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Speaker 1: Global business news twenty four hours a day at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot Com, the Radio plus Mobile Act and on your radio.

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Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Headquarters.

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Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellet. A record today for naz DAK up

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Speaker 1: eight points to fifty two eighty three. The Dow in

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Speaker 1: SMP lower stocks little changed, holding their records as investors

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Speaker 1: debate the direction of Federal Reserve monetary policy after mixed

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Speaker 1: economic reports. The SMP five hundred index down less than

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Speaker 1: half a point at eight six, Dow Industrials down twelve,

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Speaker 1: a drop there of one tenth of one percent. That

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Speaker 1: now at eighteen thousand, five hundred, twenty six, Gold down

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Speaker 1: four eighty ounce, falling four tenths of one percent. Crude

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Speaker 1: Oil West Texas it'll be the Accrude up today by

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Speaker 1: one point four percent. I'm Charlie Pellet, and that's a

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Flash. You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen

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Speaker 1: pim Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Fashion fashion for women and

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Speaker 1: teenagers sized at twelve to twenty six. That's the focus

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Speaker 1: of Fashion to Figure. It focuses exclusively on women's plus

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Speaker 1: size clothing and related accessories, and here to tell us

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Speaker 1: more is the co founder and chief executive Michael Kathleen. Michael,

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Speaker 1: thanks for coming in, Thanks for having me here. Tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit about your background and how you

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Speaker 1: came to create Fashion to Figure. Well, it's it's a

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Speaker 1: bit of a mixed combination of um wanting to continue

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Speaker 1: a great legacy that my family started in intern of

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Speaker 1: the last century when my great grandmother, owned by the

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Speaker 1: name of Lane Bryant, created special sized clothing and really

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Speaker 1: pioneered the category bringing fashion to the figure. Are our

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Speaker 1: company name really draws its history from a famous quote

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Speaker 1: of hers which was never asked a woman to conform

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Speaker 1: their figure to fashion. Always bring fashion to the figure.

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Speaker 1: And when I was at in graduate school, I saw

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Speaker 1: a great opportunity to kind of modernize the retail experience

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Speaker 1: or the shopping experience for this consumer, and so my

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Speaker 1: brother and I literally started the proverbial single store that

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Speaker 1: we ran ourselves every day for a year and a

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Speaker 1: half and a decade later, we now sell our our

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Speaker 1: very contemporary fashion product and five channels, um our own stores,

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Speaker 1: digital marketplaces online at Fashion to Figure dot Com, through

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Speaker 1: wholesale partners, and through new disruptive um subscription box companies,

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Speaker 1: and really what we do is provide up to the minute,

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Speaker 1: very fast fashion trends across a very contemporary on trend

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Speaker 1: lifestyle that people can really forget about being special size

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Speaker 1: or size related. They're really getting access to the latest

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Speaker 1: fashion that that really anybody would deem as contemporary. Now

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Speaker 1: your background, you worked at Lazard, Your brother Nicholas was

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Speaker 1: previously at Sacks. What was it like going from the

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Speaker 1: banking industry into the retail business that already Well, it's

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Speaker 1: very it's very different. I mean, I think working on

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Speaker 1: wall streets very different than main street. And I think

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Speaker 1: in our case, um my brother and I brought a

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Speaker 1: great combination of skills, his with the retail background in

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Speaker 1: mind with more of a finance background. I don't think

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Speaker 1: that either of us would be here without the combination

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Speaker 1: of those skills coming together. But for me, it certainly

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Speaker 1: was an adjustment. But it's much more rewarding work now

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Speaker 1: with all the people that work inside of our business

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Speaker 1: being really both our customers and our employees who we

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Speaker 1: call ft F family members, seeing how real hard working

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Speaker 1: people are out there in shopping malls across America and

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Speaker 1: shopping and consuming American products and you know, really creating

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Speaker 1: the economy. It's very different to be out there among

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Speaker 1: the people and serving them than it is behind a

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Speaker 1: desk in Rockefeller Center and analyzing reports. Now you mentioned customers,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned your employees. Tell us about your vendors, because

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Speaker 1: that makes you a slightly different retail company in that

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Speaker 1: you don't create the products yourself. You work with I

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Speaker 1: guess over a hundred vendors to bring those products to market.

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Speaker 1: We actually do create the product ourselves. Basically, we Um.

