We recently connected with Anna McCraney and have shared our conversation below.
Anna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I have been a designer and a pattern maker for 20+ years, having graduated with a degree in Apparel Design in 2000 from the Rhode Island School of Design. I spent many years designing and selling my first like, Annabelle NYC, as well as working as a head designer for companies like Dolce Vita and Amanda Uprichard. Patternmaking was a crucial skill for me to have, because the cost of outsourcing that service was high for me as an independent designer, so over the years i really honed my skills. In 2013, I started to do freelance pattern making for other small designers, and word spread quickly. I then realized that not only could I offer that service, but I could use my network of sample sewers and factories to create a full service product development firm geared towards small designers like me, specifically made in the USA, sustainable, and fair wage. Development and production for apparel is a daunting and complicated process, and our team really focused on educated the client as well as walking them through the steps.
Anna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Blank Canvas Development was born in 2013, when Anna decided to pivot her business and apply all the skills she had picked up along the way to assist other young start ups and new designers. Her positive attitude, guidance, and industry experience allowed her to build up loyal business to business relationships, encourage sustainability, and promote American manufacturing. In her product development services, she offers her clients 20 years of industry experience, a designer’s perspective, practical advice, a common sense approach, and patient education in an overwhelming and dog eat dog industry. Her long relationships with her factories allow her to negotiate fair prices for her clients, and her clients can rest assured that the details of both development and production will be managed appropriately, with great quality control, and fast turnarounds.
Today, the Blank Canvas production office is in Brooklyn, New York, allowing staff quick and easy access to New York’s best sewing rooms, factories, and fabric sourcing, and allowing clients to communicate and execute their ideas remotely. As of 2018, Blank Canvas has opened a second office and retail store in Savannah, Georgia, which serves as the basecamp for the pattern making and development end of the business. The showroom showcases her work, and her employees’ and clients’ work, as well as serving as testing ground for new ideas with the public. By actively employing and training graduates of the Savannah College of Art and Design in the art of pattern making and the inner workings of an industry that is largely closed off to beginners, Blank Canvas is contributing to a renaissance for production and manufacturing in the United States, making the industry more aware of its impact on our environment and economy.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
In the summer of 2009, I had toiled her way through Bravo’s brand new fashion design competition, “The Fashion Show” hosted by Isaac Mizrahi, and found myself walking away with a 125K prize and bragging rights to reality TV survival and domination. When asked if I was worried that the fashion industry wouldn’t take me seriously because I had participated, I laughed and said, “It’s fashion, it’s not supposed to be serious!” And that is just it, I wanted to have fun, and she wants to do it for a living.
What the half-million viewers didn’t know when they ultimately decided my fate as winner, was that the effortless and flattering, bold and flirty designs that solidified her win, were rooted in her past and present, successes and failures. My designs incorporate history, art, and music, three things she believes hit an emotional chord for people, and she translates them to her clothes through fabric, color, and smart, detail driven design. My connections to the art world through my time at the Rhode Island School of Design, collaborations with DIY collectives like Fort Thunder and Space 1026, and cutting edge printshops and galleries such as Forth Estate and Halsey McKay, keep me inspired by the world of fine art, that in her eyes, perhaps, has a more pure connection to the self. On the flipside, my professional life, spent as a teacher, buyer, and head designer for brands like Dolce Vita, gave me that connection to the girl she designs for that every designer must have. In my life before Bravo, I was a dive bar debutante in downtown New York and Brooklyn. I designed collections as homage to the B-52’s and had her models assume wrestling personas and battle each other in a raucous upstairs Thai boxing studio on Walker street with a line around the block.
Every experience led to the next, and gave me the experience and the love of the craft that I now pass on to others.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I literally started Blank Canvas with no money. I had a two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, and I decided to build a loft in the hallway to create a small sleeping space, and put the two bedrooms on Airbnb. That allowed me to pay my rent and fully focus on starting my business, gain new clients, and work full time for myself, project to project. Slowly but surely, i built a team, and in 2018, I moved to Savannah, and expanded, opening a studio and boutique arm of the business in 2021.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blankcanvasdevelopment.com
- Instagram: @blankcanvasdevelopment
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blankcanvasdevelopment
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdrnNPb0jXJ82Rds06hAi4Q/featured