Ever since she opened her design studio on Pierpont Avenue two years ago, Janet Preece has had to listen to people who say dress designers can't make it in Salt Lake City.
"Oh yeah?" she answers. "See me. Watch me."There was a time, she says, when she half-believed living in Utah limited her options. She's proving to herself and everyone else that you don't have to live in New York to make it as a designer.
A creative person can be creative anywhere, Preece says. But is there a market for her creativity in Utah? Apparently so. "My business does turn a profit," she says. "We were operating in the black within six months."
Preece graduated from Brigham Young University in 1983 with a degree in clothing and textiles and a long list of retail sales jobs on her resume. She had a merchandising job waiting for her in Dallas - but she also had a sister in Salt Lake City who was about to have her first baby.
Preece felt torn. She decided to stay close to her family. She took a job at Nordstrom in Salt Lake City. Shortly, two things happened that launched her career.
First, she noticed that every time something new and good came into the store, it sold out within five minutes.
That told her there were many women walking around looking a lot alike.
Second, the women she worked with began asking Preece where she got her clothes. When she told them she made them herself, they asked her to sew for them.
Preece quit her job and started designing.
In 1984 she had her first show. She couldn't afford shoes, so her models went barefoot. "But I sold 80 percent of my line. I was really relieved."
She did two shows a year. The business grew.
"I had a studio at my house," Preece says, "but I wanted so badly to do ready-to-wear. . . ." She looked for months for a larger space, a place where she could display as well as work. She wanted to add accessories to her line and carry designs by other artists, too.
On Pierpont Avenue she found a building with two stories of south-facing windows. She recognized it at once: her studio. "This is my dream," she says. "It had been a lapidary and was filthy dirty. Before that they refined oil in here."
She scrubbed. She painted. The place started looking quite artsy. Preece now displays hats in the portals that once held oil lines.
Preece says she pours her profits back into the business - to fix up the studio, to hire an assistant (Tamara Cobus, who has her own studio upstairs), to take yearly research trips to California or New York.
Of her trips, she says, "I try to keep abreast of what's happening. But you can get methodical if you analyze too much." So, when she travels, Preece goes without a goal in mind. "I just keep my mind open and try to absorb whatever I see, not just fashion. Then when I get back I have a fresher approach.
"I take everything in - so I'll have something to give back."
She gets inspiration in the streets of a big city - or from a small town. Preece says she also gets inspiration from history. She has a trunk of her grandmother's clothes and jewelry that she likes to look through and touch.
Her business plan includes making custom wedding dresses. "Brides make up 20 percent of my business. I'm trying to increase that a little."
Her prices for wedding dresses range from $600 to $1500. Other dresses in her fall collection are priced around $200.
"I'm really a fanatic for quality and technique," she says.
Preece, who had her first child last year, tends to work sensible hours, except during the month before a show.
"When I first opened I kept 10-to-6 hours at the studio. I realized I couldn't get any work done if I had to be open all that time. I finally decided, `What's the point of doing your own thing if you can't do your own thing?' "
Now her studio is open from noon to 6 p.m., Tuesdays through Friday. Preece herself works there from noon to 3. She spends several additional hours each day looking for fabrics. Sometimes she sketches in the middle of the night. And when she's not actually drawing or sewing, she thinks a lot.
She says, "It's been trial and error trying to get the right balance in my work. I have to have enough time for the creative process, otherwise I get really frustrated."
Sometimes she feels too lucky, she says. She's doing what she loves.
If it looks like her career came naturally to her, it may be because Preece started at it so young. "My mom taught me to sew my own dolly clothes," she recalls. She remembers preferring simple styles, because she was too impatient to do a lot of stitching.
As a child growing up in Las Vegas, she also learned how to work. Her parents owned a television repair shop. Every day after school, Preece and her two sisters would drop by and help out.
"I grew up knowing how to prioritize," she says. "How to grit it out. I learned when you need something you budget for it. Then you work. Then you get it."
And she recalls one other lesson from her youth: "I learned not to let people tell me I can't have something I want."