Meet Katherine Tsina Bird of Avion Clothier

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katherine Tsina Bird.

Katherine, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I moved to New York after graduating from UC Berkeley to continue studying dance for a few years. One of the jobs I stumbled into was working as a fitting and showroom model for some designers at a showroom called Fuel which had Zero, Balenciaga, Pierrot and others. It really was the nuts and bolts of clothing: standing around,  feeling the fit of clothing and how the fabric moved and seeing how the designers worked. Something in that really got into my brain. I went back to school, first at FIT to learn some basic construction and then I went to Parsons for my degree. After school finished, I started my line, Avion, and I was lucky to be able to get press and stores to carry my collection right away. I made all the patterns myself and sometimes had to cut the production in the beginning, running back and forth to the garment district from my West Village studio. I have always focused on the made to measure aspect working with private clients as well as wholesale when I lived in New York.

When I moved out to LA, I needed to change the model of my business so I decided to open my store, which has been a really rewarding venture. I feel a lot of freedom to work with the best fabric mills and my factories in New York,  but work at a more manageable scale for me. I work with private clients for custom pieces and make ready to wear pieces for people to buy off the rack. Fashion is definitely a business and you have to understand how to manage that with your own collection.  Working in these different ways over the years has helped me get to this place where my business runs in a way beneficial to building my brand independently. 

Read the full article here.