LEZÉ THE LABEL || Comfortable, Sustainable and Functional Workwear for Women
Businesses that exist to address a pain point are often the more successful ones.
In the case of LEZÉ The Label, co-founded by Karen and Tanya Lee, the duo decided to come together to build a company focused on delivering comfortable, sustainable and functional workwear for women. Throughout their careers, they had spent way too much money on uncomfortable (and expensive) workwear and believed that women deserved a better alternative.
Since the brand was established in February of 2018, the road has not been easy for this ambitious pair, who have recently been named by BC Business as recipients of their Top 30 Under 30 Award; there have already been bumps in their entrepreneurial journey, such as a factory fire, a ravaging typhoon descending upon their warehouses, and at one point, over 100 angry customer emails per day.
How have they managed to forge a path through all of these obstacles and come out stronger on the other side? We had the pleasure of chatting with this dynamic team to learn more about how they got started, who helped them out, and what they are committed to for the business’ future plans.
P: Pendulum Magazine
L: LEZÉ
P: Can you tell us a bit about yourselves before starting LEZÉ the Label?
L: Before starting LEZÉ, Tanya and I took on diverse career paths, exploring multiple roles and eventually coming together through the wedding industry. Tanya had a wedding decor company, I had just launched a proposal planning business, and we both co-founded a wedding planning stationery company as well.
P: As mentioned in your story on the website, it all started with a phone call about comfortable work clothes. Tell us about that (rude) phone call from Tanya that started everything. What was said on that call that triggered the two of you to embark on the adventure to build LEZÉ?
L: Tanya called me one day and excitedly told me that she was inspired by my "just got out of bed" style. At first, I was like, “Well, that’s rude. But go on.” Because it was true. I was known amongst my friends to wear pajamas in public – and it wasn’t the fashionable, silky kind. It would be a full set of cotton Superman jammies.
Following the call, we thought to ourselves: what if we could create a line of clothing that spoke to the comfort and freedom of today’s working woman?
That’s when the adventure to build LEZÉ really began. We were motivated to introduce a collection that catered to the lifestyle of every working woman that felt like pajamas and had anti-wrinkle capabilities (who has time to dry clean?). All the while, it was important to plug in sustainability.
P: Walk us through your journey from having LEZÉ the Label as a concept to launching it as a business. What was the hardest part in the early stages of the company's growth?
L: We wanted to create our first prototype relying on as little money and time as possible, so we leaned heavily on 'The Lean Start-up' method. To validate our idea and minimize risk, we decided to launch our first product on Kickstarter to help with funding production. We spent $5,000 creating a prototype by referencing different pant features that we liked, shooting it and launching our Kickstarter campaign. By partnering with a marketing company that believed in our brand, we ended up raising $250K USD, which made us realize, "Hey. There are other women that want to wear pajamas in public, too!"
“Hey. There are other women that want to wear pajamas in public, too!”
The hardest part was definitely managing production delays - at one point, our factory burned down and typhoons ravaged our shipping warehouse (we joke that the only thing missing was a tornado). This resulted in over 100 angry emails daily, which was tough on the soul, but it really trained us to remain resilient and trust ourselves when things spiraled out of control.
P: The brand LEZÉ the Label started as a niche apparel brand, what were some of the most effective ways you discovered to promote your business?
Publicly sharing our experiences growing a business, obstacles included, and remaining honest with our online audience has been huge. Tanya and I wanted to create a platform through LEZÉ to showcase what was happening behind the scenes and inspire the next wave of entrepreneurs to keep pushing through.
We also witnessed success through the introduction of Facebook Ads, creating absurd 'extreme testing' videos, and partnering with local business owners to wear and share our product.
P: The team was recently recognized as one of BC Business' 30 Under 30. What do you feel you did 'right' to get you to where the business is? Is there anything you would have done differently?
L: What we did right was confronting a business need that we thought was missing from our own lives. We were truly motivated to find a solution for today’s working woman by introducing garments that would cater to her comfort and freedom while navigating a career path.
If I had the chance to advise my 2018 self, I would bring on a designer much earlier on the process - in the beginning, we wanted to learn and do everything on our own. You can imagine the obstacles that we had with fit. We talked about 'inseams' so much that we had nightmares about it.
P: If you had to name 3 people who had the biggest impact on your business, who would they be and why?
L: Lara Kozan from YYoga, who coached us to block out the noise to get clear on our purpose. David Tran from Strange Love Coffee, who taught us how to understand and address our audience’s pain points. Tony Yu and Mikaella Go from Vessi Footwear, who hand-held us through the entire Kickstarter process. LEZÉ wouldn't have been possible without these people!
P: Why did you decide to have your manufacturing process carried out in Taiwan and how did you manage to achieve that?
L: Tanya's background is in textiles, so we are very fortunate to be vertically integrated from the yarn to the garment production. Because of this, we get to work with factories that employ mainly women, pay their workers 15% above industry standard and work in excellent conditions (they even have nap time!).
We also wanted to go with a factory that infused natural materials into production and relied on the lowest possible water consumption. You will continue to see this come to life in our recently launched Americano Collection, which integrates reused coffee grinds, and recycled plastic into each style.
P: What is the most critical initiative you are working on now and how do you plan on achieving it?
L: Material innovation and sustainability are the most critical pillars of how we will measure success. Recognizing the need for ethical production methods, we are committed to always exploring opportunities to protect the faces behind fashion and our natural resources.
When it comes to how sustainability is introduced we plan to highlight the wearability benefits of materials like reused coffee grinds in our collection which offer breathability and cool down capabilities all year round. We also have an internal goal of recycling 300,000 water bottles into our clothing by 2020.
“How can we make this more comfortable, sustainable, and functional?”
P: How do you drive innovation and new product cycles in the company?
L: The total cycle takes 9 months, with 4 months out of that timeline dedicated to fabric sourcing, design, and prototyping. We begin by keeping up-to-date on garments already on the market, and finding ways to challenge its current boundaries by asking, "How can we make this more comfortable, sustainable and functional?"
P: What are 3 key learnings you can share with those who want to start and manage their brands on an e-commerce platform?
L:
1) Create with purpose - Never create with the purpose of making money. It's not sustainable. Get clarity on your unique value proposition and why people should buy into your mission - notice how I didn't say product? Because people don't buy your stuff, but they buy into what you believe in.
2) Don't wait for perfection - Your first product will not be perfect - and that's okay. The trajectory of your product's viability and whether it addresses people's problems will change over time. The only way you will iterate, learn and improve comes from the feedback of real people.
3) Ask for help - Whatever you don't know, somebody out there does. Humble yourself to how little you know, and have the willingness to ask. You will grow exponentially when you are shameless in learning.
P: What is in the works for LEZÉ the Label?
L: Over the past few months, we have been working behind the scenes in the last few months to introduce The Americano Collection. Through launch, we plan on pushing the sustainability envelope by highlighting material innovation and wearability for modern-day comfort.
We want to thank LEZÉ The Label’s Karen and Tanya for sharing their entrepreneurial hardships and learnings with us through this conversation. Their story highlights how some things are just meant to be, that even after pursuing diverse career paths the two ended up starting a company together spurred by just one phone call (and plenty of pajama outings on Karen’s part to inspire Tanya to give her that fateful call). What we can see from their story is that it is important to stay positive (there were plenty of ‘natural disasters’ to test their patience), get a circle of helpful mentors, and have a defined purpose (other than money) for why you want to start and run a business.
Here’s to all aspiring business owners out there - we can’t wait to hear your success story!
Photography by Ainsley Rose
