Why Colleen Allen Turns Away Retailers That Won't Pay Deposits
Colleen Allen, founder of a self-funded women's wear label launched in 2024, discusses her journey from learning to sew with her grandmother in the Midwest to studying menswear at Parsons and Central Saint Martins, working at The Row, and ultimately starting her own brand. She shares how she manages triple-digit growth through strict deposit-based retail terms and bootstrapping, while balancing creative expression with business fundamentals.
Summary
Colleen Allen's path to fashion began in childhood, sitting on her grandmother's lap learning to sew quilts and pillows. Growing up in the Midwest with no family connections to fashion, she discovered the industry through magazines, fashion blogs, and YouTube—particularly Alexander McQueen's Plato's Atlantis show when she was 13, which profoundly inspired her vision of fashion as performance art rather than mere product. She pursued fashion education through pre-college courses at the Art Institute of Chicago, then attended Parsons in New York, where she focused on menswear design. During a semester abroad at Central Saint Martins in London for her third year, she advocated to stay permanently, completing her degree there in the intimate studio-based program with fewer than 30 menswear students. She worked briefly at Calvin Klein before moving to The Row, where she gained crucial training in luxury quality, materials, and the discipline of making products to last.
After several years in menswear, Allen experienced a personal shift in her mid-20s, realizing she had disconnected from her own femininity and body. This prompted her to leave The Row, take on consulting work for stability, and create a women's wear collection driven entirely by personal, intuitive creative responses rather than commercial constraints. She worked with seamstresses in a studio space, focusing on the work itself before considering branding or business structure. With encouragement from a PR contact and wholesale representative, she showed her first collection in February 2024.
Since launch, her business has grown with triple-digit year-over-year growth while remaining entirely self-funded with no outside investment and no full-time employees beyond herself. She works with major retailers including Net-A-Porter, Moda Operandi, and Dover Street Market, with approximately 60% US distribution, 35% Europe, and 5% Asia. Critically, she has implemented a deposit-based payment model for all retail partners—turning away retailers unwilling to accept this term—to manage cashflow in a business where manufacturers and fabric suppliers must be paid months before retail delivery and payment. She describes this as the only viable model for sustainable growth at her scale.
Creatively, Allen is expanding beyond product into world-building and imagery, collaborating with art director Clark and magazine Cross Current to develop visual narratives around who her customer is and how different women embody the pieces. She aspires to eventually produce runway shows but is currently channeling that theatrical impulse through editorial content and carefully curated VIP partnerships. She emphasizes accepting cyclical periods of imbalance during peak seasons while maintaining non-negotiable personal practices like sleep, time with loved ones, and mental space for creative thinking.
About this episode
<p>Colleen Allen learned to sew sitting on her grandmother's lap, holding the fabric while her grandmother worked the pedal. Growing up in the Midwest, far from the industry, she found her way in through magazines, fashion blogs and old McQueen shows on YouTube.</p><br /><p>Allen studied menswear at Parsons, moved to London for a semester abroad at Central Saint Martins and asked to stay on to complete her degree. She landed her first job designing menswear at The Row but then something shifted. She decided to venture out on her own and create a womenswear label in 2024. Since then, Allen says the business has grown by triple digits year over year, with no outside investment and no full-time team other than herself. So how did she do it?</p><br /><p>This week on The BoF Podcast, Allen joins BoF founder Imran Amed to talk about the making of a womenswear label, the discipline behind self-funded growth and what she's building next. This conversation was recorded ahead of the LVMH Prize final in Paris, where Allen was one of nine finalists.</p><br /><p><strong>Key Insights: </strong></p><br /><p><br /></p><ul><li><strong>A blog-era education:</strong> With no connections to the industry, Allen taught herself fashion through magazines, hand-me-downs and, later, fashion blogs. She describes Alexander McQueen's Plato's Atlantis livestream as a formative moment: "It just totally blew my mind that there was still something to be discovered and something new and something transformative."</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><ul><li><strong>Advocating for herself at Central Saint Martins:</strong> After a single semester abroad, Allen asked to stay at CSM and was told no. "I thought, no, I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to find a way to stay," she says — and by the end of the year, the head of menswear invited her to remain in the programme.