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A few days ago when watching the 1968 film ‘Barbarella’ with Jane Fonda in the leading role, I jokingly commented that the designer of the actor’s futuristic costume could be Paco Rabanne. The film ended, the credits rolled, and – unbelievably – so did the name of Paco Rabanne. I was surprised by my own accidentally accurate guess, although I must also admit that the splendid and effective costumes by the designer are hard to forget. The word “fashion” is often associated with something unusual, artistic and ethereal, and along with this comes a false impression that it is similar to a natural phenomenon. “Some think that coats fall from trees,” says Baiba Ripa. I meet the designer in her workshop, which is simple, without an exclusive fit out. Daily work is underway: the fabric has been mistakenly delivered to Lithuania, not Riga, and a discussion is being held via Skype with German partners – Baiba speaks fluent German. Later she will say that without the willingness and ability to speak two or three foreign languages there is not point even beginning her work. Baiba Ripa has lived in Germany for eight years – in Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, where she studied at the Academy of Art. In Riga she has worked as a television producer and interior designer. Her first fashion collection was released in 2005. Presently her brand ‘Baiba Ripa’ is being actively promoted in markets outside of Latvia. “It is incredibly time consuming, incredibly expensive, incredibly risky, and incredibly interesting,” emphasises the designer. Her team is not large: the work is done with only a couple of people, not including the local subcontractors. “We have to work continually and on a very tight schedule, because time is moving on and the foreign market is so saturated that people are lining up behind you and pushing past. I feel like I’m in a metro station, where I have to get on a train and then get off again. After all, we are all tough in this regard, we are used to pushing our way onto full trolleybuses, and the feeling is exactly the same – “me, me, take me!”
THE BEGINNING
Baiba: The beginning is probably different to that of others. Everything started accidentally, trying to find materials for a few home textile items, combining various fabrics, looking at them and thinking of the possibilities. First came decorative cushions, which were sold in a few salons, and they were followed by skirts. It was like a test, because I did not have the intention of becoming a clothing designer. The first time I considered clothing as merchandise was in the Berlin fashion week. The skirts I had created interested people, and the responsiveness of buyers was impressive. I had to work more seriously with this design merchandise – I had to position it in the market, set a price. That was when I understood the kind of pond I had jumped into, because many questions appeared, about which I had no idea. I tried to understand, research and find answers for myself – what am I doing and why am I doing it? I concluded that to make this and that, now and then, was not possible. If I wanted to take this trade seriously, then it meant two collections a year. There are two directions one can take – you can create collections to be sent to competitions, and in this case it does not really matter if it’s two collections a year or one, because the aim is to compete in specific events, to win competitions, to demonstrate your idea. With the other direction – you create two collections a year, adjusting them to suit the market. You can sell them at markets, offer them to the client yourself or sell them in shops; you can send them outside Latvia, where everything is precisely defined and you don’t have to think: you just need to know for which market the item is intended, and you have to take notice of the relevant market constraints. The creative part is small in relation to all the rest, although it is also very important. If you were to draw a diagram, everything would radiate outwards from creativity, the whole conglomerate which surrounds it.
It was a long process, not just one day, for me to learn to see and understand the holistic picture, because here in Latvia, we work in a different way, and the brand ‘Baiba Ripa’ was only created in 2008. That didn’t change anything in the broad sense, except that now we have a clear concept – the result of our work is an item, a designer item which is not just a piece of clothing, and the market niche in which we are trying to be and which we are trying to conquer, is designer clothing. You cannot create or sell a product in which you don’t believe, and you still have to study the market, have to understand how it is organized, where you are located, and what you are like. A simple comparison – you dig potatoes out of your garden, clean them, pour them into designer bags, wooden boxes or into a basic wheelbarrow, go to the market, find a corner and start selling. Everyone has potatoes, they have been sold here for years, although there is always some kind of new offering – blue ones, green ones, packaged ones, small ones, peeled ones, vacuum packed. The situation here is similar, although fashion is more complicated and it is not enough to intuitively understand things.
