White Hot Brand

In 1985, Amsale Aberra was a young designer about to get married. Unfortunately for her, she was getting married in the era of poufy sleeves and beaded lace. She could not believe that she couldn’t find a simple dress; so, she created her own. Aberra realized she probably wasn’t the only bride frustrated with the taffeta-and-sequins options and opened a small custom gown business. Today, Aberra’s eponymous company, Amsale, sells tens of thousands of wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses, and cocktail dresses at her flagship boutiques in NYC and Seoul, Korea, as well as at leading US retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and other stores around the world. Her designs have been worn by celebrities including Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, Lisa Kudrow, Heidi Klum, and Katherine Heigl, and she was the wedding dress designer of choice for Alicia Keys, Bethenny Frankel, and Sara Rue.

With the first season of her reality show, Amsale Girls, wrapped, the Ethiopian-born designer is now working on achieving the same success overseas that she’s experienced in the States. Recently, NY Report executive editor Daria Meoli spoke with Aberra about how her best laid plan was not having a plan and her international expansion.

Daria Meoli: How did you go from making your own wedding dress to running a multi-million dollar company?

Amsale Aberra: I started the company because I had a passion and I knew there must be other people like me out there. But, I had absolutely no idea how to start a business. Even my husband, who is a Harvard Business School graduate, did not take me seriously. I didn’t start out with a business plan; I started out by simply saying, “There must be a need for this.” I’m so glad I didn’t start out with a business plan, because that would have scared me. If I would have looked at all that needed to be done for this to work, I would have just said, “I can’t turn this into a business.”

DM: What was one of the biggest mistakes that you made early on?

AA: I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong; I just did what I had to do. But one of the earliest mistakes I made was that I should have gotten help sooner. At the time, I didn’t even consider it. Now, I can see that starting a business, designing everything, making the dresses, and selling them was too much for someone who just had a baby. What was I thinking? I should have asked for help. While it was a mistake, it also made me stronger.

DM: How did you transition from custom bridal dresses to selling to major retail salons?

AA: I stuck to what I wanted to do. The first dress that I showed was a slim sleeveless dress in sheer organza and satin. The first buyer I showed it to said, “No bride wants a sleeveless dress.” But that’s what I wanted, so whether the buyer wanted it or not, that’s what I was going to continue to show. Luckily, my ad campaign worked. Or my “so-called ad campaign,” for which I was my own art director.

I created an ad that ran in bridal magazines to advertise my custom service, but women were bringing my ads into bridal salons and asking if they had anything similar. Then the stores started coming around and ordering from me.

What was really important for me was when I showed my designs to the original owner of Kleinfeld Bridal, which was then and still is the largest bridal salon in New York, she was very excited. They have practically all the designers in the world, and she said she hadn’t seen anything like my work. It was a huge boost to hear that from someone so big and for her to carry my line. She even offered me money because she knew I was small and thought I may really need it [to fill the order]. The rest of the world didn’t pay attention to me, but having an endorsement from her was a really good thing.

DM: How has your business changed since that first line?

AA: I have three collections for three different types of bride. The first line is Amsale and that’s for the girl who is very simple, clean, understated, and elegant. She’s very sophisticated. When brides started asking for more elaborate designs, with more beading, I knew that I did not want to dilute the Amsale brand, which is known for its simplicity.

So, I created another division called the Kenneth Pool collection [named for the original designer Amsale hired to create her vision of opulence for the glamorous bride], which is way over the top. It’s the opposite of Amsale. That collection is designed for the girl who really is very dramatic and is having a grand wedding. The third collection is the Christos collection. Christos Yiannakou was a real mentor of mine. The brand was known in the US for its soft, feminine lace. And when he was ready to sell his business [in 2005], he came to me and asked, “Do you want to buy the company?” It was a privilege to get the company and for someone like him to ask me to carry on his brand. It’s also another category for us—that soft, feminine, ethereal bride.

Becoming an International Brand

DM: Why did you decide to add a retail component to your wholesale business?