09 06 19 SF Chronicle Lily Samii

SF Chronicle September 6, 2019 “SF gala gown designers try to keep ‘dying art’ alive with next genera on” Simon Ungless described Samii's ar stry and skill level in tradi onal couture as making her unique in the Bay Area. and expressed apprecia on for Rent the Runway's clothing recycling concept. h ps://www.sfchronicle.com/business/ar cle/A-dying-art-SFcouture-designer-Lily-Samii-14417768.php

SF gala gown designers try to keep ‘dying art’ alive with next generation

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Mallory Moench Sep. 6, 2019

For the irst gala season in decades, Lily Samii wasn’t rushing around the opening nights of the San Francisco Symphony on Wednesday or the Opera on Friday, making sure her latest custom-made creation looked its best. Instead, she was simply a guest — albeit a renowned one whose past designs could still be seen on a dozen women.

The couture designer, whose masterpieces have been a ixture in the city’s high society for half a century, is retiring. Instead of taking orders for next year’s gowns, she’s rearranging her Union Square shop to sell only ready-made pieces from her label and working on a book.

Samii is one of only a few traditional couture designers left in San Francisco. Some newcomers are keeping the art alive and established designers are trying new ideas, but the profession faces challenges as faster (and cheaper) competition booms, the skilled workforce dwindles, and costs keep rising. Fashion experts say there’s still a strong market for design in San Francisco — but couturiers who follow Samii may need to evolve.

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“We know this is a dying art throughout the world,” said Samii, now 74, in her sun- looded Post Street atelier lined with dresses shimmering with sequins, tulle and satin.

“To survive for 50 years at the level we are is what makes it so unusual.”

The Fashion Law, an independent website which covers the industry, estimates that there are perhaps 4,000 couture buyers around the world, down from 20,000 in the middle of the 20th century.

Samii, an Iranian native who studied ine arts at UCLA and dressmaking in France, opened a luxury shop in Larkspur in 1969. In 1993, she started her own label that is still sold at Saks Fifth Avenue. Fifteen years ago, she focused on couture gowns while Laleh Zohadi, her sister and partner in the atelier, took over ready-made wear — a majority of sales. The business now employs fewer than a dozen people, and some of the cutters who have worked with her for decades are retiring, Samii said.

Samii dressed hundreds of women able and willing to pay at least $8,000 for gala and wedding gowns. Local clients include former Sen. Barbara Boxer; philanthropist Gretchen Kimball; ilmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor’s wife; and Kate Shilvock, who is married to San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock.

“It’s a form of art,” Samii said. “They want something special. For that, they’re willing to wait. They’re willing to pay top dollar. And I hope and pray to God somebody like me to come along and ill that place. I want that so badly. But I don’t see it.”

Samii’s artistry and skill level in traditional couture made her stand alone in the Bay Area, said Simon Ungless, executive director of the Academy of Art University’s School of Fashion. Designer Colleen Quen, who has run a San Francisco atelier for more than 20 years, called Samii an inspiration and “a classic designer” with elegant, feminine and glamorous style.

Designer Karen Caldwell, whom Samii has dressed and mentored, said she was one of the area’s most wellknown designers.

“She gets fashion. She knows how to dress a woman to make her feel beautiful, and she’s a joy to be around,” said Caldwell. “Her legacy will live on.”

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Samii is one of the last of a cluster of designers who de ined high fashion in San Francisco decades ago. Now, the group has “disappeared,” said her contemporary Quen.

“This is an art that’s lost, that I studied, that needs to be preserved,” said Quen. “If we lose our designers here, there is no style here.”

Ungless said San Francisco’s thriving regional fashion design and manufacturing industry waned in the 1980s.

“I think to be a designer in San Francisco, especially the last 20 or 30 years, has become increasingly dif icult as the resources have dried up in this area,” Ungless said.

Designers say the new generation doesn’t have the appetite for dresses that take six months to create, cost thousands and require multiple ittings. Quicker, cheaper options like Rent the Runway, which loans designer dresses, are booming. The startup has raised $337 million in total and was valued earlier this year at $1 billion. It opened its ifth and largest brick-and-mortar store in Union Square in May, relocating from a smaller space on Post Street that opened last year.

