We were lucky to catch up with Franne Golde recently and have shared our conversation below.
Franne, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
For as long as I can remember I’ve been in love with fashion. I would go downtown with my grandmother and look in all the department store windows on State Street in Chicago. We’d walk through elegant stores like Marshall Fields and Carson’s and look at all the beautiful clothes. At this point all my clothes were bought for me, but I wanted to pick out my own pieces and would fantasize about what I would buy and how I would style it.
In my teens, rarely satisfied with how clothes looked on me, I was never without my scissors, needle, and thread to adjust them to my liking. I was always looking for something that made me feel good, secure, and confident. I’d find something I liked and that would become my uniform.
When I was fifteen years old I came across a pair of black hip huggers. From the moment I tried them on and looked in the mirror I was in love. Those pants made me look and feel exactly how I wanted. I remember buying about half a dozen pair over time–that was a lot of saved allowances. I wore them till they were threadbare. It was the first time I realized that feeling like I looked good gave me confidence, made me feel powerful, and could change my mood.
Going forward to my adult life, in 2011 I was shopping at a sample sale (one of my favorite pastimes) when I spied a pair of black pants. I was always looking for that perfect pair of black pants. I slipped them on in a makeshift dressing room. I got that feeling again, like when I was fifteen. I loved how those pants made me look and feel. They weren’t perfect, but there was something about them. I brought them home, got out my scissors, needle, and thread and started tweaking until they were basically unrecognizable. I realized I needed a pro to help turn my vision into reality.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was on the way to creating my very own perfect black pant. I had no idea where to start, but I knew I wanted a pant that went up to my waist, was a little higher in the back so that when I sat down I didn’t feel like I had to pull them up, was smooth through the hip and thigh, and had no side seams to add bulk. I wanted a pant that held me in comfortably and made me feel and look great! I had no idea how difficult it would be to develop the perfect fabric or how much goes into creating the perfect fit, but at this point I was obsessed. After many hit and misses, tweaks, frustration, elation, discouragement, and more frustration I finally did it. I had my perfect pair of black pants. I was ecstatic, yet that was just the beginning.
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 back background and context?
I started out in the music business as a singer/songwriter and recording artist. I was nominated to the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 2022, and I’m a Grammy-nominated and award-winning songwriter. My first worldwide hit was with Diana Ross, who recorded “Gettin’ Ready for Love” in 1977. Over the years my songs have appeared on records that have sold more than 100 million copies, working with such superstars as the Commodores, Whitney Houston, Selena, Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen, the Pussycat Dolls, and Jody Watley just to name a few.
After thirty-five years of penning hit songs and winning numerous awards, I launched FranneGolde.com in August of 2016. The Franne Golde brand became known for creating “the perfect black pant,” which was dubbed “the Magic Pant” by O, The Oprah Magazine in January 2017.
What sets us apart from other brands is our fit and reliability. We are always working to create the best in basics and easy to wear styles, and perfecting the fit is key. I’ve always loved classic, easy, comfortable clothes that become my uniform–my go-tos–and that’s what I want for my customers. I want to help them look and feel great, like the best version of themselves, the moment they slip on my clothes.
I’m very proud of our small but mighty team of women who wear many hats and love what they do. You can’t buy that kind of investment and enthusiasm. I’m very grateful.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The biggest pivot I’ve made is from being a full-time songwriter to owning my own fashion brand. In the early 2000s, the music business was going through significant changes due to the digital distribution of music through both legal, online music stores and illegal file sharing. Everyone was trying to figure out the new paradigm. At the same time, my husband, a record producer, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. I’d also been contributing to school fundraisers for my son’s school with music memorabilia, but had run out of favors to ask my industry contacts.
I asked the school if I could host a boutique in their gym. I loved fashion and lots of moms would ask where I got something I was wearing; at one time or another all my friends ended up in my closet playing dress up. I never threw anything out, so I had clothes from many decades and many places. I loved dressing my friends and they would borrow my clothes, but most of the time I’d just give them whatever they liked.
Little did I know at the time, that the school fundraiser would turn out to be the beginning of FranneGolde.com. I went to many sample sales and downtown wholesale shops and did what I love: shopped! I pretty much sold out of everything. I soon started getting calls. “My friend saw the tee-shirt I bought from you…” “My mother-in-law saw the scarf I bought…” And so on. I ended up getting more clothes at sample sales and eventually started designing what I thought was a perfect black pant. I had lots of ideas and through many trials and tribulations managed to make several samples.
I made a bedroom in my house into a small boutique. My friends and their friends would come by to shop and try on my samples, which I had no idea how to produce in greater quantity. The reaction was fantastic, and this was something that fulfilled my creative juices and excited me. It was just what I needed to distract me from the reality that I was losing my husband and my best friend, going through what they call ambiguous loss, and my lifelong career at the same time. I was truly depressed but found slivers of hope and joy through my new obsession. I clung to those slivers, which at times seemed to slip through my hands, and I manifested my fashion brand.
Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?
The only “business” I ever sold was my music catalog. Again, it was in the same period that my life as a songwriter was changing and my husband was diagnosed. It was a bit of a rash decision that sometimes I regret, but in the world of uncertainty I was living in, it was an option and would bring in the money that I’d need to care for my husband.
I went with my gut. I only sold my publishing rights, not my writer’s royalties, and that made me feel like I still had a toe dipped in my beloved music career. I was beyond sad to sell my babies, but knowing I still had a share in them eased the pain, Bottom line, as I look back, it was the right decision at the time, and best of all I made a lifelong friend who is like family to me, who played a big part in finalizing the sale and putting the deal together. Priceless!
Fast forward to a little over a decade and one of the things I LOVE about songwriting is that you never know what can happen when you put a song–or for that matter, anything–into the universe. Toward the end of 2022 I got a call from a friend and diehard Bruce Springsteen fan telling me that Bruce had just recorded a new album of classic soul songs called Only The Strong Survive and my song was on the album. “Nightshift,” one of my favorite songs, turned out to be one of his favorites too.
I think selling or letting go of any business is hard, unless you’re a tycoon! I know for me FranneGolde.com is my baby, I know the work, time, blood, sweat, tears, and care that everyone involved puts into it and what it’s taken to grow it. I can imagine selling the business at some point way into the future, but for now my partners in crime and I are having the time of our lives nurturing our baby!
Contact Info:
- Website: frannegolde.com
- Instagram: @frannegolde
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frannegoldeclothing/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franne-g-208395a/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/frannegolde
Image Credits
Suzanne Teresa