This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with New York-based fashion designer Gita Omri. She's an Israeli-American fashion designer who focuses on inclusive fashion design for women. Her intensive design process is made doubly rigorous given the range of sizes for which she creates. Gita fits every garment in several measures before the pattern is finally graded for production. Her brand's mission is to reintroduce fashion as a tool to enhance one's confidence and self-esteem—so we hope you'll tune in to hear how Gita uses her creativity and passion to help empower women to "present themselves to the world in their true form with pride, acceptance, and authenticity. https://gitaomri.com/
This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with New York-based fashion designer Gita Omri. She's an Israeli-American fashion designer who focuses on inclusive fashion design for women. Her intensive design process is made doubly rigorous given the range of sizes for which she creates. Gita fits every garment in several measures before the pattern is finally graded for production. Her brand's mission is to reintroduce fashion as a tool to enhance one's confidence and self-esteem—so we hope you'll tune in to hear how Gita uses her creativity and passion to help empower women to "present themselves to the world in their true form with pride, acceptance, and authenticity. https://gitaomri.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:Gita Omri is joining us today. She's an Israeli-American fashion designer based in New York City who has made it her mission to focus on inclusive fashion design for women. After earning a degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of New York City, she attended the prestigious Central St Martin's College at the University of Arts London and completed her education at the Academy of Art University of San Francisco. We'll have Gita's website in the show notes so you can read more about her and see her latest designs. Quick shout out to our friend Scott French from Very New York, who helped us arrange this interview. Thanks for being on the podcast, gita.
Gita Omri:Thank you for having me. This is really exciting.
Nick Petrella:So, gita, where do you find inspiration for your designs and how long does it take you to go from ideation to launch?
Gita Omri:Oh, it is all over the board. So, like I said, my first collection when I relaunched post-COVID, the design. It really lacked, I feel, a lot of design. So the clothes were very I don't want to say the word basic, but they were very clean and classic silhouettes, nothing super innovative. It was mainly my objective was mainly to prove my point. I sent down on the runway every single look. I sent down in a size 2 and a size 20 at the same time so you can see, boom, boom, look, it works. It's hard and expensive to do but it can be done. And so that collection was really kind of inspired by the sizing point.
Gita Omri:And then the next collection I showed this past September, which it was inspired by my relationship with my husband Ever since having our kids. It really sets up some challenges, I think, for a couple and two babies, toddlers. It just lots of ups and downs, lots of emotions and stuff, and I really kind of wanted to play with that idea and the way I kind of thought of it was as marriage being and it could be marriage. For me it was marriage but it could be. Any real relationship with someone has a kind of sense of wonderland. When Alice falls down into wonderland. She's in this world of like what the hell, and there's wonderful things and also some scary things and some trippy things you never know what's coming at you really and I really wanted that to be the drive of the collection, so I did. I also showed everything on the two sizes. Every look was on both sizes, but I also did every look in two different color ways, so it was like in a very bright color scale and then in a kind of muted, gray, black, monochrome color scale, and the show was really fun. We did it In New York. They had an exhibit up. It was an artist who created the space that was wonderland and everything. Every single thing was painted and colorful and insane, and so it was the perfect backdrop for the show and that was. That collection took about four months to from the initial idea development to the show and then now and then post show. It still is kind of I don't know if development is the right word, but it's still in the works because I have to fix things that were not great or add things. It was a spring collection. I feel like it ended up on the heavier side, so now that I'm about to start marketing it. I'm adding, I've added softer pieces, I've added or I've softened up some of the fabrics to make it more springy. So it didn't really it doesn't really end at the show.
Gita Omri:And then after that show, unfortunately October 7th happened and there was a terrible massacre in Israel which prompted this war with Hamas, and I found myself paralyzed. I just thought, as a former soldier myself, all my friends were being called up. I desperately wanted to go home and go back to my unit and with a three year old and a just turned two year old, that really wasn't an option for me, and so I just felt lost and depressed and meaning like. I felt like what I do is meaningless. And who cares about fashion? You know when, kind of how I felt when COVID hit like who cares about fashion when all of this stuff's going on? And for a long time I really felt like maybe I need to figure something out, something drastic give up fashion, become humanitarian. I don't know. You know all those crazy thoughts.
