Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Casella.
Liz, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I knew from a young age, I wanted to work in fashion. There are many memories of this, I grew up in Perth and I distinctly remember being about 15 when Gianni Versace died. I cried so much over his death that my parents bought me his Vanitas book to console me. It has gold leaf pages and a ton of bright patterns and I just loved it.
I went on to study fashion design and realized there that I was more drawn to print and textiles rather than fashion design itself. At 19, I started my first freelance job creating designs for a print studio that was selling in New York.
Mid-way through my studies in Perth, I moved over to Sydney to continue at East Sydney’s Fashion Design Studio. This led to my first real job working on restoring Florence Broadhurst’s 1970’s designs and archive, which are now globally recognized.
Following this, I traveled to Milan to work in a high-end fabric house designing prints. On returning to Sydney at 25, I opened my first print studio with a friend from college and from there, there has been no looking back. Our company found strength in the Australian market and after a couple of years, we were approached by L.A brand, Whitley Kros, and continued to work on all of their prints exclusively. This early stage was extremely formative.
Thinking of us navigating Los Angeles with a large paper map in our hand now makes me laugh, we were naive but clear in our business and our potential. It was that naivety and blind ambition that had us walking into a lot of open doors and really began our journey into the American market.
The business naturally built and grew each year and we traveled constantly between Australia, Europe and the U.S. America fast became our largest continuing market. I knew that in order to really drive the business forward, I would need to move to the US. My husband and I moved to Los Angeles 8 years ago.
In 2014, my business partner and I parted ways and a small team of us in L.A rebuilt the business from the ground up, and we now have offices in New York and Los Angeles and continue to service markets in both Australia and Europe.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I have to admit that I have been very fortunate. I found a business that I am inspired and driven by, and it does feel like all of my hard work has paid off in many regards. No business is without struggles, it can be those struggles that make you continue to strive harder, refining your business model and ideas along the way and helping the business to continue to move into a stronger place.
Alright – so let’s talk business. What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition? What are you most proud of as a company?
The business takes my name; Liz Casella. It is a design studio creating prints for fashion and interior brands. Our prints are one of a kind, and exclusive to the purchaser. All of our designs are created by hand, digitized at a high resolution, color-separated, and put into repeat.
People coming from outside the fashion industry can take some time to wrap their head around what it is we do exactly, but when you can start pointing to garments on the street or on a rack, wallpapers at a hotel or certain furnishings and say my team designed that print, they can start to see what we are about.
What sets us apart is a unique way of working with my team and clients. We have been really well known for our specialized floral work and an overall attention to detail. Having a long history in the market, our understanding of fashion in general and long client relationships makes curation one of our greatest strengths and something we are known for.
I guess I am most proud that I my business is still continuing to evolve after so many years and am perhaps most proud that I was able to successfully re-build my business in a new country and that I get to do what I love on a daily basis.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Own your mistakes to grow and keep doing what you love. For me, designing is still so important. I continue to put time aside each week to design and inform the collection. I find it really important to keep inspired by the world outside of fashion, in order to keep things original and fresh.
I’ve also learnt a lot from my team. I employ from outside of the box, not just those from fashion and textiles. I have amazing illustrators as well as sculpture and fine art majors in the team. I think this really adds a point of difference and freshness to our work.
Contact Info:
- Address: 860 s Los Angeles street, suite 707 LA CA 90014
- Website: lizcasella.com
- Phone: 213 688 4932
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: lizcasella_lc.studio
Image Credit:
Amanda Austin
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