Couturiers also said they struggle to ind experienced seamstresses, obtain the same high-quality fabric from Europe when cheaper copies emerge from East Asia, and afford to keep a small business running in San Francisco.

But fashion retail experts believe there’s still a market for unique creations, especially with the Bay Area’s wealth. A 2017 market report by Radiant Insights estimated haute couture — a more strictly de ined category than the broader market for made-to-measure fashion — was worth $705 million in 2015, just 1% of the luxury fashion apparel market, but growing in value despite the shrinking number of buyers.

“I don’t feel the market is shrinking. I think the market is going to go through and it’ll be strong,” said Kirthi Kalyanam, director of the Retail Management Institute at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.

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Kalyanam said there’s a demand for design in San Francisco because of the correlation of social events and wealth — plus increased pressure from social media to stand out with style. The question is who will appease a new generation: “Will it be these designers who will address that market or somebody else?” he said.

Ungless said most of his design students aren’t aspiring to couture, but it may grow in appeal as society trends away from fast fashion. He likes Rent the Runway’s concept of recycling clothes as sustainable but doesn’t believe it will replace couture.

“There will always be a certain clientele who wants to pay for that exclusivity,” Ungless said. “I don’t see it dying.”

Samiii says her demand hasn’t dwindled. She’s designed 400 gowns over the past three years, although only a fraction count as couture. At least 700 customers received an announcement about her retirement.

“If I wanted to continue doing this, I could just go on forever,” Samii said.

But Samii has seen less interest from younger generations. She said she recently designed for a grandmother, mother and granddaughter for a wedding. When the grandmother wanted to buy a rehearsal dinner dress for the bride, the young woman said she would just rent one.

“It’s very dif icult to keep that kind of a client going on year after year,” Samii said. “I’m in my third generation with that. If somebody starts something now, you get them within a couple of seasons and off they go to someone else. There’s not that sense of loyalty, appreciation, trust.”

Kate Shilvock is one customer who developed that trust. When her husband was appointed the opera’s general director in 2016, she met with Samii — her neighbor in Marin County — to start a design relationship.

“It was Lily who pretty much held my hand for the last few years, navigating the sea of couture,” said Shilvock, who added that Samii pushed her to try new designs and in luenced her to simplify her everyday looks. “She’s been very lovely and became a true friend.”

For Shilvock, couture is worth the time and cost because of the relationship.

“My trust is with the designer I’ve been lucky enough to work with. They know what should be worn, they know what looks the best on me, and when I look at the pictures, I feel beautiful and secure,” Shilvock said.

“The process with a designer of Lily’s caliber is one that lasts. It doesn’t end when the event is over the next day.”

Shilvock said “it was heartbreaking” when Samii told her last year she was retiring.

For Friday’s Opera opening night ball, Shilvock worked with Caldwell, who was referred by Samii. Shilvock said she could envision hemming or re-wearing Caldwell’s design — something she wouldn’t have done with a Samii gown that she said was “ it for a queen” — and said maybe that compromise was a way forward in a changing market.

Caldwell said she started her work as a hobby a few years ago but would like to see it grow. This year’s gala season she made half a dozen dresses and said her clientele is diverse in age, ranging from their 20s to 70s.

She also rents gowns and costume jewelry.

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Fellow designer Quen employs only one seamstress and said she inds it hard to recruit and retain talent as well as keep up with costs for a small business in San Francisco. She’s reduced output to only a handful of

gowns a year for prices of at least $15,000 apiece. Her customers are changing from women in their 50s, 60s, or 70s who wanted classic and elegant gowns to a younger group in their 30s and 40s seeking more casual daywear.

“It declined some, that’s why I’m evolving more,” Quen said. An artist and computer programmer by training, she is diversifying into museum work, live shows, documentary production and experimenting with virtual reality.

Couture design in San Francisco isn’t dead, Quen said, but needs support.

“Give us the chance to create for you,” she said.

Read more here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/A-dying-art-SF-couture-designer-LilySamii-14417768.php