Angela Johnson dressed the female models for the September cover of Gilbert Lifestyle. She is the award-winning designer behind “upcycled t-shirt” dresses that give new life to t-shirts as haute couture. Her designs have been featured on countless runways and in magazines, books and TV programs. She is now transforming the business of fashion.
She started working in design and production for X-Large Manufacturing, the line owned by Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys and X-Girl, the line owned by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. In the mid-90s she co-owned Monkeywench, a board sports inspired collection with “Days of our Lives” actress Christie Clark.
Johnson, along with Sherri Barry co-founded Arizona’s fashion incubator F.A.B.R.I.C. Johnson also founded nonprofit AZ Apparel Foundation and fashion industry directory LabelHorde. F.A.B.R.I.C. provides every resource to apparel entrepreneurs. Johnson says, “The main things that are hardest to find and most needed are no-minimum manufacturing and production management guidance. You can't really find these anywhere, but they are so important because when you start a brand, you normally can't afford to meet minimums and make thousands of pieces.”
Johnson and Barry work with apparel entrepreneurs who have never worked in apparel manufacturing and typically don’t know how to manage getting a sewn product through the sometimes daunting development and manufacturing process.
“F.A.B.R.I.C. provides the opportunity to manufacture in any quantity and we provide guidance that helps them navigate the hundreds of steps in development and manufacturing,” says Johnson. “To support this unique opportunity, we also offer everything else a fashion brand would need including business support, branding/marketing services, events, a business directory, office spaces, classes, classifieds and more.”
Recently President Biden and Vice President Harris visited F.A.B.R.I.C. to recognize it efforts during the pandemic when it manufactured 600,000 reusable medical gowns for healthcare facilities. “They also wanted to recognize our efforts as a fashion incubator that is helping hundreds of brands. We have helped over 600 apparel entrepreneurs since 2016!” explains Johnson.
Johnson and Barry created a one-of-a-kind "roadmap" program for apparel entrepreneurs, providing all steps, documents, contracts, links, resources, lessons and guidance in a digital format. The roadmap is embedded in the new Apparel Entrepreneur Membership. “We simplified our organization and instead of being a collaboration between multiple for-profit and nonprofit entities, F.A.B.R.I.C. is now one nonprofit entity. This also allows us to offer hundreds of scholarships into the Apparel Entrepreneur Membership so we can help disadvantaged and disenfranchised entrepreneurs,” finishes Johnson. Visit https://fabricincubator.com for more information.