Linda Cunningham is a women’s clothing designer, a seamstress and a business owner who opened her first studio almost 30 years ago.
She now operates in Jacksonville at 1049 Kings Ave. in the San Marco area. Among her many loyal customers are some of Jacksonville’s leading executives and philanthropists.
Cunningham grew up in Jacksonville and earned a degree in fashion design from Florida State University in 1982. Her first job was designing gowns for clients of a Jacksonville fabric store. She soon opened her own studio and developed a signature line under her name.
Cunningham, 53, now has two stores — one in Jacksonville and another in Houston — and she actually has three lines of business: the retail side that sells other clothing lines along with her own, the wholesale business in which she sells her signature line to other retailers, and her custom made-to-order designs. She has annual sales up to $3 million.
Talk about your studio. It’s a store and it’s a manufacturing center, and you’re near San Marco but along a street that is not a typical retail shopping area or center.
We really love being part of Jacksonville’s core and I really believe in neighborhoods, San Marco, Downtown, and the history of our city. We have a dedicated parking area. We love being here, we love being part of the community.
The building that we are in, we renovated from the beginning with a beautiful courtyard on the side, lots of windows, lots of space and that’s part of the luxury feel that we embrace.
We have large fitting rooms, we have plenty of seating space and we have several areas within the store where we’re selling ready-to-wear that is on the lower price side, what we call “bridge price,” and my clothes are on the higher end, which we call the “salon.”
We have an area where I meet with clients to design and show them fabrics, which is an entire fabric room, and in the very back we have the sewing facility, the seamstresses, my pattern-making tables, shipping and receiving.
There’s another area for business and a kitchen, and then you go back out at the front.
It’s all sort of a circular walk-about. The clients will look down the hallway from the fitting rooms and they’re like, “Are people sewing back there?” and we’re like, “Of course they are,” and they all want to come back and see what’s going on.
You’ve been designing for almost 30 years. How do you create your designs?
There are a lot of different processes. As a designer, you’re influenced by what you see and sometimes it could be something that someone else is wearing in a magazine, sometimes it’s been a tablecloth or something you see in the sky or something that is part of nature. You’re really influenced by colors that you see, and shapes.
Sometimes I just see a beautiful piece of fabric and I just fall in love with it. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I just have to have the fabric. It’s like an addiction, but I love European fabrics.
Other times I will be thinking about structure or something that’s flattering to somebody’s figure and how a design or a draping design would work, and then I’ll bring in the fabric later.
You custom-design for women. How does that process work?
Someone comes in and more than likely they have an event. It could be something glamorous like the Oscars, it could be something glamorous like a wedding. There are lots of events. How dressy do you want to be?
Sometimes the event could be dressy, but the client could be very tailored and their personality is very conservative and they don’t want to be overdressed or be the most-dressed person there.
There are other personalities where they want to be right up front and just really wow.
You take time to listen to your client, what their tastes are and what their style is. You learn as you’re sketching and designing. Everybody’s giving you feedback. You’re starting from there until you come up with two or three things and then come up with the actual design that both of us are very excited about.
Cost is then explained as the design is being finalized and the fabrics chosen. We also work from a budget point of view as well when we discuss the parameters of their needs initially.
Then I take their measurements, design the pattern, we sew the garment for a fitting and they come in and try it on and then do whatever tweaking needs to be done. Then they come back and pick it up.
It’s usually a three-step process as far as them coming into the store three times.
Do you ever have to talk a client out of a particular type of design?
Absolutely. That’s not a negative thing. We all have ideas of what we’ve done historically and maybe that was really great-looking 10 years ago or maybe you wore that 10 pounds and 10 years ago and you want to be 10 pounds and 10 years ago, but it isn’t reality now.
Sometimes it’s, let’s take what we have now and make it absolutely the best that we can be and let’s move into what’s contemporary. What’s funny is, everything that is 20 years old is popular now, but you still want to look current and contemporary.
What are your prices?
In the retail store, we start at $50 to $100. Maybe you can buy a great pair of black pants, khaki pants, silk blouse, a sweater, anywhere from $85 up. We have jackets for $300, $500, $700. We really cover a lot of broad price ranges. Our bridge group is between $300 and $600. In my design or our salon pieces, it’s anywhere usually from $900 to a couple of thousand, and then when you’re buying a gown, you’re into $2,000 or $3,000.
I feel like we are very well-priced for what we do couture and design-wise. The most expensive things that we do are in the $4,000 and $5,000 range, but those are rare and far between.
What’s been your most ornate or your biggest creation?
One gown, I don’t know how many yards of tulle it was, but we laid it out and it was a long strip all the way through the store and we couldn’t get it flat, because even the tables we use, they are huge, like 30-foot tables, are still not big enough. So we laid it all on the carpet and it was layer on layer on layer, and then we came back with crystals and little ostrich feathers and then we gathered it all up and it was like a Cinderella. It was just stunning.
You do all of the manufacturing, or the sewing at the store?
Right in Jacksonville, and the items that we sell in our Houston location are also made here.
You’ve been through some recessions, especially the Great Recession of 2007-09. How did you manage your business during that time?
We are still in business. It was rough, but at those moments, you evaluate what is working, what’s not working. You don’t take as many risks, but you find who your core customer is, who is still coming in, what they are buying. Everybody cut back. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in the bank account or what assets you have, everybody was affected.
You just have to scale back, so that’s what we did. We bought less merchandise, and we tried to work smarter, we tried to trim where we could with payroll and buying things, and we scaled down and survived. Hopefully, we’re a little better for it, or a little wiser.
