LabelHorde/AFF True Story continued

continued

At this point, we were starting to wonder…did we really have the supportive, friendly, cohesive community that we had thought we had? We were beginning to hear stories of "other" local designers who purposefully chose not to be listed in LabelHorde and stories and gossip and strange opinions and uneducated guesses about what we were. We heard everything from "Oh, I’m anti-LabelHorde" or "LabelHorde designers are really snobby and cliquish" to "LabelHorde is for young artsy designers and not upscale enough for us" to "LabelHorde designers are too commercial and upscale and not underground and artsy enough" We didn’t understand how anyone could be "anti" something that was created just for them! Something that was for the entire community to use and was created without asking for anything in return except cooperation; something that was created from our hard work, sweat and tears for everyone’s benefit. The only thing we had to gain was the same thing everyone else had to gain from it….a functioning fashion community to work in. And we didn’t want people to think of us as "The LabelHorde Designers". We wanted to just be a directory where EVERYONE would list their info so we could all network with each other. It wasn’t supposed to be some kind of society or secret group of special people.

It was disappointing to us to hear gossip and although it is human nature and there will always be those who choose to hate rather than aspire to be understanding and helpful, giving human beings, it is still hard to accept when it is directed toward you personally. We had been working for over a year to simply provide a resource for anyone and everyone working in the local fashion industry to use to contact each other. How had it turned into something that anyone could find to gossip about or criticize or choose not to be a part of? We had reached out numerous times trying to explain our intentions and make public our obstacles in the hope that this honesty and policy of openness would help. Yet, things continued without change and human nature took over and more and more people were choosing to make drama out of something that was intended to be beneficial to everyone. We were getting pretty tired of the drama, gossip and uneducated assumptions about us and the directory we had created for EVERYONE.

This is when we made the decision to start charging people to be listed in the directory and to discontinue printing the physical magazine/directory and go fully online instead, in order to cut costs. We hadn’t been earning any salary or taking any profits from the business so far, and were starting to take offense to the above mentioned drama. This is when Daisy chose to discontinue her involvement and I was left to make the decision whether I should continue LabelHorde alone, sharing the contacts, resources and publicity that I had worked so hard to acquire or quit LabelHorde and go back to utilizing it to my own benefit and success like I had before LabelHorde. So I did some soul searching. And it just seemed so selfish to have all of these press contacts and contacts with stylists and models and other designers and not share them. That is why I started LabelHorde in the first place. I thought that even though we were experiencing some obstacles, we had seen way too much progress to let it all go. Designers who had once thought they had to give up their design careers when they moved to Arizona were now successfully creating, showing and selling their merchandise. Boutiques had begun to carry numerous local designers’ work. Student designers were interning for more experienced designers and feeling motivated and excited about a possibility of a fashion career even in a state with out a fashion industry per say. Designers, models, stylists, and boutiques were getting tons of press which was resulting in increased sales. And the coolest part… we were hearing literally hundreds of stories and testimonials from people who were continuously thanking us for providing them with these contacts and the information and resources that they needed to start or grow their business. The thought of quitting was just not an option. But the only way to raise the money that we needed to continue to stay in business was to charge people to be listed in the directory.

That is when Rhonda and Joanna generously joined the partnership and took on the responsibility of trying to keep the organization going. Both women had worked closely with us as part of the community and had taken on volunteer roles to help better the organization in the past. They each had great things to offer, a lot of drive and believed in the goals of the organization. Together, the three of us came up with an entirely new way to raise funds while still achieving the ultimate goals of the organization. First, we wanted to set up Arizona Fashion Foundation in hopes of achieving non-profit status and attracting donations. Unfortunately, this is something we are still struggling to achieve to this day, as it has been difficult to find the time, funds and correct information on registering properly. We need help with this badly.

Next, we knew we were going to have to charge membership fees to be listed in the directory in order to afford to continue. Although we were not going to have the expense of printing the magazine anymore, we still had the usual administration expenses of operating a business. We also thought that we could possibly take this organization to the next level if we did it right and maybe even raise enough money to actually pay ourselves a salary for the work that we would be doing. If we could get paid for our time, we could afford to quit our day jobs and dedicate even more time on making the business grow. So, we did some intense planning and wrote a very thorough business plan that included financial expense and income projections and what we would need to do to achieve them. We decided that we would offer different levels of memberships. This way, the cost of being included wouldn’t be a deterrent to those that financially struggled. We didn’t want anyone to suffer financially or this would defeat the entire purpose of the organization in the first place which was to help others make it in this business. So, we came up with a plan where we would offer different benefits with each membership. The memberships ranged from $50 for a simple name and contact information in the directory to $200 for name, contact info, photo of merchandise, inclusion in any highly publicized show we did, their own feature story on the website and in a partnering printed publication, discounts to events and more.