Gita Omri:And then my favorite band in Israel came out with a song about what happened, specifically about one man who was heroic at the Nova massacre. He got away, and he got away with a full car of people. He dropped them off in Beresheva, he went back, got another car full of people, brought them to safety, he went back and, unfortunately, on the last time he did not make it out alive and they wrote a song about his character and about who has that within them to escape evil and to escape danger twice and still go back. And just something about that song, just it, just I don't know it completely took over me and it made me feel like, you know, they're a musical group, they're creative and they wrote a song, but this song has so much power you know, it's not that they went into war and this song in itself had so much power and it made me feel like you know what, what I do, I can, you know, I get two minutes. Two minutes maybe have spotlight on me a year. Let me use my two minutes to say something, to do something.
Gita Omri:You know, the fashion world has been somewhat silent and, considering that the New York garment industry was built on Jewish backs it's in, you know, it was just like. So I thought, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. And at first I had my, my and I only had three weeks to put it all together, three weeks. So my first, my previous collection, four months this was. I was like I'm doing this three weeks and at first my plans and my, the way I envisioned the show, was a lot more aggressive and a lot more almost accusatory to the world, like what are you doing, whatever.
Gita Omri:And then, as the collection developed and as I was in it, I realized like it's not about everybody else, it's about me, my reaction to this war, my reaction to having our hostages still not home, making this, you know, making it more about less aggressive, right, you know they say you always you attract more bees with honey. And so it kind of turned into that. And Scott also, I will say Scott was terrified that I was gonna do some horrible political in your face. And you know, and I was like said, this is gonna be political, you're gonna have to get on board with that, but it doesn't have to be so aggressive. And so the final result, I think, was what I wanted it to be. It was, you know, we had the yellow ribbons that are in support of getting our hostages back all over the walls.
Gita Omri:It was really meaningful, the collection was beautiful and it was really inspired by my I still have my military shirt and my fatigues, and so it was really inspired by that and I created a print that was of a painting that I did of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, which is our holy place where we go and pray, and that was incorporated in it. So I really put everything that I was feeling into it and I think it showed. I think it was very special and I made a t-shirt. So this song that really inspired me.
Gita Omri:One of the sentences that they say is Yeshroa and Yeshreah and that's a two letter word but depending on the vowels you can read it differently. So the first one, roa, means evil and the second one, reah, means kinship and it's two letters that make up those two very opposite meanings and that touched me so much. So we made a t-shirt of that and that was big part of the show. And a little bragging point for me is that post show I was able to get in touch with the band and they're very supportive of what we did and they love the shirt and we're gonna hopefully do a collaboration with this t-shirt that I made. But it made me feel like it made me feel like I did something, that I'm doing something, that I'm not being silent. But I'm also not just regurgitating or sharing everything else that's being shared. I'm able to kind of take what I'm good at and say here's the moment.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's what artists do, right? They take in the world, they reflect their. It's a reflection of their interpretations of what's happening in the world and communicating that to other people.
Gita Omri:And I think that that's what this song by Cinergy that's the name of the band, I think that's kind of it was as if they were giving me permission to do that Because they did it, and they did it so powerfully, and rather than feeling, oh, what I do is meaningless, they helped me feel that, well, I can make what I do meaningful, and so that was very special for me.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Gita Omri:And then for this, you were asking about inspiration for this next collection. I'm really asked how do you follow up something like that? You know, going back to oh, I'm inspired by tulips. No, so I? This next collection is really about hope. For me it's about hope, it's about rebirth, and I'm taking my kids are a big part of the inspiration. They're helping me create the prints we're gonna be. You know, we're doing art together and so it'll be very kind of have a child like vibe to it. And then I'm taking a lot of inspiration from toddler clothes actually, because my girlfriends and I always talk about how our daughters have the cutest clothes. I really wanna see how I can take some of these adorable clothes that they make for little girls and make them for women in a more mature way. So that's kind of what I'm looking at for next spring.
