YOUTH CORRESPONDENT
Everyone wonders how life would be if they could only come up with that one brilliant idea that nobody else thought of. A machine that toasts your bread in seconds; a small piece of paper that you can write down notes and stick in places to remind you later; prepackaged water in a bottle; Velcro!
How about an Internet company that groups together all the leading hip-hop fashion labels and makes their clothes more accessible to consumers?
That's exactly what Ed Foy Jr. and his wife, Jennifer, did. The young couple saw an opportunity to bring urban fashion to the masses and they grabbed it, fed it and raised it.
Now they are the proud parents of a 4-year-old company: eFashionSolutions.
Ed and Jennifer started eFashionSolutions with only $3,000, and turned their company into a multimillion-dollar venture. The tag team represents just about everybody who's anybody in the hip-hop fashion world--from J.Lo to Rocawear, Baby Phat to Applebottoms (that would be Nelly's line), and even the infamous Members Only.
That's right: Members Only is still pushing out those jackets that your dad used to wear (or still does).
"It's the same damn jacket. It's the hottest-selling jacket in Manhattan right now. It's the retro--it's Urban Outfitters' No. 1-selling outerwear piece," says Ed.
The Foys carry a roster of approximately 15 fashion labels.
Mix business and pleasureEd Foy Jr. got his degree in finance from Iona College. Jennifer Foy graduated from Berkeley College with a degree in fashion marketing and management.
The two met up as execs at Calvin Klein Jeans before striking out on their own.
For a lot of couples, working together can be extremely stressful and in turn yield poor results--"Gigli," for instance--but the Foys find a way to make it work.
"I guess because we've always worked together it helps a lot. It's the foundation to our relationship--we started dating when we worked together at Calvin Klein," Jennifer says.
"It's definitely not easy. I know it sounds corny, but Jen's strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are her weaknesses," pipes Ed.
Being college graduates, Ed and Jen respect the discipline of the educated individual--but recognize that a paper in a frame doesn't mean everything.
"I think my college degree most helped because it got me a job. A lot of what I learned in college could be considered useless," Ed reflects.
"When I interview people to come work for us, I don't feel that a college degree is the most critical component of coming to work for us. But if there's a position opened and it's neck and neck, a college degree is going to win over--because more important than anything it shows sacrifice," says Ed.
Still, the degree alone isn't going to ensure success in the fashion or marketing industry.
"Unfortunately the degree doesn't keep you the job--it might get you the job. But if you put in some work ethic, forget about it--you can take on the world," he points out.
From cK to hip-hopSacrifice is a term that Ed and Jen have come to know exceedingly well. Starting an e-commerce business with only three grand at a time when e-commerce was thought to be dead in the water doesn't exactly inspire confidence from potential investors.
"It was very, very difficult. We had to find the right employees who believed in our vision and would work for less than market salaries. At one point we had employees not taking paychecks at all," Ed recalls.
"A few employees got ownership in the company in exchange for sacrificing paychecks. It's an amazing accomplishment--but I wouldn't want to do it again."
Jennifer Foy works very closely with the labels that eFashionSolutions represents. "There are certain brands that I work very closely with," she says. "Baby Phat--I work closely with Kimora Lee Simmons, who's Russell Simmons' wife, on a monthly basis. She's very involved in the Web site and how it looks, the models we choose and creative aspects of it," she says.
Unfortunately, not every celebrity can be as involved in their product as Kimora Lee Simmons.
"For J.Lo," says Jennifer, "she's never sat in a meeting--but she views our work. We work through a third person."
But what made the Foys focus on the hip-hop community? Wouldn't more money be made in high fashion?
"Jen really saw the pop culture in the hip-hop culture taking over mainstream America. She saw it as a void in the marketplace," Ed explains.
"We look at the [market] as everywhere between New York and California. Prada looks at the [market] as California and New York.
"I'm interested in what the person in Minneapolis wants to wear. How many people are buying Prada? Not a lot of people."
Someone who doesn't know better might just say that Ed and Jen Foy are lucky to have what they have. That person obviously knows nothing about the fashion industry.
In a time when Target is pimping noted designers like Isaac Mizrahi, and Todd Oldham has sold his soul to La-Z-Boy, starting a fledgling business can be extremely risky and ultimately futile.
But the Foys are optimistic. After all, their projected sales for 2004 for were an estimated $25 million. "You've got to have passion for what you do," Ed says. "If you want to get to the top, you've got to love what you do."
BASSEY ETIM-EDET is a student at Northern Virginia Community College.