Last, we chose to offer many, many other services, hoping that these would be other ways that we could gain income. We had contacts with manufacturers and vendors for things like screen printing, labels, printing, web designers, and more. In addition, we offered our services for a fee. We had become recognized for organizing many of the valley’s largest and most impressive fashion shows and were constantly being approached by organizations who wanted us to collaborate on events with them. So, we decided to charge for event organization services, including promotion, coordination, runway rental and we even put a price on finding designers, models and stylists to participate with the intention of being able to pay participants in any show that we were contracted to organize. All of this would be supplemented with the income we were still hoping to get through advertising sales with the hope that businesses would be interested in advertising on our website.

Well….we worked hard to make this all happen. So hard that now not only was I working over 40 hours a week on this, now three of us were working that hard and often pulling 80 hour weeks. We reduced our hours at our regular jobs and even quit some jobs because it was too much to handle. But, we had confidence that LabelHorde would be able to sustain us and we were willing to dedicate as much effort and time as it took to make it happen. Even our friends and family and other volunteers and members of the community were working unbelievably hard. Many services were donated and discounted by various businesses and individuals who really believed in what we were doing to. These were the things that kept us going….The positive feed back and the growth of our community and the success of many of our goals in the business plan. But, we were still unsuccessful in selling advertising and all of the goals we had were just requiring more time in the day and effort than was physically possible. We were making ourselves sick, passing up life changing opportunities, ignoring our families and literally forgetting about sleep and our own physical and mental health by spending hours stressing on the business. And at the same time, as things were progressing and there were more and more people who were benefiting from what we were doing and were showing their appreciation and making sure we knew that we were doing the right thing, there was still that small percentage of the population that we kept hearing about who were unsatisfied with our efforts or who were still "anti-LabelHorde". And while we had always known that its just "par for the course", and "part of the territory" and "human nature" and that "you can’t please everyone" and that "not everyone’s going to like you", we still felt deeply saddened because we were trying so hard to do something good for others. We didn’t even have the satisfaction of it at least being financially worth while because we still had not been able to pay ourselves a salary. And the person who took the most of the criticism was me. I was the "face" of LabelHorde. Eventually, Joanna moved to New York where she is currently trying to get a footing in the industry as a fashion stylist.

Rhonda and I kept on trying though. We knew that it commonly takes 3-5 years for most businesses to turn a profit. Unfortunately, we simply were unable to financially continue the way we had. Our initial business plan had included the fact that we would sell advertising and be able to sell many more memberships than we had. And although we were proud of what we had built and had made amazing progress, getting well over 150 memberships, it was simply less than what we had planned for and much less than what we knew the potential could be. We didn’t know what was stopping those who had chosen not to get a membership from getting one. We knew there were hundreds more hair stylists, makeup artists, models, photographers, designers, seamstresses, bead stores, sewing machine repair shops, boutiques, designers and other fashion professionals out there, we just ran out of ways to help them understand the benefit of working together. And we were simply out of options to try to figure it out anymore. I was personally dipping into my own savings to pay the bills of staying in business. The only other option was to make a last ditch effort to ask everyone for help. So, that’s when we called the big meeting and told everyone that we either had to discontinue LabelHorde, or we needed to get creative and think of something else.

The turnout for the meeting was quite sad. In a state with one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S., where there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of people and businesses that should be working together, who could be benefiting from having access to each other so easily from a simple directory, there were less than 50 people who attended the meeting.

And just when everything seemed to be at its lowest point, there was a light at the end of the tunnel….or what appeared to be. A writer from the New Times named Joe Watson contacted me and wanted to write a cover story on me and the local industry and on LabelHorde. He said he was always hearing so much about it and wanted to get the real scoop on things. He confessed that he had a preconceived idea of what he thought he would find when he met me. He expected me to have that stereo typical snobbish, fashionista attitude. And he admitted that he found just the opposite. He also admitted that my story and my personality and the feedback he got from the people he interviewed about me was all way to sweet for a New Times cover story. He wanted something more controversial. So, he told me that he was going to dig around and that I should just tell him anything negative that he might find. I didn’t mind this because I have nothing to hide. I have always been honest and had good intentions and any negative opinions about me have been drawn from people who don’t take the time to understand my intentions or my willingness and openness to share everything I have and my willingness and eagerness to work together. I figured he would just hear the gossip that so many other people already know….which is about that store that I mentioned earlier. The store had once carried my line along with the other designers in town and one day called me in and told me to take my merchandise back out of the store. I left in tears after trying to figure out why and pleading for them to reconsider. I tried numerous times to work with them, asked them to carry our directory, and even listed them in the directory for free, but no response. Ironically, I had even come to the store that faithful day, with the intention of featuring it as our first featured boutique in the first issue of LabelHorde.