The thing with retail, even in our marketplace now, is it always evolves and changes and I think for a business person, that is challenging. You can say, oh I’ve been in business for 20 years, I’ve been in business for 25 years, and that’s wonderful, but it’s like even within the last five years or within the last year, business changes because the customer changes.
Other businesses are coming and going and the challenge is, of course, to stay in business, stay profitable, and how to continue to have your customer come back and have new customers come in. What is it that you bring to the table that is new and fresh?
You don’t want to go into a place and say, I bought that last year, I bought that two years ago. What do you have that’s new, what do you have that’s different? What do you have that I am compelled to own? That’s the challenge.
Our society is not dressing up as we were and that’s a challenge for us. A lot of women have decided that yoga wear is what they’re wearing all day long, which, of course, we don’t agree with. We certainly think it’s great for the gym, but not for going to lunch with your friends. We feel that you should look appropriate and represent yourself accordingly, so that’s our challenges — keeping fashion on the forefront and not just for parties or for special events, but for day-to-day living.
A lot of small and independent businesses also have to compete with the newer retailers that are moving into town. How do you anticipate that sort of competition?
You’re always going to have that competition. It gives you the opportunity to sharpen your tools.
There’s going to be somebody that’s selling something like you’re selling, and maybe even at a better price than you’re selling it, so you have to keep your mind on what your prices are so that you don’t out-price yourself.
Also realize what you bring to the table that perhaps they don’t, or what they bring to the table that you don’t. And I think that once you’ve thought about that, you can say what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, let’s build on those and try to make ourselves a little bit different .
You can’t ever be like them, you can’t offer as many, buy as much in volume, you can’t offer the discounts that they do, and we don’t want to get something in and in two or three weeks later mark it down. We’re just not that kind of business.
How much of your clientele is repeat clientele?
I would say at least a good 75 percent. We build our business on relationships and we love our clients, they’re like family to us, and sometimes they come in just to talk. We engage with them, we’re involved in their lives, with their children, their husbands, what’s going on, and we’re there for them, personality-wise, emotionally, and we just love our relationships that we have with our clients.
How many employees do you have and what do they do?
Between the two locations, I have 18 employees. Half of those are working in sewing and construction, there are a couple in accounts payable, the business part of it, and the rest are in retail sales and merchandising and actually selling the merchandise.
When did you decide that this was your calling?
It was really my last year of college. In high school, I took a two-hour sewing block and loved that and I grew up sewing and doing all sorts of crafts with my mom. We were tie-dying and embroidering, painting furniture. She was an expert seamstress. She didn’t sew for anyone other than herself and for me, but I learned a lot from her.
One time she broke her wrist from painting and she said, “Well if you need some new clothes, you better get in there and make them yourself,” and I was like, oh really, and so of course I went in there and I was horrible.
Through that process, I learned that I really liked it. Again, it’s part of a relationship. I loved spending time with my mom and doing that together.
That’s what we bring to our relationships now — doing this with someone as a team effort.
How do you define your personal style?
I’m really tailored and sort of subdued. Because I’m more interested in dressing other people, I like to recede more than to be out in front. But as far as the design style, I love dressmaker details. I love the twisting of the fabric, the pintucking and the things that can be manipulated with fabric.
You have two daughters. Are they involved?
No. My oldest daughter, when she was younger, she’s 21 now, when she was around 13, 14, she became really proficient in making jewelry and we actually had the jewelry in the store and she loved that. She spent a couple of years doing that during the summer and really had a knack for that.
They look sometimes and they’re like, you work so hard, you work so much, did you sell anything today? Did you make any money today? They see what’s going on and think, I’m not sure I like that reality of the hard work.
They see all the other good things, but I think until they really mature, they’re not really quite sure what’s going on totally.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs who are thinking or might have already started their own company based on their own passion?
If you build it, they will come. Dreams are wonderful. We all need to have dreams and we need to set up our dreams in order to make them a reality.
A lot of people have dreams, but they don’t know how to bring them to fruition and a lot of that is really just hard work. People are sometimes afraid of the work involved to get it to the level that it will become successful and I think that’s the difference between who makes it and who doesn’t make it.
A lot of people have great ideas, but to take the effort and the time and the diligence, without pay, to get it to fruition, that’s the difference.
If you have a dream, you should make a plan and work that plan. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to be knocked down half a dozen times. You’re going to take five steps and be knocked back three, but at least you made two forward steps.
Keep moving forward, keep dreaming and if something doesn’t work, find something else that works. There are lots of new ideas and there are lots of things that haven’t been designed and made and created.
That’s what we’re all about. It’s what we all love, it’s something new, it’s something fresh.
What else would you like to share?
I love Jacksonville. Jacksonville is the reason we have been successful. Jacksonville has embraced us as a community. The women in the community are very outstanding women.
I’m proud to be from here. I think a lot of people dis Jacksonville because it has a small-town mentality, but I believe that it really doesn’t. There are a lot of very smart, savvy people here and we have a great foundation and a great city. Great things are still ahead for us.
***
First Coast Success: Linda Cunningham
The Daily Record interviewed Cunningham for “First Coast Success,” a regular segment on the award-winning 89.9 FM flagship First Coast Connect program, hosted by Melissa Ross.
The interview is scheduled for broadcast this morning and will replay at 8 p.m. on the WJCT Arts Channel or online at wjctondemand.org.
@MathisKb
(904) 356-2466