</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><ul><li><strong>Leaving menswear to design for her own body:</strong> After years designing menswear at The Row, Allen realised she had "no connection to my femininity, to my body" — and that the only way to process that was through her own work. "The only way I was going to be able to create that space for myself and my sort of own becoming into myself was to be creative, to work through fashion," she says.</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><ul><li><strong>Disciplined cash flow management :</strong> Entirely self-funded, Allen has grown her business by only working with retail partners willing to pay a deposit upfront — even if it means turning some away. “We are really only working with people on a deposit basis. Otherwise it's impossible. And so I'm very grateful that within the current retail clients, people have been accommodating for those terms because it's the only way it works.” she says.</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><ul><li><strong>Building a world, not just a product:</strong> Looking ahead, Allen wants to reinvest wholesale revenue into her direct-to-consumer business while continuing to expand the creative universe around the brand — campaign imagery, casting and, eventually, a runway show. "It's about bringing people into the world and creating more than just the product, but like who our woman is," she says. </li></ul><p><br /></p><p><strong>Two Books Colleen Allen Recommends: </strong></p><p><br /></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441776/red-comet-by-clark-heather/9781529113143" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Red Comet</a> by Heather Clark </li><li><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/185871/gods-and-kings-by-thomas-dana/9780241198162" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gods and Kings</a> by Dana Thomas </li></ul><p><br /></p><p><strong>Additional Resources:</strong></p><p><br /></p><h4><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/fashion-week/what-to-look-out-for-at-new-york-fashion-week/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong><em>What to Look Out for at New York Fashion Week | BoF</em></strong></a></h4><h4><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/news/luxury/lvmh-announces-young-designers-prize-semifinalists-for-2026/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong><em>LVMH Announces Young Designers’ Prize Semifinalists for 2026 | BoF</em></strong></a></h4><h4><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/briefings/luxury/new-york-fashion-weeks-identity-crisis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>New York Fashion Week’s Identity Crisis | BoF</strong></a></h4><hr /><p style="color: grey; font-size: 0.75em;"> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
Key Insights
- Allen credits Alexander McQueen's Plato's Atlantis livestream at age 13 as transformative because it democratized access to luxury fashion moments for someone in her childhood bedroom, showing her that new forms of theatrical design were still possible.
- She argues that her technical foundation from Parsons' rigid structure actually enabled the creative freedom she found at Central Saint Martins, suggesting commercial training and artistic experimentation are complementary rather than opposed.
- Allen describes her transition from menswear to women's wear as driven by a need for self-discovery and embodied expression, proposing that her previous design work represented a disconnection from her own femininity and identity.
- She maintains that working exclusively on a deposit basis with retailers is not a negotiation tactic but an operational necessity—without deposits, funding triple-digit growth year-over-year while self-funded is mathematically impossible.
- Allen has deliberately turned away retail opportunities from major retailers unwilling to provide deposits, suggesting she prioritizes sustainable business structure over maximum market capture.
- She learned from The Row that luxury is defined not by price or branding but by uncompromising commitment to quality, materials, and durability—a principle she carries into her own brand philosophy.
- Allen argues that creative practice remains active even during supposed downtime (walks, swimming), proposing that complete mental separation from work is neither possible nor necessary for balance.
- She identifies the McQueen biography 'Gods and Kings' as valuable specifically because it humanized fashion figures she had mythologized, revealing that even legendary designers experienced failures and uncertainties she now faces.
Topics
Transcript
Grainger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Costs climb. Too little? Production slows. Grainger's two billion dollars in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it. So you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-Grainger. Click click granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. This episode is brought to you by Macy's. We all know a downtown muse, that effortlessly polished, city-ready woman who looks put together without looking like she tries too hard. Maybe she's a friend. Maybe it's a celebrity you follow. Or maybe she's…
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