So, this being the most "juicy" gossip I figured he would find, I welcomed the thought of having it finally uncovered and answered for me. I thought this would be the worst thing that he would find. I had also told him that we’ve heard of people that have been anti-LabelHorde. People that apparently don’t understand the benefit or purpose of what we are doing; who think we must have ulterior motives; who are drama queens and stand aside and judge us for "trying to make something out of nothing" and criticize our every move; even though they don’t have the ability, drive or guts to do it themselves. But that there are plenty of people who get it and have invested their time and effort along with us to making things happen. He told me he would investigate these stories and ask around and that he would get back to me on what he found. He said he would let me respond to what he found so I would have my say in the story too. I told him that there isn’t really anything that juicy and that the real story really lies in the struggles and the obstacles that we face to unite the disjointed fashion community in Arizona with no capital and with the barriers we often face from negative nay Sayers.

This writer led me to believe that this story would be truthful and unbiased and that it would include negative things that were found in his investigations, but that it would be balanced with my opinions, background, efforts, and struggles. To my dismay, this was not the case. Instead of letting the reader know that the opinions expressed in the article are actually the opinions that I had told him that I had heard other people say about me, like how I’m a self promoter, etc…, it is written in such a way that makes it seem like these negative qualities are actually his opinion from the research he found. When I asked him why it is so biased and why he didn’t let me have my say like he told me or at least give me some credibility by including my background or my awards, he told me that his editor took that stuff out because it was irrelevant! This surprised me because for some reason, they felt that covering a bar fashion show that I had nothing to do with, which wasn’t even a LabelHorde event, mentioning my "hippie parents" yet leaving out the history behind my grandparents and also mentioning my weight WERE relevant. Then to top it all off, when they received countless letters to the editor in support of me which greatly outnumbered the few letters from the negative nay Sayers who do not support me, they once again made an unbalanced representation of me by printing more negative letters than positive supportive ones. It seems that the writer and editor of the New Times found it more interesting to contribute to the unnecessary drama of the situation rather than to portray the real story worth telling.

Fortunately, during the time that the writer was doing his research, there was suddenly a lot of interest from the community to help keep LabelHorde going. Many people signed up for different committees to help take on the many responsibilities that Rhonda and I were already doing every day. (BTW, to sign up for a committee, please contact Angela@labelhorde.com) These committees included everything from writing stories for the site and the partner publication to coordinating events and helping with administration work as well as everything in between. We were really happy to see that, although the turnout at the meeting had been poor, there were still many more people willing to help by signing up for a committee. We are still in the learning curve for this and its going well but we could always use more people.

And at the same time as we started to have a more positive perspective on things with so many people beginning to show interest in helping to keep the organization alive, the New Times story was released. We had been excitedly anticipating its release in the hopes that the article would tell the real story behind the organization to encourage more people to join…The same story I have just repeated here….The same story I had told the writer over and over. Yet, what we found was that the writer had chosen to ignore everything we had told him, and instead chose to focus on one thing…. which was the fact that despite our intentions and hard work, there were people out there who were anti-LabelHorde and anti-Angela Johnson for one reason or another. He took this one idea and stretched it into a poorly written, controversial story because he needed to make it worth putting on the cover. He admitted that it was his first big promotion as staff writer and needed to impress. When we read that article, we were shocked, saddened, and totally disappointed to say the least. It seemed that we had finally made a step forward and this writer had no qualms in toying with our progress by portraying us in such a way that we feared would take us a step backward once again.

The article was full of false statements, unbalanced and biased opinions, slander, and just an overall negative portrayal of the Arizona fashion industry with LabelHorde to blame as the cause. It was like, (as one supporter wrote in) blaming Art Link for First Friday becoming an excuse for under age kids to get drunk and roam the streets of down town PHX till 4am. It took pot shots at me personally and the writer chose to make it appear as if he had a negative opinion on the entire industry and me as a person and as a business woman even though the he was telling me right before the article came out and after it came out that he really liked me and wanted to be friends. He even told my business partner he wanted to find a way to make the very show he was bashing in his article one of the events listed in the "Best Of" issue! And he wanted to buy an "Anti Joe Watson" shirt. So, while we were hearing how much he loved us from his own mouth, everyone else was reading what a poor opinion he had of us.

The fortunate part of the entire experience was that although the article was negative, it was so poorly written, and so pointless, that most people saw through it and we ended up getting an overwhelming response from both, people who had no idea there was even a fashion community here and were now excited to join in, to people who were already part of LabelHorde and are now feeling the need to band together and prove this article wrong.

