Isa Tapia

Moments through the door at Isa Tapia’s TriBeCa office and she’s trying on a whole host of shoes for me, modelling pieces from her upcoming fall collection. This, I might add, is despite the fact that she landed in New York at 3am that morning off a flight from Los Angeles. She’s animated and upbeat, which is partly how she ended up on the floor mid-photo shoot surrounded by shoes. Her energy is infectious – and it translates in her shoes. They’re fun, colourful and eclectic, and unapologetically so. Minimal isn’t a word that enters her vocabulary…

That said, from the time she was in her second year at Parsons School of Design, she’s been a grafter. It’s her work ethic that saw her balancing college with working full time under Oscar de la Renta. After falling in love with footwear design during her time there, she launched and quickly closed her own brand straight after school. She went on to introduce handbags at Loeffler Randall and also at Juicy Couture during the brand’s peak, and managed the accessories department at Ann Taylor, before self-funding her eponymous line in 2012 – all while balancing several consulting jobs for big various big brands. It takes a certain tenacity to walk away from a business, return to working for others and start over again on your own.

I spoke to Isa about what it was like working under the late Oscar de la Renta, what she learnt from the failure of her first business and what inspired her to use the money she’d saved for a house to invest in her eponymous line.


Isa Tapia
Isa Tapia


ON JUGGLING COLLEGE AND WORKING FULL-TIME AS OSCAR DE LA RENTA’S APPRENTICE: When the role came about, I thought I was interviewing for an internship. I had my portfolio full of sketches and designs and some gouaches of prints and patterns. I got interviewed by HR and walked down the hallway thinking that was it. Instead, a minute later I was standing in front of Mr. de la Renta himself in his office. It was then that reality started sinking in. He asked to see my sketches and after a few minutes asked me when I could start. By then I was in a complete daze and utter shock so I smiled and said “tomorrow”. Despite being in school, having the opportunity to work as his apprentice full time was something I couldn’t say no to. I had to make it work. I was lucky to have the support of friends, family and the school. Tim Gunn was the Dean. This was pre-Project Runway. When I spoke to him about the opportunity he said that I had to take it and that we would find a way. I did not have much of a social life. I was always focused on the end goal and worked hard to do my best, even if it meant not having a work/life balance. That said, working with me was a fairy-tale experience. Those were the day’s pre-recession and full of glamour. I had a huge clothing allowance, ball gowns and furs and functions and dinner parties. He was still designing Balmain Couture in Paris at the time. I got to travel with him to Paris and Italy. The team was small, 3-4 people and I could sketch, which gave me a huge advantage at the time. My sketches ended up in WWD constantly. I could translate ideas to paper quickly which gave me the confidence to blossom and the opportunity to work very closely with him. Learning from the best never hurts.

HER BIGGEST TAKEWAYS FROM HER TIME THERE: Elegance is timeless. Manners matter. Always look your best. Fashion makes you look good so it can make you feel amazing. It can change your outlook on life; you can become whoever you want. Oscar was a gentleman in everything he did, full of grace and glamour. Sometimes I miss the grandeur of it all. I also found my passion for shoe making in Florence with Robert Castaña and his wife, who made all the most beautiful shoes for us at Oscar. The use of colour and print and the embroideries have been something I learned from him. Let’s just say there is a reason I’m not a minimalist…


Isa Tapia


Isa Tapia
Isa Tapia


WHAT SHE LEARNT FROM STARTING & CLOSING HER FIRST LINE RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE: I think with being so lucky at the time, it made me a bit of a snob. I thought I could do whatever I wanted. My friends had sold their senior collection to Barneys and I thought I could do the same. And I had the chance to do it. Saks CEO, Fred Wilson picked up the entire collection to launch but I was very young and didn’t understand the business well. It’s not just good designs and ideas, you must have the right partners and team. I didn’t know what failure was until that point. It was crushing. It was the first painful experience I ever encountered. I saw no way out and felt like my whole life was falling apart. And it did in a way, I unraveled. But now I look at it differently. It made me stronger and wiser and I became who I am because of it.

THE BENEFITS OF WORKING FOR ANOTHER BRAND BEFORE STARTING YOUR OWN: I think everyone has their own path. Today, everything is changing and the rules don’t apply as much, which is very exciting. You can make things happen and there are less road blocks standing in the way. But for me, it getting experience in a brand was crucial. Understanding the entire process, managing big teams of people and budgets was very important for my career. Equally as important was building successful brands after my first company failed. Getting hired and watching the sales figures sky rocket and seeing what could be built with the right team and vision changed my outlook. Suddenly I was influencing the value of a company when I joined. There was a big accessory moment in the mid-2000s – it was all about the ‘it’ bag or the ‘it’ shoe, so I had the opportunity to launch a lot of accessory brands.


Isa Tapia


Isa Tapia
Isa Tapia


ON HER NOT-SO-AVERAGE CV: At Ann Taylor, I got to oversee all of accessories, shoes, bags, jewellery, soft goods, licences and the entire team under each category. It was a big opportunity. We started with the core pieces for shoes and bags and suddenly all the editors where putting the product in magazines. The bags and shoes made it to Vogue, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire gave us huge jewellery spreads. The accessories business was on fire and grew fast. That is when I knew I had to go at it again to give another chance. I also worked at Loeffler Randall, helping them launch bags. They had been making shoes for 10 years and wanted to introduce handbags with intention, a big collection and a point of view. Their DNA as a brand is strong so I knew it would be a hit. We worked on the launch and the idea of who the girl was. The Rider bag was born and a year later they were everywhere. A lot of the inspiration came from vintage and from the owners own vintage suitcases and finds. It was a great journey to see the growth there.