Andy Heise:It's very cool. So, thinking about you know, as you move from designing to you know, putting on a show like you're talking about here, it seems to me someone who's not as familiar with the fashion world and how it works and that sort of thing, that a large barrier to entry is to starting your own fashion line would be the production side of things. You know you can design pretty easily, right, pencil and papers, whatever but actually making the garment involves a whole different skill set and so it has some like scale issues, right, so you can design it and make one but like, if you want to sell it, you got to make multiples into your point, a bunch of different sizes and that sort of thing. What has that looked like for you in launching your label?
Gita Omri:So, again, another answer you know back to previous answers is money helps a lot, right, you can get people to do every step of the process, but I believe that a true designer needs to have at least the basic skills for pattern making and sewing. Because, yes, we do, we do sketches, you know there. You start off here somewhere like this but taking a sketch and or an idea and turning it into a three dimensional garment, right, that's the challenge. And so much of the actual design process happens while you're creating it, so while you're doing fittings, while you're putting it on the body, and you say, okay, I drew it like this, but actually it'd be nicer if we tuck this in here, or if we change the color, make it bigger color, smaller color, and so having that basic knowledge is very important.
Gita Omri:I think I once interned for a designer who couldn't do any of it. She could barely even sketch. She just, you know, decided one day I'm going to be a designer and I have this idea. And she just took everything to the sample room and told them what she wanted, and they created it and at the end of the day, did she have an idea? Sure, but the final product is so far away from her idea that in my mind she didn't design that the. You know the people in the sample room designed that garment. So I think that you really definitely, you definitely have to have basic knowledge of construction but you can get everything you know done.
Gita Omri:I am, I do all my pattern making. I do, you know, first samples, but over time and as you grow you don't have time for all of that stuff. So this season I hired a freelance pattern maker who helped me a lot and she was wonderful. You know, I use sample rooms in New York and use a factory in New York and you have every part of the process you can. There's a place to take it. So, like you were saying about the grading, so, for example, I create a dress.
Andy Heise:Sorry to interrupt you, but there's a few things that I would. You know the like grading, like what is that Right? So I was going to get to that. Oh, okay, sorry about that.
Gita Omri:No, no worries. So grading is taking that pattern and growing it. So what I was going to say is so I'll design a dress, I'll create the first pattern. Let's say I do it on a sample too, and I create the first pattern, I'll then cut and sew the first sample and do a fitting and see how I like it. Do I like it? Do I want to make changes? Once I am happy with it, I know it's done. I then have two different roads that I take One, the final sample, the final pattern, goes to a sample room that creates a high quality sample.
Gita Omri:So I'm good seamstress, but I'm not off the rack seamstress, right? So I take it to a sample room that will do it perfectly, with all the finishes and basically it would be an exact replica of what you would be able to buy. So there's that. Then my pattern. Once I know everything is complete, it's perfect, the right fit, size, whatever, I then take that to a pattern grader and marker and what they do is they scan my paper pattern and they have the technology that they use and they grow it into, grow it or shrink it into the sizes that you want.
Gita Omri:And that's a big problem with inclusive fashion is because some brands that are on the cheaper side they just keep grading their pattern up, but at some point you lose control of the fit.
Gita Omri:You lose control of things like, for example, I've bought some plus size stuff that all of a sudden the sleeves are like four inches too long, and it's because the arm length doesn't change, the shoulder width doesn't change things like that. And so that is a perfect example of someone who just kept grading and did not change the fit for the larger sizes. That's why I sample everything in a 2 and then 20 or 18, now 2 and 18. And that way I can really control the fit on the two size ranges. So your grader and marker does that for you. They grade it and then they mark it, which is, they'll digitally lay out all the pattern pieces like a puzzle on a really long roll of fabric, and so then when you send it to the factory, they send them that roll, they roll it out and they can cut everything out at once. All the different sizes, all the different, you know, cut it all out together. So that is another part of the process.
