Copyright Baton Rouge Advocate
When Kelsey Campion started making handmade Mardi Gras-themed clothing from a 200-square-foot bedroom nearly a decade ago, she never expected to get stopped on the street and asked if she’s the “caftan lady.” But a viral video and strong local demand for her signature sequined items — jackets, dresses, vests, shirts and the full-length caftans seen everywhere on local parade routes — propelled her home-based sewing enterprise into a pair of businesses with millions in revenues and a growing clientele from the Gulf Coast and beyond. Campion and her business and life partner, Liz Ellis, now operate both businesses from a hot pink former paint factory on Howard Avenue. One is an e-commerce retailer called Fringe & Co. that sells Campion's creations directly to consumers. The other is a growing manufacturing arm, Fringe Factory, that makes clothes for Fringe & Co. as well as for other local and regional businesses in search of domestic clothing manufacturers. “I create pieces that I want to see in the world,” Campion said. “And when I found gaps in the market for certain pieces, I was like, ‘Well, if no one’s going to make them, I'll make them.’” Campion, a Minnesota native, got into festive clothing after abandoning her pursuit of a PhD in forensic psychology a decade ago. She taught herself to sew, moved to New Orleans shortly before Mardi Gras in 2016 and, not long after, started selling homemade headwraps in purple, green and gold at pop-up markets in her new home. Fringe & Co. was born. She expanded into online sales, first on the Etsy platform and later via her own e-commerce website. From the outset, she has defined her brand as creative, whimsical, size- and gender-inclusive “wearable fun” with a commitment to ethical production. Her creations, besides clothing, include jewelry and accessories suitable for Carnival, festivals or routine fabulousness. By far, her most popular product is the sequined caftan, which starts at $150. In fact, it was a brief, direct-to-camera video of her in a shimmering caftan that went viral on TikTok in 2021 and propelled Fringe & Co. to the next level. “Within 20 minutes, I knew something was up,” she said of that video. “Within a day, I knew that something was really up. And within a week, I knew that my business had fundamentally changed.” That week, the email waiting list for Campion's products went from about 500 to 13,000. For the next 16 months, Fringe sold out of every item it released. Unable to keep up with demand. Campion began searching for a local manufacturer, which was a priority, she said. She found one in Terrytown. “People really liked that they were made in New Orleans when I was handmaking them, and I knew that a value of mine was local manufacturing,” she said. Three years ago, the owners of the Terrytown facility decided to retire and shut down. Campion and Ellis purchased their sewing machinery and launched the Fringe Factory from the West Bank plant, retaining its eight-person production staff. In July, they moved the equipment to their 4,000-square-foot headquarters, bringing both businesses under a single roof. Their dozens of clients now include a trio of New Orleans Mardi Gras krewes as well as local and regional companies that make bags, bedsheets and school uniforms and, like Campion and Ellis, want their products to be manufactured closed to home. Currently, the two Fringe companies have combine annual revenues of between $1 million and $5 million, Campion said. Her goal is to expand the factory side of the business until it makes up the majority of revenue. She also hopes to soon offer a white-label program to allow brands to "plug and play" with existing designs, cutting the costs of developing new designs while offering licensing fees. Fringe Factory offers several advantages over its cheaper overseas competitors, making it appealing for clothing brands just starting out, Campion said. Its minimum order size is 10 compared with triple-digit minimums overseas. And while it takes 12 to 18 months to make a product from scratch overseas, Fringe can do it locally within six months — without any language barriers or transportation complications. Also, clients get assistance with design and development, as well as support with production costs, pricing, margins and marketing strategy. “We really look at ourselves as like a creative boutique manufacturer that can help at all phases of the product development,” Campion said. “We're not just making your pieces. We really want to be a creative partner.”