The worst part of it for me personally was much of this was at my expense personally. In the following two issues of the New Times, the editor, Rick Barrs, chose to include more letters from people bashing me and the local fashion scene than from people supporting me and the local fashion scene even though he received a significantly larger number of letters supporting me. Once again, the New Times chose to take the lower road and reported their findings in an unbalanced manner. And the letters they chose to print were very upsetting to me personally. They chose to take shots at me personally and physically. The writers, Toby Zealous, Lua Rae, Tilda Matheson and Nat Tobias in particular had never even met me or worked with me personally and probably don’t even know the true reason I started the organization. Yet, they chose to publicly humiliate and make fun of my physical characteristics and personality without any consideration for the feelings of another human being. Tilda goes so far as to call me a fat ass that was beat by the ugly stick. And a statement like that, (which is actually kind of clever…I do have a sense of humor, but it was so mean and unprovoked) which does not pertain to fashion or my professional abilities is obviously directed out of anger. I actually feel bad that I have angered someone so much and want to reach out and offer my friendship to them. I do not deserve this much of anyone’s emotional time. And all I’ve ever wanted to do is offer a resource for people like Tilda to use to find other contacts which will make her business grow. How that deserves a bashing like she gave me, I’m not sure. I’m not testing on animals or releasing hazardous waste into the atmosphere. I simply want a common directory for all of us to use so we can all find each other and use each other’s services. I was also told that a local designer named Galina, who I have always admired, respected, spoken highly of and defended when others have spoken negatively of her, and have gone out of my way to include in SMoCA shows and other events even called the writer to thank him for writing that article. And my mentor Dennita, couldn’t think of one nice thing to say about. When cornered, she said "she sure does get a lot of press". Yet, I have done as much as I possibly could to gain her respect and admiration. And Lua who criticizes me for not being as meticulous of a seamstress as her teacher (who should be ashamed that a student of his would represent him in such an unprofessional way) by saying that her teacher has made clothes for first ladies and can knock off a pattern perfectly, doesn’t understand the basics about Target Markets and the different types of markets there are out there. I wouldn’t make clothing for first ladies because it is not my target market. And I feel really sorry for Lua because she is not getting the information that she needs to be a well rounded fashion student and is also apparently being spoon fed negative things about other designers instead of learning the benefits of networking, which is the first thing they teach you in design school. These things are all things that can be solved if everyone chose to work together instead of acting like the stereo typical, catty, fashion professionals that most people think of when they think of fashion. Students like Lua can get a better education so they know what they are talking about, nay Sayers like Tilda, Nat and Toby won’t feel so much hostility toward other people in their own industry and will learn to see the benefits of working side by side and helping each other out and all of us can get our jobs done easier with access to a directory. I don’t think I should be the one to hog up all the resources and contacts. I have contact information for hundreds of fashion professionals in town and I just want to share it with everyone. I don’t see how that deserves such a bashing.

I don’t think fashion professionals need to be catty and dramatic to succeed in fashion. I have built this organization on the same qualities and ideas that I was raised to believe in… and that is to

∑ help other people,
∑ always be kind to others,
∑ share the wealth and success
∑ be honest and
∑ treat everyone equal.

And everything about this organization is based on those ideals. And any person that can live with themselves after treating a fellow human being the way that the writers of those letters to the editors or the gossipers in town have treated me, needs to take another look in the mirror and re-evaluate their own choices and values in life. This has nothing to do with fashion… but, when you are forced to look back on your life and the way you treated others one day, are you going to be happy with what you see?

I make an effort to be a giving person who is also forgiving. I am also willing to work harder and longer than anyone around me to achieve my own goals and I am more than willing and I am always excited to help others achieve theirs if they want to join in. I love to share the opportunities that come my way with anyone who wants to join in…And the more the merrier. I am asking for the friendship and partnership of the Toby’s, Lua’s, Tilda’s and Nat’s, or those who have formed a negative opinion about me or LabelHorde without meeting me or trying to understanding my intentions and the goals of the organization, and anyone who has decided not to join us and get a listing because of an ego issue. I know the saying goes "you can’t please everyone", but I don’t understand why you can’t. How can anyone be displeased with a simple directory?...A simple, common, friendly place that can be utilized by everyone to make it easier for all of us to do our jobs? If everyone working in fashion in Arizona decided from this point on that they would put aside egos, opinions, assumptions and expectations and just work together, our community would grow faster and we would all benefit from the added resources this would create.

So, that is my story…in all it’s truth and honesty. The point to the story is that you can love me or hate me or think I’m a horrible designer or a good one. You can call me a self promoter or a loud mouth, but you can not criticize me or LabelHorde for trying to simply make it easier to work in Fashion jobs in Arizona. There isn’t anything negative or controversial about that. There is now no reason to be "anti-LabelHorde". And if you know someone who is, please do the rest of us a favor and refer them to this article. We have created a directory and that’s as simple as it gets. It’s for EVERYONE to use and for everyone’s benefit so we all don’t always have to turn to L.A. or NY to do our jobs. And if you can accept the concept of the directory, and are willing to move on to the next step of working together and helping and supporting each other, we’ll be here. Come to the forum and say Hi.