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Speaker 1: We bring hundreds of styles across basic dressing and casual categories,

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Speaker 1: so that our customers literally every time they come to

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Speaker 1: our website or every time they come to our store

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Speaker 1: can see a new dress, a new top. They can

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Speaker 1: always get a basic item of any need or or

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Speaker 1: in any for any area of their life in a

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Speaker 1: different color, in an updated, you know, style or contemporary trend.

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Speaker 1: We create all that stuff with our own designers, and

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Speaker 1: we have terrific um manufacturing partners all across the world.

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Speaker 1: They can manufacture things anywhere from four tough you know,

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Speaker 1: sixteen weeks for us and get a very fast flow

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Speaker 1: of product to the floor, so that our customers always

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Speaker 1: see that newness, that freshness of fashion. At fashion and

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Speaker 1: Figure dot com, for example, you'll see new things there

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Speaker 1: every single day and you'll rarely see an item more

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Speaker 1: than you know, sixty five dollars. Where you mentioned the

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Speaker 1: price point and I just want to offer detail right

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Speaker 1: dresses around fifty dollars, tops around thirty five dollars, in

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Speaker 1: jeans retailing for about forty dollars that we we think

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Speaker 1: that what our innovation in the market has been has

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Speaker 1: been to offer very up to the minute trends at

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Speaker 1: a quality and price point that is has a combination

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Speaker 1: of that fashion, quality, price point, speed of flow that

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Speaker 1: is not matched anywhere in the large size market. We

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Speaker 1: think that we're the fastest moving assortment of on trend

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Speaker 1: fashion at a quality and price point that our customers

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Speaker 1: can have so they can always feel great with us,

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Speaker 1: looking great and really with up to the minute items

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Speaker 1: across any of these channel and touch points that they

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Speaker 1: have with us. Now, while we started as a store business,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're we're very much into the every aspect

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Speaker 1: of the new economy now, whether it be a box

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Speaker 1: subscription partner that we have, whether it be our own store,

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Speaker 1: whether it be you know, digital market places or third

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Speaker 1: party brand of vendors or any of that. What's your

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Speaker 1: estimate for how big the marketplace is for plus size fashion. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a very fast and dynamic run market today, UM

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Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the opportunities which

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Speaker 1: is why a lot of people are jumping on the

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Speaker 1: bandwagon or you know, dusting off the kind of UM

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Speaker 1: brand story of businesses and vertically expanding into the spaces.

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Speaker 1: Because it's about an eighteen billion dollar market for apparel

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Speaker 1: in today's in the US economy. Today, it's about seventy

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Speaker 1: million women in the United States economy, depending upon how

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Speaker 1: you slice the numbers that are wearing above sized fourteen,

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Speaker 1: so it's really one in three women in America. So

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Speaker 1: really to call it a specialty market is a bit

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Speaker 1: of a misnomer. Having said that, there's a real paucity

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Speaker 1: of suppliers and retailers serving that market, and that's why

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Speaker 1: many people are entering in the market today, whether it

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Speaker 1: be teen retailers, whether it be department stores, whether it

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Speaker 1: be online startup companies or others. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: people going into this market and you know, I know

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Speaker 1: it's a little counterintuitive for us to say, but we're

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Speaker 1: happy that our customers have more choices. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're really a terrific fashion option for them at a

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Speaker 1: compelling price and value. Now, Michael, just last point where

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Speaker 1: I know you're raised about four hundred thousand dollars from

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Speaker 1: Angel investors. I believe to your first store when we started, right,

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Speaker 1: We've raised significant amounts of money after that, and we're

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Speaker 1: you know, we operate in eight states today with our

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Speaker 1: own stores, a global website, third party marketplaces, subscription box partners,

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Speaker 1: and traditional wholesale partners. So we've come a long way

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Speaker 1: since that first story that we borrowed one or dollars for.

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Speaker 1: I want to congratulate you and thanks very much for

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Speaker 1: coming in and telling your story. Appreciate being here. Look

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Speaker 1: forward to seeing you soon. All right. Michael Kaplan is

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Speaker 1: the chief executive and the co founder of Fashion to Figure.

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Speaker 1: This is taking Stock. I'm pim Fox, my co host

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Speaker 1: Kathleen Hayes, Thank you for listening. Our producer Sam Lenga,

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Speaker 1: our engineer Reggie Basil. Coming up Bloomberg Law. This is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg coming up Bloomberg Laws. Brought you by Bentley University.

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Speaker 1: What do Rebooting America's oldest ski shop and crunching numbers

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Speaker 1: at Vista Print have in common and m B a

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Speaker 1: from Bentley University that prepares graduates to innovate and lead

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