LIM College

Drinks by the pool, road trips to friends’ beach houses and lying out in little bikinis on Manhattan rooftops are summertime activities that some people expect of college students. My roommates and I had additional goals. After creating Stella Accessories last summer (a fashion-forward hair accessories company) right inside the walls of our small, messy apartment, the amount of amazing and promising things that have happened for us are well, almost unreal. From seeing our headband in InStyle to having someone offer us a trunk show with two days notice, things have been both exciting and stressful. 

After participating in numerous trunk shows at popular retailers like Henri Bendel and National Jean Company, we have learned that there is more to a business than just creating and selling headbands. All of us were enrolled in summer courses while we managed our business and created a Fall 2010 line of headbands, hair wraps, and barrettes. We researched trends for Fall, sourced materials throughout the city and online, kept within a reasonable budget, pitched to magazines, television shows and newspapers, fulfilled wholesale and website orders, and mailed gifts to celebrities (we are dying to see our neon hair wrap on Miley).

Our business consists of four partners: Alexia Panza, Danielle Zuckerman, Taylor Sugrue and Samantha Vigorito (me).  Alexia and I handle public relations, such as emailing editors of magazines like InStyle, Cosmopolitan, and In Touch as well as popular blogs and online sites. After we send our emails, once someone sends us a request back, we all work together to make sure we have the pieces that they want and get orders together. If we don’t have what’s requested, one of us heads down to the garment district and whoever is best at making the particular item will create it. Taylor and Danielle take care of choosing colors, materials, and usually creating the new types of headbands. Taylor is the best seamstress, so she is always sitting in our kitchen fiddling with new ideas.

Tonight, when we all return from our weekend adventures, our plan is to begin designing the Fall pieces and get them ready for the photographer for our new line sheet.  Considering we will all finally be together around 10 PM, maybe I should take a nap. This could be a long night, considering our entire new collection needs to be done by in a few days.

-- Samantha Vigorito

Stella Accessories site

A site about student entrepreneurship

A company site that contains some useful news about building a business