Andy Heise:Yeah, I had no idea. Fascinating, fascinating. All the parts get stacked together and sent to Someone else together.
Gita Omri:Yeah, yeah, the sample room or factory, depending on if you're doing. You know.
Andy Heise:Sample room.
Gita Omri:Right, exactly, yeah, but I think that I think one of the things that really is a struggle for me, you know, going back to asking what are some of the challenges, is that, because of fast fashion yeah, everyone expects clothing to be $12 20 dollars.
Announcer:Yeah even fast.
Gita Omri:But they don't realize and and we've gotten so used to it to be like oh I know, I'm gonna buy this shirt, I'll wear it three times and throw it away like it's something that we're okay with.
Gita Omri:And you know, with all this Dispositability and everything not just fashion and For me it's from, for me, as a designer who's trying to create something of quality it's really frustrating because most women would rather by 10 things, you know, that are disposable rather than investing in one good quality thing that'll last them, and I think that that it's really frustrating. And also with the With that, like people come to me, it's like okay, it's too expensive, it's too this, it's too that. I'm like well, we just talked about a small chunk of the process, that's right so that's something that I have.
Gita Omri:You know you don't think about all of that money and that time that goes into. Forget the sketching part, whatever, because my time is not worth anything. Let's say but but then creating the pattern, right? Yeah, creating the pattern takes time. All the fabric that I need to buy for the first sample, that's just gonna be a wash, right? So there's that fabric cutting and sewing the sample, paying a model to come to do a fitting for a model Most times the first sample is not enough, so then I have to make corrections to the pattern, cut and sew a second sample, do that again, bring back the model. There's all of that. Then, once that's done, paying for the sample in the sample room, which is a hefty price because it's a one-off, you're not paying for a hundred of them and then From there you've got a. You know the grading, the marking. You need to get the model back, take photos of your, of your creation, so that you can then market it. There's all of these steps and there's all of these expenses.
Gita Omri:And you know, even my friends, people that I know the minute something new drops, people instantly Ask for a discount code or they ask you know, and there's all this work, but you know, my cab driver that barely stopped to let me out and was driving that and not the crazy way to make me sick Expects a 20% tip.
Gita Omri:No questions asked. Like where there's so many areas where it's like we're expected to just shell out extra money and but. But in areas where you know people work so Hard you know I'm sure you guys put so much into these podcasts and it's like right away, oh, because it starts here at the price. Oh, right away, we need a discount. Or right away. You know there's like I have friends who's like oh, can you just sew this for me, can you fix this for me? You know, oh, can you do a hem? Or Like just all of these ridiculous questions. That's just like no, I mean, I can't. I can do it, but no, I go to the dry cleaner and pay 40 bucks for your hem, yeah, yeah and all of those things you just described.
Andy Heise:Most people either they're not aware of that process and they don't ever see it. They don't know exactly.
Gita Omri:So there's all they see is the garment on the hanger.
Gita Omri:Exactly so. There is really a lack of appreciation, you know, and it makes it. It's so easy for us to be like, oh well, this shirt is whatever, let me just I'll just throw it away and even though it's on a, it's a cheaper shirt with less quality. But just think about, nobody thinks about what it took to get that shirt on your back. Like all of the factories, all of like.
Gita Omri:You know, we keep hearing Periodically I won't say keep, but we periodically hear about how awful the fashion industry is and how, you know, people are exploited and but that's all real life. That's true, you know there's. The reason why you can buy such cheap is because someone else is miserably creating this for you and Create and done in a way that's so cheap and so awful and bad for the environment. You know, I have friends who are constantly posting about they buy from shame and they buy from, I don't know, all these online Mega stores where everything is like pennies on the dog. All right, makes me so mad. Like you have no idea how they're. Like, oh well, it's easy and cheap. I'm like, great, but what about all of that other harm and all of that waste? And yeah, and your, your business model is really you? You don't, at least at this time.
