It was Thursday, September 6, 2012 when Laura Smalls received a voicemail from her mother that would ultimately have fashionistas and fashion bloggers alike frenziedly Googling her name.
“I think Michelle Obama has your dress on!” her mother reportedly gushed, having spotted the FLOTUS in a full-skirted, printed aubergine dress with a bateau neckline as she watched the closing night of the Democratic National Convention.
Smalls, who wasn’t home at the time, contacted her husband. “Take a picture of the TV!” Fashionista.com reports she told him. “My head was spinning.” Suddenly, Smalls had been catapulted into the mainstream on a very big stage.
The private designer expressed to theGrio via email of the heady moment, “I am highly honored and truly blessed that our first lady has chosen to wear my designs,” but wouldn’t say more about the process that led to her creating the custom piece for Mrs. Obama, citing “the utmost respect that I have for the Obama administration.”
In spite of the overnight spike in her brand due to national attention, Smalls is not new to the fashion industry.
In 1976 she graduated from the Parsons School of Design, promptly sold a small spring collection to Bloomingdale’s and Henri Bendel — and then nothing. In the season that followed, Bloomingdale’s opted not to buy her subsequent collection, and a new buyer had replaced her contact at Bendel’s. “I couldn’t even get an appointment,” Smalls told the Huffington Post.
Sobered by the experience, Smalls turned her attention to being a wife, raising her three children, and working as a staff designer. She spent the bulk of her career designing outerwear at Amerex Group, which owns the Jessica Simpson, Jones New York, and Nicole Miller lines, among others. Ultimately, Smalls rose from assistant designer to design director. “[Amerex] had become like family,” she said.
Ironically, it was the historic year that President Obama was elected the first African-American president of the United States that Smalls again took up her sketchpad for herself. With her children grown, Smalls began designing one-off pieces.
She was wearing one of her own designs at a gala event that Vogue’s editor-at-large André Leon Talley also attended. Talley’s interest was piqued to say the least. After showing him a few sketches, the influential fashion personality suggested that Smalls show at New York Fashion Week.
Talley does not get enough credit for the role he has played in bringing sunlight to young and unknown designers. His push has also brought attention to emerging designer Mimi Plange who has also dressed the first lady, collaborates with Manolo Blahnik, and recently was named “Designer of the Year International” during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in South Africa.
Of Talley, Smalls told theGrio, “[He is] a very discerning and a tough critic. He has an incredible eye and memory and will give his honest opinion if something needs to be corrected, or suggest how to make it better. Mr. Talley is one of the most brilliant and iconic people in the fashion industry today.” She added, “I would not have had the courage to pursue this dream of my own collection, if it had not been for his encouragement to try.”
The collection of thirty cocktail and evening dresses she created for New York Fashion Week, presented with piano accompaniment by none other than Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson fame, was well received. As she slowly built a following of high-placed fans, Smalls transitioned from solely designing outerwear for Amerex to going into business for herself.
“I still have a relationship with them,” Smalls explains, grateful for Amerex’s support, as well as her husband’s, when she decided to venture into executing her own line. Managing a new start-up has had its challenges. “The process has been both exhilarating and daunting,” Smalls admitted, “with so many issues as a businesswoman to take into account from finance, to shipping, manufacturing production, managing people to work with you, etc. It has not been easy, as for many small design firms starting out.”
For this reason, Smalls is less concerned about what celebrities are wearing than she is about growing her core customer base — though she does list some celebs whose personal style resonates with her own. “Zoe Saldana, Marion Cotillard, Halle Berry, Kerry Washington, [and] Angelina Jolie,” are a few names she shared of women who would likely be at home in her designs. Smalls added about her target customer that, “she has a level of self-confidence and, I believe, a shared aesthetic either [with] a color I chose, a fabrication, print, or a silhouette that I am presenting.”
Smalls’ aesthetic is classic with a retro sensibility, extraordinary details, and whimsical flourishes. Inspired by a mix of design legends and more recent fashion icons, she counts Dior, Vionnet, Balenciaga, Matsuda, and Azzedine Alaïa among her biggest influences. “When I see someone’s work I admire, I truly study and absorb the execution of it. I loved Romeo Gigli’s work years back, how he mixed color and pattern and textures. His silhouettes on top of that were always a bit odd, but sooooooo gorgeous!”
Her diverse tastes resound with a diversity of women. “Fortunately, I have attracted a customer base with a broad age range and demographic, which I love. Case in point: Kourtney Kardashian,” she told theGrio, referring to the September 2011 issue of InStyle in which the reality star was photographed wearing a Smalls design she had purchased.
Smalls has experienced the high of selling her first collection as an ingénue designer, the disappointment of temporarily abandoning her personal design dreams for the security of a 9 to 5, and the elevation of having none other than the first lady wear her designs. Yet, for her it always comes back to the customer. Looking back on the many years she spent juggling responsibilities as a wife, mother, and designer, Smalls believes it gave her “an element of practicality.”
As she begins to conceive her Fall 2013 collection, Smalls has no hints to share just yet. “I am just starting the process… so I think it will be a surprise to me as well.” What will she say? “I am feeling a bit more tailored and elegant direction this time!”
Whatever the direction, Smalls reverts to her core design philosophy. “Even though designing starts with a dream… it has to work for [a] woman.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of the novel Powder Necklace. Follow her on twitter @nanaekua.