We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Claire Vandervoort a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Claire thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.
Voort Studio is all about going against the status quo and redefining boundaries.
Our name, ‘Voort’ means ‘Forward’ in Dutch, my mother tongue. Going forward, moving industries forward and stepping closer to your dreams is what Voort Studio is all about.
Starting with how the business was founded: I pursued a career in tech that had nothing to do with fashion. I never studied it, nor did I have any connections in the fashion world. The traditional path of a fashion designer is to work in the industry for a number of years before creating a label of your own. That didn’t stop me from creating my dream business when I was ready!
From founding Voort Studio to the creation of our pieces, doing things differently is integral in everything we do:
– We don’t follow the traditional fashion calendar. We believe clothes should be designed to be timeless, not trendy.
– Our Debut Collection features jewel-tones, no black. Everyone already has a bag in black.
– Lastly, despite all the advice I’ve received to create a crossbody strap on my handbag to make it more functional – I haven’t. The handle of the bag is carefully designed to be worn in hand or on the forearm. Making the wearer look most elegant and confident.
By not succumbing to the norm of the fashion industry, we hope to create a special space that helps us all forward.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
My name is Claire Vandervoort, I am the founder of Voort Studio.
I’ve always loved fashion, ever since I was little. I would cut out outfits from paper and tape them on my Barbie dolls.
I’m very fortunate to have a lot of fashionable role models in my life, my mother and grandmothers. They taught me about quality fabrics and high-end tailoring.
Personally, I never thought a career in fashion would be achievable for me. I’ve always been told it was ‘too hard to break into’. So I built a career in tech first. During the pandemic I picked up drawing again and realized that if I wanted to build my own business, now would be the perfect time. So I quit my job mid-pandemic and went for it. I figured I could use my savings to invest in either: the stock market, a mortgage or myself. I thought I’d rather be in control of my own future, so bet on myself!
I spent one year developing the brand and first collection, creating Voort Studio:
Voort Studio is a Belgian fashion label based out of Los Angeles. We combine the European elegance with the effortless laid-back style of the West Coast.
Our first design, the Elise handbag is inspired by the Antwerp Six and Jane Birkin:
– The Antwerp Six perceived themselves as rule breakers but with respect to the foundations of their craft. Our minimalistic style with the long tassels is a wink to this: a classic shape with rule breaking details.
– The Birkin Hermes handbag was originally designed by Jane Birkin to fit her very large amount of ‘essentials’. She wanted a handbag that was big enough to carry around everywhere and chique enough for all the events a woman of her stature attended. Voort Studio’s Elise handbag is similar, we designed it specifically to fit every modern-day woman’s essentials whilst keeping the shape and size luxurious to elevate every outfit.
I am very proud that our first collection is produced by the same craftsmen that work with Dior, Chloé and Loewe. And all our leather is the highest grade, Nappa leather from Italy. That is also carbon neutral.
There is a big gap in the fashion world today for new luxury designers. Most luxury handbags in people’s closets are only from a handful of designers, names we all know, logos we all recognize and patterns that were groundbreaking centuries ago. For an industry as creative as that of fashion, we sure buy a lot of the same things.
I hope Voort Studio can help change this a little, bring some new ideas to the table and hopefully some more creative pieces from different perspectives.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
I am so grateful and proud that my small business is able to work with such an incredible manufacturer. But it wasn’t easy!
My business could not exist without a manufacturer, so finding the right one took time and several steps:
1. Make sure you have all the right information to reach out to a manufacturer. You will need a tech pack and a good idea of materials that you want to use. Having this information ready shows the manufacturer that you know what you are doing, instills confidence in your business and increases the chances that they’ll agree to working with you.
2. Location: there are several manufacturing hubs for producing leather goods. Europe and China being two of the biggest ones.
I researched the pro’s and con’s of every manufacturing hub before making a shortlist of cities that I’d be open to producing my product in.
3. Once you have the cities that most manufacturers are located in, you’ll need to do some digging to find the company names of the manufacturers. Don’t stop at just one name, Have at least 10-20 and start reaching out to them.
I received a lot of No’s so make sure you have back-up options.
4. Once the conversation is started I recommend getting an NDA signed before sending your tech-pack to ensure your designs are protected.
5. Now you can start producing!
One key takeaway I learned from working with manufacturers is how essential they are to my business. They are the reason our quality is so good, our design is well executed and our details are so beautiful. I am more than just their client, it’s a co-dependent relationship.
I highly recommend that you foster your relationship with your manufacturer as your business relies a lot on them.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn was pleasing everyone.
So much of our upbringing and work life is about pleasing others. Pleasing others to fit in, to get a job, to get a raise etc.
It’s often easier to go with someone else’s preference on a task than to defend your own thinking. For example, your boss wants you to do a task a certain way. It’s easier to just agree than to explain your own logic and plan of action.
I was very engulfed in pleasing other people and attaching so much of my own happiness to what others thought of me.
When starting my own business, you don’t have a boss telling you what to do, what design to follow and why one color is better than the other. All my decisions are final.
This was liberating but also made me realize how often I found myself seeking validation for my choices. Asking friends and family their opinion at every hurdle my business faced.
Asking for advice so often made me see that they also didn’t know all the answers all the time and that sometimes their opinion or taste does not align with mine.
It made me realize something so simple, but so groundbreaking for me: ‘their opinion is not better than mine’.
Their opinion is not better than mine. In fact, as founder of this company, my opinion should be superior to theirs. As they affect the livelihood of my company.
A switched flipped in my thinking: I am not running my business to please them. I am running it to please me.
That’s not to say I don’t seek out the advice of others anymore. I still do! It’s just that I am now able to distinguish advice from opinion and from instruction.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.voortstudio.com
- Instagram: @voortstudio
- Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/claire- vandervoort-18024783/ - Other: TikTok @voortstudio