Nick Petrella:You don't have economy at scale, yeah, and your, your business model is really you don't, at least at this time, you don't have economy at scale, right, yeah, yeah, so it's great.
Gita Omri:And I don't ever intend to be making you know tens of thousands of anything you know. I think that a lot of. I think that an issue that came up a while ago where they were saying about luxury brands who were burning or destroying their product, is because it makes no sense. But it's cheaper for them to create 5,000 items and throw away 2,000 of them than it would be to create the 3,000 that they actually needed.
Nick Petrella:Right Interesting.
Gita Omri:And I feel like that's, it's so greedy and that's going to make or break you to pay that difference, to make the 3,000 rather than make 5 and throw away 2,000 units Like that's. That's insane to me.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, Plus it keeps the brand value up.
Gita Omri:I would imagine yeah it does, if it's the right scarcity.
Gita Omri:And there are always going to be people that are going to, you know, spend the money on the dumb product with the huge you know label, brand name on it. You know, I think if you go, if you go to I don't know whatever, a name brand, a designer brand, and you spend you know $2,000 on a dress and it's a beautifully designed dress and it fits you like a glove and it's something that you, it's classic, you can wear it again and again, do it. But if you're that idiot, who's going to go and spend $2,000 on a sweatshirt that the brand probably licensed out, that it says the name across the chest, like that's dumb. And, to be fair, I have a sweatshirt with my name across the chest but I'm not going to send it to anybody for $2,000. Yeah.
Nick Petrella:No, I'll get you. So is there anything you didn't learn in college that you find yourself doing on a regular basis?
Gita Omri:Everything. Really, college did not prepare me for this. College is art school and fashion college is a place to be creative and to explore. Explore your creativity. It's really a place where you can kind of know rules. Just be as crazy as you want, be as you know, do the ideas that you want. But from a real practical industry perspective it didn't really prepare me. Actually, out of all the schools that I went to, which were a lot, I think that the art institute, which would be considered like the lowest ranking, not because it is the lowest ranking of them taught me the most skills to enter the industry. So their their focus isn't really on creating designers necessarily, but their focus is on creating people with skills to enter the, the fashion industry, which I think is better. They're very low on the the business side of things. You don't really learn much about the business side of things, but you learn technical things. You know how to, how to draw technical flats, how to do pattern making, how to do. You know all different kinds of things and a lot of my friends from that school entered the market and are working for many companies. I would say maybe two or three of the people that I went to school with are actually designing, their actual designing. Everybody else is is definitely working in the industry.
Gita Omri:Central St Martens does not prepare you at all for any job in the industry, except for head designer. And guess how many head designers? There are Very few. So unless you're leaving there, you know opening, you know wanting to do your own brand or being able to do your own brand, I felt like you know I had a lot of issues with that program. I was not happy there but other. But that aside, I really felt like, yes, they're, they're pushing you to to bring out your most creative senses and stuff. But we didn't even have to sew our own products like our own garments there, whereas at the Art Institute we had to pattern cut. So even if it was, we had to do it and learn how to improve, whereas at Central St Martens we had, we had seamstresses available. You know we would say, oh, here, this is what I want to do, and some other lady would put it together. And so it really it was about. It was more of a mind exercises and creativity exercises, which is also important. But again, it doesn't really it doesn't give you a big arsenal of skills when you leave school and then the Art Institute and then the Academy of Art University. I felt was kind of a nice balance of the two, where we definitely worked on skills and definitely worked on the creative aspect.
