Meet Andrea Knopf of Alliance Apparel in Downtown LA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Knopf.

Andrea, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I never went to school for Fashion Design. In fact, I was a Dance and Graphic Design double major (SO random) at Loyola Marymount University. It was my Senior year in college, and I took over a friend’s paid internship at a Denim factory in Vernon because I thought “Hey, why not try something new?” That was a time when Premium Denim was at its peak, and it was all about Citizens of Humanity, 7 for all Mankind, Hudson Jeans, etc.; and I was working in the factory that manufactured them all.

I literally had no idea what I was doing, but I’d be shooting the shit with the owners of these companies talking business. It was a crash course in design, development, and production all at once and I’m so thankful for that experience because I ended up designing denim for another six years after that.

Fast forward seven more years to today, I’m the Director of Design and Development at Alliance Apparel (www.allianceapparel.us). Our in-house brands include Lovers + Friends (www.loversandfriends.us), Tularosa (www.tularosa.com), LPA (www.lpathelabel.com), GRLFRND denim, House of Harlow and NBD just to name a few. I started with the company when it was only Lovers + Friends back in 2012, and we were just an eight-person team working out of a shared warehouse in the DTLA Arts District.

I was managing all the design and development for the line, and then we decided to launch another line which was Tularosa, named after the street I lived on in Silverlake since we were designing out of my living room. From that point on, we just kept launching brand after brand and next thing, you know Revolve (www.Revolve.com) acquired us, and we now have over 16 in-house lines, and I have a 48 person design team HAHA!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
If anything went smoothly would that be any fun? I believe that the struggle and challenges you encounter build character and only make you stronger. I’m one of those people that love coming up with solutions. Got a problem? I’ll solve it!

Want to launch another brand? Let’s do it! Anyone in the fashion industry or any type of fast-paced environment knows that nothing is ever smooth in the process, but that’s all part of learning. I always tell my team that it’s ok to make mistakes, because how else are you going to learn from it? But just don’t ever make that mistake again.

I’ve worked for some terrifying people in my past where I was scared to make any kind of misstep because I would just get screamed at. But I’ve also had some amazing mentors that really nurtured my growth, and that’s the type of leader I’ve set out to be.

Please tell us about Alliance Apparel.
As the Design and Development Director at Alliance, my main role is to oversee the Designers, Product Developers, and the R&D team. We work really closely with the Revolve buying team since most of our product is exclusively sold on the website (www.revolve.com).

We also collaborate with a lot of influencers and celebrities such as Nicole Richie, Chrissy Teigen, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Michael Costello just to name a few. Our team has done a really great job of forming these authentic relationships, so these collaborations are really fun to work on.

We also design around marketing activations such as Revolve Festival which happens during Coachella as well as Revolve Around the World.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
This is really random, but this story stands out. My younger brother Keegan and I are four years apart.  I was about eight and I would tell Keegan I had a trap door in the bathroom to Disneyland and McDonalds. I would lock him out of the bathroom, and he would peer through the crack of the bathroom door, and I’d hide in the bathtub so he wouldn’t see my feet.

This lasted for about ten minutes which was an eternity for a child. He would be banging on the door crying asking me to take him with me. I would then re-appear and walk out with remnants of a Happy Meal that I had previously hidden in the bathroom. I know it sounds f*d up but we’re really really close today, I have so much respect for him and he’s successful in his own right (www.woonkitchen.com), so I like to think this incident helped thicken his skin a bit, right? 😉

Contact Info:

• Website: www.allianceapparel.us
• Email: andrea.fong@allianceapparel.us
• Instagram: @revolve
• Other: www.revolve.com

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