Ana Louie Apparel - BLOG

Seattle Chinese Emerald Times written by Stephiee Leung

A Mother Lights Up Daughter’s Design

Bringing sketched works to life.            

Ann Marie is the mother.

She has sophisticated business skills, the support from her husband and a talent for fashion, yet she still lacked an important thing before she could bring her daughter’s designs to life.

She needed a brand name.

When she was as young as her daughter, she had been interested in designing and knew how to dress appropriately. Because the two generations both have the stylish sense, Ann Marie decided to name her first brand after her daughter, Ana Louie, in 2010.

Ana Louie features formal and semi-formal wear, targeting girls from 8 to 16 years old.

“Those girls stand in a tween stage: little ones and young ladies,” the founder and CEO explained. “They always have a hard time finding suitable clothes for special occasions.”

Ann Marie wants to help them. She hopes Ana Louie will be a source for classy and formal apparel for the tween girls.  

“Classy clothes build confidence. I want girls to feel capable of accomplishing anything when wearing Ana Louie’s designs,” she stated.

She always emphasizes on classy clothes. To her, classy can be everything.

She comes up with design ideas from daily life: dress worn by a lady on street, a flower in a neighbor’s backyard, or today’s silky cloud shape. After observing the latest trend, Ann Marie tailors her ideas to become appropriate for teen girls. Next, she passes the ideas as big pictures to her assistants.

In this allocation of workload, she focuses on creative production, while her assistants take care of the most technical issues.

Among all her collections, Ann Marie named Gisele as her favorite.

“Gisele is made of lace and silk. We put many details around the neckline. It looks pretty as well as gorgeous,” she explained. For the extraordinary piece, Ann Marie asked her daughter, Ana, to present Gisele.

Tailor-made products, like Gisele, differ from mass production in terms of number of procedures and quality.

Each design requires almost 10 procedures to become an actual product. From choosing fabrics, scratching and sampling to delivering to customers, it takes approximately a month to finish.

“There is so much that goes into making a piece than people know,” she said. 

To ensure quality work, Ann Marie dislikes rushing. She strives to maintain consistency between samples and actual product.

“Because customers approach Ana Louie to acquire high standard apparels, we don’t want to disappoint them.” Ann Marie continues, “We would love to spend more time on designing and conducting fabric quality test, as long as customers can feel classy, sophisticated and comfortable with our clothing.”

She sells online rather than in an actual store. Despite that, Ana Louie makes considerable profit due to her business ethics.

How does she react if she finds her design being copied?

 “Oh! I always worry about that. Although I haven’t seen the exact ones yet, I know there are some similar to mine,” she said.

While she cannot confirm if other designers share similar ideas to hers, she would not consider it copying. Instead, she spends extra effort on producing unique pieces.  And she does more marketing to differentiate Ana Louie from the competition.  

Competition means customers hold high standards. Since most Seattlites can afford quality garments, she sees a bright future for Ana Louie and the fashion industry in Seattle.

“This industry is definitely growing, because people want to dress more sophisticatedly,” Ann Marie noted. 

She is right.

In 2010, Washington State University and Community Attributes International jointly conducted an analysis about the fashion industry across the nation. They ranked Seattle as number four, following New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Outdoor wear giants, such as North Face and Columbia, definitely help boost the industry. Individual designers contribute a lot as well.

Ann Marie Louie feels proud to be one of the pioneers to uphold fashion in Seattle.

Besides Ana Louie, something else is coming up to push the industry.

Ann Marie will soon introduce a new sister company, Louie, in New York August 2013.

The new line features causal but classy wear. Unlike Ana Louie, which specializes in garments for special moments, girls can wear Louie every day.

Plus, Ann Marie will participate in the 25th North West Women Show. She will have her own fashion show next March at CenturyLink.

For more information, please visit official webpage of Ana Louie at http://www.analouiestudio.com & www.louiegirls.com