Gita Omri:But but when I, when I got out and I started doing everything myself, it was, yeah, it was rough because, again, I didn't know anything about the business. I didn't know anything about. You know, when I first started, all I knew was that was that I think it was Ralph Lorenz started his line with the line of ties and he started with $5,000 and he turned it into this whatever. And so I was like, oh, grandpa, I just need $10,000 and I can do this. Yeah, no, absolutely not. And so I, the majority, I had to learn outside of school lots of books, lots of podcasts, lots of just trial and error picking people's brains, joining marketing, joining networking groups like YJP that's, the young Jewish professionals and other networking groups. Going to there's all these events. Going to all these events doing seminars, being that jerk that's emailing people and be like hi, you don't know me, but you know, can I pick your brain for 15 minutes? And um so I yeah, yeah.
Gita Omri:So there was a lot of hustling and I'm still doing it, you know, I'm still reaching out and talking to people and and trying to um.
Nick Petrella:But you'll have an opportunity to pay that back in five, 10, 20, 30 years.
Gita Omri:Oh yeah, I'm very open to it.
Andy Heise:Yeah, yeah.
Gita Omri:I'm open to it. I think that you know a lot. A lot of people ignored me. So, um, if anyone has any questions, feel free, feel free to email on the website and I will do my best to give you my two cents.
Nick Petrella:We're going to have your information in the show notes, so hopefully somebody takes you up on that.
Andy Heise:Yeah, well, gita, we've reached the point of our interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?
Gita Omri:Um, make sure that it's something that you couldn't do anything else. Um, you know, I think Luke Holmes has the best song where he says I'd still be doing this if I wasn't doing this. So make sure that that's how you feel.
Nick Petrella:That's good. That's good. What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Gita Omri:I think it's important to make art as accessible as possible, to help really emphasize its importance. As I struggled before this collection, feeling that what I was doing was meaningless in the grand scheme of what's going on in the world, another artist a musician in this point, reminded me how important it is and what a power it is to have that voice and to be able to be creative and use it to move society and culture forward. I think that it is so important to figure out how to get that more accessible. I don't know if I have an answer on how to do that. I think definitely schools need to put an importance on it. We put so much importance on things like math and science, which are super important, for sure, but I think that arts tend to take a backseat to that. I think that even when I see what I see with my children my daughter is too, and she loves to color her favorite thing is to break into my office and to just get into all the stuff my son loves it too and stickers and markers. Kids have that. Naturally, they just want to create. I think that it's so important to their emotional and development and, as grownups too, there's so much healing power in finding a way to channel everything that you're feeling.
Gita Omri:Even in math and sciences we brought that up people who are creating things. They can channel their feeling into creating new ways of doing things. We see it as something different, but what Albert Einstein did with numbers, that's art. That's something that he put everything into it, whether it's music or movies, or even right now, this crazy phenomenon with Taylor Swift. She is incredible, she's incredible and she moves so many people with her, not just with her songs. Her songs are great, her lyrics are great, but everything she puts into it and that example of just channeling everything she's been through, everything she goes through, everything she experiences in the world around her into this art is so inspiring. I think that in every field, when you're able to be creative and you're able to put something of yourself in it, it's art. It is everywhere and I think that we should celebrate it as much as possible.
Andy Heise:Great. Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice anyone's ever given you?
Gita Omri:Me. Don't look at other people's yards. It's so hard to not compare yourself and to not be, oh, that person is so successful or oh, why is this person? Why does it work for that person? I'm struggling or I'm not as good. I think that I tend to go there I can go there a lot, actually where I'm just feeling insecure about what I'm doing and my skills, my designs. I do think they're good, I do think that I have a talent in this, or else I wouldn't be spending all my time and my money on it. But it's really challenging when you're struggling whether it's emotionally or the business is struggling or whatever to not look around and say, oh, what everybody else is doing, what everyone else is succeeding at. I think the best advice that I got, or keep getting sometimes, is just focus on what you're doing, focus on what you're putting out, give it your all and forget everybody else.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's great, it's great.
Nick Petrella:Well, gita, it's been great having you on and hearing how your creative voice, through fashion, is helping people. It's a really compelling story.
Gita Omri:Thank you, that's really nice to hear.
Andy Heise:Thanks for your time.
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