Former gymnast refines feminine line
Investment banker rediscovers flair for clothing
Imagine gymnast Priya Saraswati in mid-air: back handspring, back handspring to a back somersault then a perfect landing where her tiny feet come lightly to rest. Now imagine Saraswati the fashion designer as she captures the lithe, clean lines of a gymnast in motion using wool or cotton.
She's a size zero extra petite, as well as cute, young, smart and sophisticated. But her fashion designs work on women of sizes zero to 16.
After earning a business degree, Saraswati enjoyed a five-year career as an investment banker in Silicon Valley and Menlo Park—until the dot.com bust of 2001 drained the fun from financing technology startups. In 2004 after a couple of years as intern with San Francisco clothing designers, she took some of the money she'd earned and invested in her own design business, Saffron Rare Threads. Saraswati designs, manufactures and sells women's clothing in the heart of San Francisco's financial district. She has a retail store in the Embarcadero Center.
"I went from sketch to pattern, to cutting a sample, to production," she says.
Born of parents from India and raised in Canada, Saraswati incorporates international flair in her clothing. "Every time we would travel to India, I would have things made," she says. "My family is not into fashion. It's my thing. Fashion is the intersection of art and commerce. You have to have business sense to make this work."
Her goal: dresses and suits that businesswomen can wear to work then out for a night on the town. "Take it from the conference room to the cocktail hour," she says. "With an easy change of accessories you can wear it to dinner. It's not something you can only reach for once in awhile."
Saraswati started her business as a wholesale supplier to fashion boutiques. Then she opened a retail studio in 2006. "I progressively moved to more retail and less wholesale," she says, with bigger stores in better locations in San Francisco.
"I got a recession special," she says about the Embarcadero store. "For the financial district, it's perfect. I do clothing for professional women."
Saraswati cuts her garments with European sizing, incorporating narrow sleeves. She uses cotton and wool in coats, suits, and knit dresses and tops. "Everything I do has a little bit of stretch," she says. "They fit better and wrinkle less."
Design talent emerged early in Saraswati. "I designed my own ninth grade prom dress," she says. "I used to be a gymnast. I designed my own body suits and had them made. I design clothes that focus on the good parts of a woman's body, that flatter her in the right way and fit all sizes."
"I used to be a gymnast. I designed my own body suits and had them made."
"You see someone walking down the street who is really well put together. Maybe she has a great jacket. It's great to be able to take inspiration from the world and make people happy," she says. "Women come in here and say they went to Nordstrom and could not find anything they liked. They walk out with five or six things from our line. I enjoy creating and branding, coming up with something new, taking it from my head to having a garment."
She has a cutting table in the back of the retail store. Production is done at contracted cutting and sewing factories in the city. If a customer wants five colors of a particular dress, for example, Saraswati can have them custom made in a few weeks. One of her best-selling designs is the simple, classic dress with the cutout shown here. "I have sold over 200 of these in six months," she says.
"We have a certain look," she says, "effortlessly elegant, as if you didn't have to put too much thought into it. Simple and timeless." She stays clear of most design trends.
Her fall line has muted colors with accents. "Bright blues and purples are popular with customers," she says. "Splashes of color push people out of their black zone. Fall knits are black, burgundy, olive green and slate-blue gray. Coats are black, charcoal, brown and olive green. Muted tones include steel and copper."
"Bright blues and purples are popular with customers. Splashes of color push people out of their black zone."
"It's not as glamorous as everyone would think," Saraswati says of the fashion industry. "At a photo shoot, we get the job done and get our photos out. People imagine that a designer sits in a room designing all day. But you have to think about what is going to sell. Sometimes you design something nobody likes. Or you design something that flies off the racks. It's not easy to predict. It's finicky, fluid and tricky. I'm always adaptable."
Because Saraswati manages her own production, she has to "make sure all the right buttons are on hand, the right zippers," she says. "It's a lot of scheduling, getting it all on time, organization and production."
A pregnant woman from Los Angeles wanders into Saffron Rare Threads and browses through Saraswati's designs. Saraswati jumps to her feet, picks out several items and playfully holds them up for the woman to try on. "I'm touchy feely and hands-on," she says of her sales approach. In about ten minutes the customer spends $175 on three items: a knit top with an attached loop through which she steps then twists and arranges around her shoulders; a pair of hoop earrings; and a scarf. The customer pays and sails happily out the door.
—James Dunn
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