Designs on success

Designs on success.

Despite an early setback, the determination to succeed has paid dividends for this clothing designer's All Lit Up boutique and fashion business

Vareenun Chalermpanth's dream was to become a fashion designer with her own brand name. She opened her first boutique shop, and after only a few days disaster struck.

Seven dressmakers - her entire staff - walked out.

They all were relatives, and teamed up to quit after she accused them of bringing their own jobs to work and using the shop's accessories.

"At the time, I panicked. I worried that I could not meet deadlines with clients," she recalls. However, she recruited some more dressmakers the very next day. They proved to have better skills than the old team and, since they came from separate backgrounds, they were also easier to manage.

It's an incident she can now recall with a smile.

Vareenun graduated from Chiang Mai's Payap University in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in human resource management. She married a Thai architect working in the United States, and moved to the country the same year.

After living in the US for five years she returned to Bangkok in 1990 and opened a small shop at the Imperial Shopping Centre at Lat Phrao to sell a variety of imported fashion goods, including garments. She also became a design consultant for her relatives and close friends, as a sideline job. It was a service she began offering to her customers.

Seven years ago, Vareenun opened All Lit Up, a boutique and fashion design shop, in Lat Phrao's Soi Senanikom, following encouragement from a growing number of customers.

However, she soon realised that she was ill-prepared, particularly in her in-depth knowledge of fashion designing. So she went back to school to learn more about basic design.

"I learned the correct way to draw and design garments, which allowed me to offer better suggestions to my customers on design choices," she says. She also learned that an important problem is convincing customers that a particular design will make them look good - and, ultimately, convincing them to wear it.

Vareenun's initial investment was only about Bt50,000, due to cheap rental costs. However, she has now bought the building and plans to renovate the shop.

Despite the fact that All Lit Up is a small design shop, it offers a wide variety of fabrics and accessories, both imported and locally made. Garments are made according to customers' demands, including leather jackets and overcoats.

Vareenun and a group of friends who also own boutique shops now buy from major cloth and accessories manufacturers in countries such as India and China. This allows her to match the variety of fabrics on offer at larger businesses.

She prefers to design smart working suits rather than elegant dresses. Moreover, she aims to promote Thai silk to international markets through her designs.

She is also an enthusiast for "cowboy" styles, and some of her design accessories are inspired by the "country" culture of the western US.

The shop has attracted many foreign customers, including Thais who live overseas who have learned about All Lit Up by word of mouth.

However, Vareenun's current problem is a lack of marketing knowledge. She is looking for an expert to manage the shop's marketing system.

"We have to focus more on marketing strategies to increase the number of customers," she says. "We haven't been concerned about it before because we've been focusing on design."

At present, the shop generates an average income of Bt200,000 per month to cover the cost of six dressmakers and other expenses. Vareenun wants to increase the monthly income to between Bt400,000 and Bt500,000.

Her customers are mainly working women aged 30 and over, and her prices start from Bt1,500 for a skirt and trousers (including the cost of fabric), Bt2,500 for a suit, and Bt4,000 for an evening dress, depending on the details.

All Lit Up promotes its designs in fashion magazines, and Vareenun also took part in this year's Bangkok International Fashion Fair. However, the event coincided with the September 19 coup, so feedback was below expectations.

She also plans to join a group of designer friends to jointly open a boutique to sell all their fashion designs. The strategy will create a one-stop shopping service for customers to choose from a variety of brands to match their preferences.

"We don't worry about business conflicts because we all have different design characteristics and also focus on different groups of customers," she says.

Achara Pongvutitham

The Nation
Thursday January 11, 2007