On Saturday, the 17th of September Fashion Island and SIMPLY teamed up to bring back StyleWeekOC® which celebrated everything about fashion and beauty. The snazzy afternoon consist of beauty and fashion panelists including entrepreneurs, stylists, radio/TV personalities, ballroom dancers and influencers. I sat in the audience during the panel discussion with Erin and Sara Foster moderated by James Aguiar. Aguiar is a stylist/creative director who started as a stylist at Bergdorf Goodman to Fashion Director at Fifth Avenue luxury retailer. Aguiar has held the role of VP Creative/Fashion Director for regional publishing giant Modern Luxury managing all of the fashion and celebrity pages. Erin and Sara Foster are the daughters of Grammy winning music producer David Foster. Sara the older of the sisters is an entrepreneur, actress and model and Erin is an entrepreneur, actress and writer. In 2015 the Foster sisters created and starred in the docu-comedy Barely Famous on VH1 which highlights the mockumentary satire of reality TV.
In December 2020. Sara and Erin launched their California chic aesthetic brand Favorite Daughter. It opened its first store in Beverly Hills.
Aside from being part of the panel discussion at StyleWeekOC, Erin and Sara also had a launching of their brand “Favorite Daughter” in Anthropologie Fashion Island. A photo-op and a live caricature artist were part of the event.
Going back to panel discussion, Sara and Erin talked about the backside of their business, the concept, fashion week, who is their target customer, how and why they picked the name Favorite Daughter. Here’s a little snippet of the panel discussion between the Foster sisters and James Aguiar.
The name of the business is important!
Sara: If our “Favorite Daughter” was called The Foster brand it would not be doing as well. The name of your business especially I think for clothing, it is so so important. We are in a joint venture. We are in 50/50 with this unbelievable company called Centric Brands. Let us be very clear, without them, we would not exist. I think you have to be realistic about your bandwidth. It’s also the Foster eco-system that feeds all the things – the podcast, our investments, favorite daughter, the TV stuff. You kinda really need all of them to feed the other at least that is what is authentic to her (Erin) and I, that what works for her and I.
James: I think it’s such a great advice it’s because I think people scroll, they look and they think ‘Well that just happens’ and all of that advice that you just said are the things that nobody wants to hear about and nobody talks about so thank you, thank you very much.
We are part of every decision
Erin: People asked us how we got our brand off the ground so quickly? We’re very quick to tell them that the whole business started with Centric and they have run tons of huge brand while we’re deeply entrenched in the creative process our head designer Carla is here. She is our head designer. We work together and we are part of every fitting. We are part of every decision and we scream at each other, fight with each other about these things cause we care about it. Every single piece is so important to us. A friend would buy something we know exactly what they are gonna be getting. We are extremely involved…. And I think it’s important for people to not be so greedy when you have an opportunity and think like ‘Oh I have to own all of these.’ You can own all of it but it won’t go anywhere and then you own a lot of nothing. And so we own half of something that’s doing well and we’re proud of that. We don’t doubt it for one minute the choice that we made.
James: Who is your target customer?
Erin: So when we first started we really didn’t know who she was gonna be and so we kinda like made up a bunch of different ideas until we figured out really who she was. But the truth is that who our girl is, is a girl who wants to be fashionable, feels fashionable, wants to go to dinner with her girlfriends and have someone compliments her outfit but she’s not willing to spend $1,200 (1:05) on the row, and instead she wants to buy Favorite Daughter. And so we are that middle range where you know that the quality is there, you know that your girlfriends are gonna think it’s cute and want to covet it but you know the price is not so outrageous.
Sara: I say it’s that girl too. They’re kinda tired shopping at Zara, you still love Zara, we love Zara but you’re ready for a step above Zara. You also don’t wanna show up at a party four people wearing the same thing. We don’t spend thousands of dollars on a coat that is just not who Erin and I are and we never will be. Erin and I run like a real fashion circle I mean, like crazy fashion girls and we hang out with them and we’re not dressed the way they are so we shop in Favorite Daughter and we feel good and that’s how we wanted everybody else to feel.
Being inclusive in a new inventive way
Erin: The way to be inclusive is to create a brand that makes girls feel like they have a seat at the table. They can be a fashion girl even they can’t spend a thousand dollars on something. We don’t want to feel exclusive, we want to feel inclusive.
James: I think I know the answer to this question but I’m gonna ask it anyway. I am just literally back from New York Fashion Week. I’m about to leave for Europe. Do you guys look at the show? Do you see what other people are doing? Do you care?
Erin: I don’t
Sara: Honestly, I don’t care what other people are doing. I know you gotta follow the trend and that’s obviously very important but you can’t predict trends and then once you see the show, unless you’re fast fashion in which we are not fast fashion. We are working right now a year away. We’re on Holiday 2023
James: I think it’s interesting it’s like getting into the minds of how you guys work and I think that’s important too
Erin: It’s more seeing like street style or seeing something that we like out of expensive brand and thinking like could a girl buy a really cool suede jacket for under $400 and have a great quality that is something I would like to have in my closet. It’s like paying attention to our own lives and what we would like to see in our closet and street style and then sort of building on that.
You can shop online at https://shopfavoritedaughter.com/ or visit Anthropologie in Fashion Island.
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