The Dallas Fashion Incubator gives emerging designers a retail showcase - and help getting their businesses off the ground

Across Main Street from Neiman Marcus downtown, eight young designers are on the front lines of what they hope is a renaissance in Dallas' fashion industry.

Armed with collections of spa wear, party dresses, flirty slippers and jewelry, they form the freshman class of the Dallas Fashion Incubator, a part-boutique, part-workshop where the apprentices learn about design and business – and connecting the two.

"Once upon a time, Dallas was a premier fashion hub," says Connie Sigel, owner of the Lovers Lane boutique Elements. "We lost a lot of design talent."

To stem the talent drain, Incubator matriarch Leslie Carpenter decided Dallas needed a lab to nurture young designers. With grants from the city and help from an array of Dallas fashion industry players, the Incubator officially debuts today with an open house and private cocktail reception, though it unofficially opened in early January.

Inside, the 1,200-square-foot airy studio displays the work of the budding designers. A second-story loft doubles as a workshop, where they sew, sketch and pore over business plans.

Soon, the Incubator will offer a small café area with a cappuccino machine and souvenir baby-doll T-shirts for sale.

"This is going to be a friendly environment in the fashion and design industries," says Ms. Carpenter. "People can come in off the streets and find a designer working."

Designers in the house

Between appointments, designers take turns running the store, open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. That sort of retail experience is key, says Lynn Barr, director of operations and special events at the Fashion Industry Gallery, a wholesale showcase for contemporary clothing and accessories labels. "That customer feedback is so important, understanding what the buyer is looking for."

Such training and exposure is critical to launching a career, agrees Elizabeth Anyaa, who designs silk prints reminiscent of her upbringing in Sierra Leone and Ghana. "It's knowing how to prepare yourself to go to the stores, what to say, how to present your product.

"We artists don't want to think about that part of things," she adds. "We just want to create stuff."

In addition to the retail store, the Incubator also features a full-time curriculum of seminars and mentor programs. After one year, designers are launched into the outside world.

Thinking locally

Though Dallas prides itself as a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, designers say the business side of fashion has languished. Odd for a city such as Dallas, where shopping is a contact sport and style is as closely monitored as the stock market.

Specialty stores such as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Stanley Korshak, and dozens of trendy indie boutiques, feature the most current clothing, shoes, jewelry and handbags. Yet little of it is created here.

Ms. Carpenter found that out firsthand. Nearly four years ago, she had notebooks of sketches of elegant cocktail dresses and formal wear. But the budding entrepreneur couldn't find local manufacturing resources to transform those drawings into actual clothing.

After a difficult trial supervising sample-making and manufacturing in Shanghai, China, she decided Dallas needed to beef up its fashion industry and began making phone calls asking for help.

The Dallas Incubator program is loosely modeled after similar ones in New York and California. In particular, Ms. Carpenter cites New York City's Forward program as the inspiration for the Incubator's "Link" Web site, which lists dozens of businesses that make buttons and zippers or sell leather goods and wood accessories.

Never mind the ceaseless movement of textile and apparel jobs to Latin America and Asia, or the fact that New York is to fashion what Los Angeles is to the movies, Ms. Carpenter insists Dallas can still be a nerve center for the apparel industry.

Linking resources

The North Texas area has numerous resources that cater to the creation and production of fashion. The trick is to link them.

Combine that access with the free showroom and work space at the Incubator (designers help to offset overhead by paying 12 percent of sales), and supporters hope Dallas' fashion industry could begin to emerge as an economic force.

While Dallas is unlikely to replace better-known fashion capitals, without programs such as the Incubator, budding local talent will continue either to give up or move on. That talent – think Matthew Earnest or Lela Rose – flourishes instead in New York, Los Angeles or in Europe, says Elements' Ms. Sigel.

Ms. Sigel gave $10,000 to the Incubator, with $5,000 more on the way. The Art Institute of Dallas wrote a check for $10,000, and the Fashion Industry Gallery contributed about $6,000 in free space at the January wholesale market so the designers could market their collections to boutiques.

"Having the Incubator here brings more of a fashion focus to Dallas," says Rosanne Byrne, managing director of SMU's J.C. Penney Center for Retail Excellence. "It's a perfect fit."

Harwood Lee spent 15 years styling the rich and famous. But now he finds energy in his hometown.

"I felt like I wasn't challenged anymore – I was tired of doing the same thing every time," says Mr. Lee, who now helps Incubator designers assemble their collections. "There's a youthful buzz emerging in Dallas fashion."

A fertile environment

The Incubator also struck a chord with those focused on revitalizing downtown. The city donated $80,000 to the project last year, the bulk of the Incubator's 2005 budget.

Other groups also recognize the Incubator's potential. Incubators can spark vibrant clusters, says Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Public Forum Institute, which runs the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship.

"They establish a creative culture, a fertile environment by which to address everyday challenges associated with running a business," he says. "The chaos theory is important to maintain in these incubator efforts. You never know what they're going to generate."

Not every member of the Incubator class will become fashion's next darling, Ms. Carpenter says, "but this will give their collections a viable shot at getting picked up by boutiques and stores throughout the country."

That's exactly the sort of leg-up Jerry Martinez says will make the difference between a hobby and a viable career. "I've been here a long time and I like it here," says the co-designer of Cosa Monna slippers, who also teaches a sewing class at El Centro. "I want to stay in Texas."

Success, to Ms. Anyaa, is to use her training to set up workshops in West Africa to help women develop and sustain themselves.

"I'm learning how to run an institution which I believe could help other people, not only in America, but also help people back home," she says. "It's not just having the Incubator here but extending its life to Africa.

"It's a blessing to me," she adds, "to help find something which is something more than design."