The Designer Series: Kelly Su (Part 2)
4 Min. Read | The Designer Series | A.M.
Kelly Su
Cami&Tank | Composure By Kelly
NORDSTROM FLAGSHIP
While attending the Art Institute of Seattle, Kelly worked in cosmetics at the Nordstrom Flagship location on 5th Avenue. It was there she first learned about Nordstrom’s private label design studio Nordstrom Product Group—an in-house design team in the offices above the retail space.
While visions of New York still permeated her purview, she began to imagine a new path forward toward this presently more achievable goal literally just above her current position. And as luck would have it, a chance encounter with a customer sitting in her Chanel makeup chair was exactly the catalyst she needed to alter the course of her life.
Nordstrom Flagship, Seattle, WA. Image courtesy Nordstrom, Inc.
DES MESURES : NORDSTROM, INC.
ESTABLISHED : 1901
CHAIRMAN : PHILIP SATRE (2019)
STATUS : PUBLIC (NYSE)
MARKET CAP : $8.2B USD (2018)
EMPLOYEES : 72,500
STORES : 380 (US + CANADA)
COUNTRIES : 96 (VIA E-COMMERCE)
DESIGN STUDIO : NORDSTROM PRODUCT GROUP
DESIGN TEAM : IN-HOUSE
HEADQUARTERS : SEATTLE, WA
“One day I had a customer [who] came in all the time. She always bought the same lipstick, Chanel Red 22. She asked me to give her a makeover. [I said] you know, I probably won’t see you for a while because I’m planning to leave, I’m graduating soon. She asked more questions like, What are your plans? [I told her] I want to be a designer and maybe check out [Nordstrom Product Group]. She said, Well after you graduate come on up. My name is Gail. Just let them know that you’re here to meet with me. After she left, my colleague came over and was like, Do you know who that is? I said, No. She was like, She’s the President of NPG. I was like, Really? It was pure luck I ended up working that day, got interviewed—I mean, it just happened so smoothly.”
Kelly’s customer was Gail Cottle, then President of Nordstrom Product Group, whose career with Nordstrom Inc. spanned from 1972 - 2002, and whose influence was felt throughout Nordstrom merchandising and employee culture. And after a successful interview, Kelly began as an Associate Designer with NPG in 2000. Her duties included assisting in the design process, gathering measurements, creating tech packs, corresponding with manufacturers, making necessary revisions and finally receiving the production samples in studio.
/TEK-PAK/
A series of instructions pertaining to the creation of an item, including Flat Sketches, Measurements, Bill of Materials, and other relevant information. In commercial fashion, this is typically created by a design studio and sent to the manufacturing facility where the item will be produced.
DAYWEAR | A BRIEF HISTORY
In the early 1990s, lingerie came into trend as outerwear largely by way of the Slip Dress. The emergence paired poignantly with the attitudes of celebrities like Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain who wore the garments at rock shows and red carpet events. It’s difficult to pinpoint the beginning, though in hindsight, it was certainly Seattle that inevitably contributed to what would infamously go down in fashion history as the era of Grunge.
The Seattle music scene was bursting with new ideas. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Hole, The Melvins, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees and several others turned a spotlight and a microscope on the city and its newly appointed celebrities. The very idea of lingerie formed a visual juxtaposition to the angst and unrest felt by a generation of young people struggling to make sense of a world that wrestled with the razing of the Berlin Wall and the broken promises of their forbearers.
The reaction from the larger fashion brands was divided along typical lines. The established houses made every effort to move away from grunge and return to a more traditional interpretation of women’s beauty. Marc Jacobs’ dismissal from Perry Ellis sent shockwaves throughout the fashion community and signaled the desire of the commercial brands to return to past successes. The world would have to wait until 2018 for his collection’s second-coming.
But the trend was set. And fashion would do what it always does: Assimilate from culture and produce interpretations at the intersection of art and commerce.
Kate Moss famously wore a Liza Bruce translucent slip dress in 1993 to the worlds shock and excitement, and has worn them ever since. The slip dress later found its way in vogue with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Aniston, and Carolyn Bessette. Even Princess Diana wore a couture Dior slip dress designed by John Galliano when she attended The Met Gala in 1996. From there, underwear-as-outerwear forever became a hallmark of 90s fashion.
Apart from the sensationalized marketing efforts from brands like Victoria’s Secret, and in keeping with the Diffusion of Innovations, the late 90s and early 2000s were the right time for lingerie to have more mass-market appeal.
NORDSTROM PRODUCT GROUP
In the early 2000s, Nordstrom was looking for a Lingerie Designer who could bring a feeling of accessibility to daywear, and needed someone with a knitwear background to develop a modern interpretation including tank tops, boy shorts and camisoles.
Kelly’s first assignments for NPG were in knitwear for the Halogen label designing t-shirts, tank tops and sweaters. She saw her opportunity. Kelly applied for the position of Lingerie Designer for Nordstrom Signature label and was accepted. For the next 2 years, she dove headlong into a deeply feminine world rich with satin and lace textures that would serve to prepare her for her latest endeavors. The tomboy-turned-lengerie-designer was now in a position to bring a more balanced worldview and mass-market appeal to a classically diverse and often sexualized genre.
“When you think of lingerie, you’re thinking of the very lacy, risqué nightgowns, but it’s not true. When you say lingerie, even now, [when] you walk into Victoria’s Secret and you look at their lingerie, it’s a lot of sleepwear. A lot of the time it’s a lot of cute tank tops and boy shorts . . . that you would just wear out. So that’s why they call it daywear—because you can wear these out.”
In total, Kelly remained at Nordstrom Product Group for six years from 2000 - 2006. While her dream was always to own her own independent fashion studio, her positive experiences made the parting difficult. “If I stay, I might never leave,” she remembers. But with her husband’s support, she took the leap of faith and started her very first fashion brand — Composure By Kelly.