LATVIA
Baiba: Latvia has practically no market, it is too small. We have a lot to learn, because we are far from the market we could have. Those who understand that their only chance at survival is learning, and that success can only be predicted after a few years, because the process occurs in the long term, join hands and try to withstand things. Speaking of fashion education – for some reason in this country we have forgotten that design is an industry, which is associated with manufacturing, sale and marketing. It is not just a prototype – where will you put it? If the designer works in their workshop in Berlin, there is usually an opportunity to buy their products throughout Berlin. If the designer works in Riga, there are opportunities in Riga. A designer from Berlin has no particular need to come to Riga, however, for us working in Riga, we need to get to Berlin and after that, even further. Designers in Berlin complain that they are at the very edge of Europe, where nothing is happening. What can we say about Riga? At least we have a lot of room for experiments – everything we need in order to start and achieve something. We have clients and shops; we have this and that, only it is a very, very small market. Latvia is not the only country which is separated from the centre of Europe, there are many like this, for example, Finland is in a similar situation – do you know any Finnish fashion designers? If the product is successfully positioned, no one cares where you come from.
PRICE
Baiba: The price of an item is not imagined, it is not even a price for an artwork, it is something very concrete – there are hours, metres, technologies, patterns, marketing and other factors. The number of copies also plays a role – one, ten, or one hundred. The bigger the market, the more I am able to sell my product, because the price is also relatively more accessible. Of course, in high fashion houses big pricing games are played, and if the consumers would educate themselves a bit more, they would understand that they are paying huge sums of money for nothing. However, with regard to designer clothing prices are comparatively adequate, because clothing is not made in large amounts.
SPECIAL ORDERS
Baiba: We don’t promote special orders, because collections are important for our trade mark, and we hope to sell them. Nevertheless, if someone wished something special, the price is one level higher. The cost of these orders is very high, because we know that it won’t have a turnover, each item must have an individual pattern, individual fittings and individual construction.
Agita Klauss, Baibas Ripa’s partner: Take a simple cashmere coat, for example. Shops sell it for two thousand euro, and the buyer is happy. In turn, if a client comes to a designer, they are ready to pay, for example, 350-400 lats. Because they have bought three metres of this valuable cashmere fabric, which costs 60 lats per metre, therefore they have already spent 180 lats. Tallying the expenses and comparing them with the price of this coat in London or another European city, you understand that they are saving at the expense of Latvia’s designers. Sometimes it seems that they think these cashmere coats with the label Dolce & Gabbana have fallen from heaven!
Baiba: Everyone wants to survive and earn something, including designers who fulfil individual orders. Without the knowledge of how a price is constructed, they actually end up paying their clients.
Agita: We also work with individual clients, but in each instance we try to avoid having any costs that the client wouldn’t cover.
Baiba: Yes, we have to get by somehow, therefore we try to be open and discuss things, and we don’t send the client away three houses down, although this question is touchy: unfortunately there are many people who are involved in the field of fashion who don’t know the basic things. “Why is it so expensive?” – “You also know how to sew, don’t you? If you do, then full steam ahead! We all know how to sew, definitely every second person does, why do I have to fork out a lot of money for this?” Quality! Unfortunately there is another sad fact at play. There is an unusual amount of people, I would even dare to say, an abnormally large amount of people – and I am emphasising this, because it is the bitter truth – who can’t tell the difference! Well, unless there’s a label... but “ah, there’s no label?,” and that’s it.
Agita: After a client pays a visit once, twice, they begin to notice the difference. We become users of top quality products through our experience.
Baiba: We don’t want to get up on a podium and announce something, because, firstly, we don’t have time, and secondly, we have other goals. At the same time we are learning a lot, gritting our teeth, because in the foreign markets there are specific price categories into which an item is included or not included. If you lack the specific knowledge, you have no chance, because it is not possible to present something and say “This costs one thousand!” – “Yes? Great – but I’ve got no more time!” The sum has to be substantiated, everything has to be organised.
THE FUTURE
Baiba: A brand is not carved in stone: it is changeable, with its own philosophy. We really hope to make use of the knowledge that we are gaining now. Because it is valuable, and unfortunately, even though we have excellent experience and a lot of contacts, we are located very far from the epicentre, therefore we must actively elbow our way in and search for a place for ourselves. This is not just a question of knowledge or money; it also depends on luck, as well as on dry calculations and a “spot on” plan. We can see positive nuances and we feel very competitive, but the amount of work – oh!
Anda: Then you do have an optimistic view?
Baiba: Optimistic, of course!
Agita: You can’t achieve anything if you have a pessimistic outlook.