A lady will surely opt for a machine-washable flirty frock over frumpy frippery any day, or evening, or day-to-evening.
That's the idea behind Laundrea, the Aston, Delaware County-based dress line founded by new mom Rachel Godwin Becker.
Becker, 25, a former assistant bridal designer, introduced her collection of made-in-America basic sheaths, wraps, and sassy A-lines in March. The pieces - all manufactured in New York's Garment District - are available in 18 stores nationwide, including Jennifer on the Avenue in Berwyn and Sorella Boutique in Media.
For a collection in its first year, Becker is doing well enough to turn a profit. Her dresses, which retail from $150 to $198, are selling out at local boutiques, thanks especially to this season's runaway success with the fit-and-flare silhouette, which tapers in at the waist and blossoms into a full skirt, stopping just an inch or two above the knee.
"I would say we probably sell at least one of her dresses a day," said Charlene Mulholland, one of the owners of Sorella, which is hosting a Laundrea trunk show Thursday. "People love them. They can wear it to work and then turn around and wear it to dinner. It fits every body type."
Becker's goal is to convince women - career-driven wives, stay-at-home moms, carefree single gals, or some combination of all three - that there is more to stylish comfort than lululemon. After all, she says, how a person dresses on the outside reflects how she feels on the inside.
That's not a new sentiment. Nor, for that matter, is Becker's conservative-with-a-twist approach to style that calls for a demure decolletage with a little leg.
What is refreshing is her drive. Becker is that rare breed of designer who also understands business.
It helps that she came of age during the rise of social media, so she's not hampered by old-school methods and mores in getting her message out. (For instance, instead of hauling her stuff to New York trade shows, she exhibited at the traveling Forum Showroom when it was downtown.) She's also a product of the Project Runway culture, which had its heyday when she majored in fashion design and minored in marketing at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa, Fla. So her thinking is: Of course I can have a fashion line.
Of course she'll manufacture locally, too. When you're a bit of a control freak, as most designers are, it helps to be able to oversee production, and new designers have to respond quickly to trends, Becker said, so a fast conception-to-production turnaround time is key.
Job creation is just as important to her. When you've spent much of your formative years watching America's slow recovery from economic recession, nationalism is the new normal. "We need to keep the jobs where they belong," she says. "Here."
Becker grew up in Media, and like a lot of designers, she fell in love with fashion when she learned to sew dresses for her dolls. She took a job in Manhattan as a design assistant at Jim Hjelm Bridal, where she made sure everything from the lace detailing to appliques fit Hjelm's vision. But after a year and a half, she grew bored with the incremental season-to-season changes in bridal fashion. There is only so much one can do with a strapless princess gown.
"I wanted to be a part of the inspiration," Becker said. "And I learned within one season pretty much everything that I needed to know."
So at 23, she gave up her apartment in Hoboken, N.J. - working in fashion didn't necessitate being close to New York, she reasoned - and moved back home to Media.
By day, she worked as a secretary at her parents' company, Substitute Teacher Service. The rest of the time Becker spent researching what it would take to design her own dress line. After two years, she brought the collection to fruition. Her parents invested $30,000; her mother is her business partner. Her headquarters, with inspiration boards and a mini dollhouse sewing machine, are located in her parents' offices, nestled in a sprawling glass building complex.
Running your own business is a full plate for a married woman with a 9-week-old daughter, but Becker saw no reason to wait.
"Life is only going to get crazier and crazier as the years go on," she said. "You might as well just go with it."
Finding a Stateside manufacturing facility willing to do small runs - she makes no more than 30 pieces of one garment - was tough. It was tougher, though, to find the right machine-washable fabrics that wouldn't stretch or bleed.
The result is a collection of poly-spandex, rayon spandex, and poly-cotton permanent press that she buys in New York and Canada. Becker said she'd love to find the perfect washable silk-type fabric, too.
She's close. Among the grouping of easy-to-wear cobalt-blue wraps and lacy black-and-gray-color-blocked sheaths, there is a dainty strapless gown that comes in merlot and winter white. Even with the hint of sheen, it's just a pretty party dress.
But it's washable.
And that's a wow.
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