THE JUICY YEARS: Every company is different and you should learn from every experience. All of it means something to me now because you start to see things full circle. You make friends and mentors and connect with people that come back to you. Every company has a chapter and a story and means something to me and or my career in a way. Juicy was my introduction to the world of handbags. I went to interview for a shoe design position and was told that that was a licensee (Swartz and Benjamin at the time) but I could go in-house if I designed handbags, so I did, and the first year we did the day dreamer and it turned into a massive business. This is where I learned designers can be like actors and put on different hats. It happened on a team trip and it was like my whoa moment. Everyone was wearing these pink and brown velour track suits with Juicy spelled in rhinestones and I looked around and I was the only one wearing head to toe black: a black turtleneck pencil skirt, a la Carine Roitfeld and stockings and pearls. We had just launched the handbag line and I knew I could be that girl, I could go inside my brain and turn a switch on and design a bag for her even though I wouldn’t be caught dead in the clothes. Soon after we even launched a dog line which I called Doggy Couture and it was a crazy fun laugh to grow that business (doggy couture turned into a 20m dollar business a year and the day dreamer 80m).


Isa Tapia


Isa Tapia


ON STARTING HER EPONYMOUS LINE: Part of my job at Ann was shopping the market and trends. I got to go to Europe and shop at Celine and Balenciaga for work. Talk about a dream job! I had saved up a lot of money and was constantly traveling so I started paying attention and my product development partner at the time kind of pushed me to try again. We had built a big accessory business and I started thinking it was now or never to take the leap. I had just turned 30 and knew that if I wanted to try again, I needed to do it before I got too comfortable…

ON FINANCING THE BUSINESS WITH HER HOUSE FUND: I knew I wanted to self-fund it and own it and I knew I could keep a side income by consulting so I knew I was ready. I think if you can do it on your own terms its always more satisfying and you don’t have to answer to anyone you have independence to build your vision. I continued to consult for Ann Taylor in the early days. It allowed me to do things my way with the business – slow and steady. It also kept me busy and motivated when my company wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted it too. Instead of sitting around waiting for orders I was at a sketch review or on a trip. Balancing both wasn’t easy. I had no personal life. I gained weight. I stopped looking at myself in the mirror or taking care of myself. But it was all worth it. I was chasing my dream again. I was making things happen and being intentional. As the business grew and the pace got faster, I stopped the consulting work and sought outside investment. It was going to turn into a burn out and it was time to focus on my business, not other peoples’. I had to put all my energy into my vision and see it through.


Isa Tapia
Isa Tapia


HOW SHE SECURED HER FIRST STOCKISTS: I set up a showroom at the Empire hotel because at the time the shows where at Lincoln Center. We gutted out the room and turned it into a showroom. I had no appointments, a couple of editors walked through, but then word got out. I had Kirna Zabete place an order within a few hours. Then Elizabeth Kaftner walked in. She was Saks at the time so I ended up back launching at Saks Fifth Avenue, then Bergdorf and Bloomingdales followed the following season. The growth of my wholesale business has been completely organic. I don’t like to be pushy – there’s enough of that out there. It means it takes more time to get the right people to see you because you’re not at every party or event. It’s always about the product for me. I think my product speaks for itself. I’m not at some places I know I would do well at, they won’t come see me but that’s ok, they can come when they are ready. I want to work with people that believe in what I’m doing and like the product not that it got forced on to them. That’s the worst way for me to gain an account.


Isa Tapia


HOW BEING PART FOF THE CFDA FASHION INCUBATOR IMPACTED HER BUSINESS: Being part of the CFDA was always my dream; one way or another it made me feel part of a community. With so many celebrities and people starting fashion brands, it is good to be around a group of people that genuinely do this for a living and live it every day. It was a 2-year program and I met a lot of people I connected with, who were going through a similar growth stage. Ari Bloom, Tony King and Roopal Patel were my mentors. They are all experts in their fields and it was such a pleasure to be able to have them look at my business from different angles and see what I was doing. Ari was good at the finance side and seeing through some of the business plans and numbers and keeping things real. Tony is a visionary and I respect his aesthetic so much. It was an honour to have his opinion on my website and brand content. Roopal was not as directly involved with me but I remember one day she walked in and looked at this big wall of crazy, colourful, happy shoes and said to me, “I get it, I get what your shoes are all about” and that was a great compliment to hear from her.

WHAT’S NEXT: We just got this new gorgeous loft space in SoHo and its finally coming together for market Fall 17 in a few weeks. We have some exciting collabs with some other brands. We are expanding our distribution into more international accounts. Asia is growing fast. Im really excied about unveiling the Spring 17 Collection campaign next week on Jan 26th , it’s the best we have done so far , we got these amazing manicures in the east village all the nail designs are different and there’s lots of ice cream and donuts involved! We have so much fun projects in the pipeline. I promise it won’t be boring so stay tuned!