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The Door's Open
Still in High School these 3 have entered the fashion industry
by Adam Hyman
Article is from Matters Magazine
Three industrious West Orange teenagers have recently entered the
fashion industry through the Cellar Door. Lizzy Storm, Olga Mutter, and
Sarah Karinja have managed to balance academic and social calendars with
a thriving business: Cellar Door Apparel, an award-winning collaboration
which produces hand-painted and sewn t-shirts, sweat shirts, hoodies,
and tank tops.
Storm and Karinja have been friends since first grade, and Mutter joined them in fifth. "The three of us are best friends. Best friends," the girls chorus. The trio had always sewn and decorated clothes for fun but it wasn't until a 2005 Newark Academy fundraiser that rents booths to merchants that they began to realize they had a going concern on their hands. "When my school offered students the opportunity to sell at Baskets & Boutiques, we decided to combine our passions for making clothes to start a business," explains Karinja. In one auspicious evening they sold some 35 shirts and Cellar Door Apparel was off and running.
"I was unable to attend B&B event due to knee surgery, but when Sarah and Olga showed up at my house after the event, cash in hand, I immediately got the feel for how the night went," Storm recalls.
The trio began to market their line at Culture Couture, a store on Church Street in Montclair. Next they tried out The Market in New York, where they were less successful because of the high cost of the booth relative to the number of pieces they sold. But it got them some coveted publicity, and CDA has since gone on to make a name for itself, recently winning the West Orange Chamber of Commerce Kids in Business Award.
With growing recognition as well as a clientele, the greatest challenge is time. "It's difficult having a small business and going to school, doing homework, playing soccer and lacrosse, and still maintain the image of a full time company," admits Karinja. One lucky break for the company was finding a college student studying graphic design to put together their website. "He was looking for some clothes and something to add to his résumé so he actually found us and offered to redesign our website in exchange for a couple of tee shirts and hoodies," Karinja says.
Teen chatter has also had its affect. "The most surprising result of our business initially was the extensive reach of word-of-mouth advertising," says Storm. "That first Baskets & Boutiques was such a success because so many people knew about our small business, and already loved the clothes before they could even buy them."
The handmade shirts with their funky patterns and design are very much in tune with the current fashion for a bohemian aesthetic. One design is "Scribble," and is made in three versions each designer has her own. Covered in a scrawling ink pattern composed of interwoven music notes, names of flowers, peace signs and guitars paired with text such as "eat your fruits and veggies," "anarchy" and "dance," the shirts appeal to a variety of consumers. Mutter, Storm and Karinja are making things they themselves would wear, and so the designs are targeted to indie-music-fan, Manhattan-daytrip-loving high school girls.
"Inspiration comes from everything...music, movies, friends, art,"
explains Karinja. "Sometimes we say, 'Wow, I'd love to have a shirt with
sewn mushrooms on it.' After wearing it to school a couple times and
getting a lot of compliments, we add it to the line. Other times we sit
around in our studio for a couple hours and just hope a new design comes
out." The girls' "studio" is actually in Karinja's attic, not the
cellar, where the team stores shelves full of fabric, paint, buttons,
ribbon, lace, paint, needles, and thread. "We have three huge tables:
one for sewing, one for painting, one for screen-printing and button
making. We do everything there," Karinja says.
Their moderately priced shirts take about one and a half hours to make, but the three designers aren't complaining; "It's therapeutic," Karinja laughs, "We'll get together on a Friday and work for eight hours or so; we'll have a shirt making party."
For Storm, Cellar Door Apparel may be just the first step in a long career in fashion, with fashion school a possibility in the near future. While their goals will take them many different places - Karinja, for example, hopes to become a chemist - all three want to continue the business for as long as they can.
The company's name owes a debt to J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote, "Most English speaking people...will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful,' especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful." Just go to www.cellardoorapparel.com and you'll see that Tolkien knew what he was talking about.
Adam Hyman just graduated from Newark Academy. He lives with his parents in South Orange and will be happily off to Rhode Island School of Design soon.
