Spotlight on a Midwest-to-East-Coast Fashion Designer

Video interview of Katie Behnke, founder of Elegantees (t-shirts with a cause) in New York, and a Dubuque, Iowa native, in honor of Fashion's Night Out:

Katie Behnke interview, continued:

How do you like New York? 

I love New York. I moved here in 2005. I like it a lot. I love the energy, I love the people, the culture, but I do miss Iowa and just some of those nicer things that you can appreciate, such as family and having a backyard. Gorgeous fresh air and organic fresh fruit out of your garden.

What are your favorite places to go in NYC to get inspired?

I love to go into the city. It can be anywhere: downtown, uptown, midtown. Just walking around, being in Central Park, up in the Cloisters or coming down here to check out some stores and browsing through the merchandise that is available and saying wow that's a really cool detail, I'm going to incorporate that into some of my tees. So, I usually get inspired when my mind is kind of cleared from from the business management part of [my company], otherwise I'm thinking too much about numbers and thinking about planning- you can't really get too creative that way.  You have to unload all of that part before you can get things going.

What does the typical day look for you with your company? 

It's always different, and at first I thought that was really fun, I actually wish it was more the same, so that there'd be more consistency. It's a whole process for every single collection, from designing it to making the patterns to making the samples to working with the factories to planning the photo shoot, to making revisions to the website to update it so that people can purchase the clothing. We've been doing a lot of fashion shows and events these days, back in Iowa and here in New York. It's a lot of planning and customer service as well because we sell online so we deal with a lot of people there.  Every day is fairly different.

How do you remain cool and collected when working in this fast-paced industry?

Sometimes you just have to try to work with people where they are, try to find out what their personality and work habits are... if they're a more serious person or more laid-back. Somtimes you just have to have that discernment and feel people out.  If they seem to have motives that are more for themselves, I just back away from them.  I like to work with people that just genuinely have a good heart and they want to help- not that they don't have motives too- but I just like working with people that are genuinely cool, like Lindy.

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