Atelier azza where to buy

She ran Atelier Azza as a side business for a year, using her day job to finance her passion project. When she finally went full-time in September of , she was barreling toward burnout.

But hiring the best employees as a fledgling, self-invested company proved challenging. The fashion students she brought on as interns lacked business smarts, while more desirable candidates opted for higher-profile and higher-paying opportunities. It took Khan another year to figure out how to hire well for her needs, and she spent that time creating a structure for future employees to ease management woes.

Along the way, she also encountered unexpected opportunities that were hard to ignore. As she prepares to move most of her business to New York City in pursuit of elusive wholesale contracts, she intends to leave the store at N. Two years ago, Khan was working for big oil — BP — in marketing and advertising. She handled crisis management surrounding the Gulf oil spill in and professional sports partnerships not her passion.

I didn't want to take the risk of letting go of a career that I spent 10 years building, that was successful in its own right. On the design side, she credits a great deal of her growth to working with custom clients. It's about creating a piece that looks beautiful on a woman's body," she said. She designs and creates prototypes and samples in her Chicago showroom.

The mass production is done in India in a workshop she rents and oversees. My parents are Indian. I speak the language, and that has really helped the business for me to be able to communicate with the team there.

Azza ready-to-wear dresses, which come with a tassel belt, are one-size-fits-all to reduce complexity. Like her own first name, her brand name is a palindrome "I like symmetry" and she hopes that will help establish it visually.

For now, she hesitates to even call herself an "emerging" designer. I discovered her about a year ago. Share Tweet. Address: N. Michigan Ave. Transport: El stop:Red to Chicago. Contact: www. You may also like. We know this city. Do you?