shame dragging, with all my might, my giant suitcase up that very narrow and very steep staircase.

As I stepped out of the building around 11:30am, even the weather seemed to reflect my mood. I had to remind myself t be thankful that although I would have to make my way around Manhattan in the rain without an umbrella for the rest of the day, at least I didn’t have to wait helplessly in it all morning like all of the designers who came after me and were still waiting in a line that wrapped around the block. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking! I had been given sound advice that the Open See wouldn’t be a good use of my time, after all. The truth is, even if I had been selected, I would have been forced to turn it down anyways, given my location, as it absolutely would not have been feasible for me to fly back and forth with all of my inventory for their trunk shows. I guess I just wanted the chance to be able to tout that I was “chosen”. To make things even worse, I got a call later that afternoon from my son’s school saying that he fell and bumped his head on the playground, has a “golf ball sized” bump on his head and was asking for me as a result. “But I’m in New York!” I said to the school administrator, feeling full of guilt, as she asked me to come right away. So instead of staying the next two days in Manhattan, like I had originally planned, attempting to show my samples to various boutiques in New York and catching up with my girlfriend, I hopped a cab back to JFK and waited for over 12 hours to get on a flight back home as a standby passenger. As my luck would have it, because of the rainstorms in the area, many flights were cancelled, and the flights that were not cancelled were overbooked and delayed. An appropriate ending to my Open See experience… Sigh! I was exhausted and guilt ridden the entire flight back home.

On the bright-side, by the time I got back, my son was back to his usual happy self and could barely remember that he bumped his head so badly even though the evidence was still there. My quest for validation did teach me that it’s ok to not be able to please everyone all the time. I have no intention of changing my design direction and becoming more “trendy”. If I try to please the Bendel buyers, I would only end up loosing all of the loyal clientele that I had already built. After all, the Asian aesthetic is intended to be classic, sophisticated, timeless and absolutely not “trendy”.

(To see all of the behind-the-scenes photos from the Open See along with all of our other albums, checkout the Far East Living photo gallery at www.fareastliving.com/gallery.)