The Founders Of Apparel Brand Cherie Are Winning The Attention Economy

Forbes

13 hours ago

Two looks from Cherie's latest collection, Dulce Vida. Courtesy of Cherie
Helena Busch and Nutrada Sottivoranan, founders of Cherie, live and work in Bangkok, Thailand. Busch, a model with a natural eye for social media content, grew up in Sweden and Sottivoranan, who graduated from University of Arts London, was raised in Thailand.
'I think our first ever piece that went viral was Tia corset,' Busch told me. 'We started with corsets. Obviously we maintained that throughout the years. I love pieces that make an hourglass fit. We started with corsets and we also had denim, but we soon realized that a lot of our customers really appreciate our corsets.'
'To be honest, when we started,' Busch said, 'it was a lot of learning. We made a lot of mistakes. It wasn't really Cherie back in the beginning.'
'We refined the branding to be just more like feminine pieces,' Sottivoranan added.
A model wears the V-neck "Tia" corset by Cherie in black Mesh. Courtesy of Cherie
Cherie, as a brand, takes inspiration from the classic, mid-century silhouette.
'We like the feeling of light fabrics,' Busch told me. 'But obviously you can't wear lingerie out. We wanted to turn that feeling into something that was more wearable, but still with a touch of lingerie. It's very vintage inspired. Because we love the aesthetic. We love the feeling and felt like it was very feminine. And we love other types of fashion too, obviously. Like we wear all kinds of different types, but for Cherie, we really wanted to enhance femininity and make it timeless. Sweet but still sexy and romantic as well.'
Busch moved to Thailand from Sweden when she was 19 and signed with a modeling and acting agency. At the same time, Sottivoranan was interning with a Thai fashion brand. Both ladies, independently and before they knew each other, started their own small brands, and eventually met when Sottivoranan was hired to model for a company Busch was working for.
'We had our own separate brands,' Sottivoranan explained, 'and wanted to do a collab together, but from the first time we met, we were just like, instead of doing a collab together, why don't we just work together? It was very early and when we met, we just complimented each other, we have different strengths that really enhanced each other. We just decided to do this together.'
From corsets to the dreamiest of dresses, the founders of Cherie have perfected their aesthetic with their latest collection, Dulce Vida. Courtesy of Cherie
'We just realized,' Bosch said,' we felt like we would do so much better if we become partners. Like she's very good with the business side. She studied fashion and for me, I have such a big creative eye. When it comes to taking photos, I just know when something looks good in a picture. It's really hard to explain it because I didn't go to school to learn it, but it's just something I've always had since a very young age. My mom used to say that I love beautiful things, that it's just a part of who I am.'
The founders started their business in 2020, they're currently five years in, and though both of them are young, they have learned a lot as their brand, and its impressive online presence, have grown from a regional brand to one that serves an international clientele.
'We naturally just learned as the brand grew,' Sottivoranan told me. 'Both of us, Lena's so great with content and creative direction. For me it's more of the business side. We just learn as we do with manufacturing, with the production garment process. We just wanted to make something that could last every season.'
'We have gone through so many ups and downs,' Busch said. 'So many times we were just like, I want to give up now. And then the other one is like, no, we can't give up now. And then vice versa. But I think for us, when we reach something that we never thought we would, and just accomplish things with our company, we know this can be something much bigger if we just continue going. I think pushing each other when the other person is down has really helped us get through it.'
'We are both Aries,' Busch continued, 'and Aries are very fierce people. I think when we went into it, we went into it 200%.'
A romantic setting for an exquisite gown. Courtesy of Cherie
'Covid was a difficult time around the world,' Sottivoranan said, 'But I think that we took advantage of the time when a lot of people were at home. That's when we got a lot of exposure from influencers because during that time, it was quite popular to be making content at home. We would send product out to a lot of influencers back then. And they would make a lot of content and post for us as well. We got a lot of exposure during that time.'
'Influencers are connections,' Busch said, and I liked that wording a lot. I sat with it for a few minutes while working on this piece. There's a lot of content out there, all of it hungry for eyes and attention. Ezra Klein and Kyla Scanlon have been encouraging their audiences to rethink our economic ideas to include the attention economy. I'd like to propose that Cherie, through Helena Busch and Nutrada Sottivoranan, is an excellent example of instinctive understanding of the nuances of catching, and keeping, the eyes of their audience. It is this innate skill that has allowed them to so quickly outgrow their regional market.
Any young person, or brand, needs mentors and peers as a support system. Community is a lot more important to success than our culture seems willing to accept at this moment in time. Though there are many examples of wonderful mentoring relationships in fashion, they are not exactly common, and when there are no mentors available peers end up pulling double duty. This is not something which has escaped Busch and Sottivoranan's attention.
'We have friends and mentors that have fashion brands,' Busch told me. 'They are also models or influencers, and we have all been helping each other, building each other's brands. We will help them with photoshoots or they will help us. I feel like that community, and just like wanting the best for each other, helps us all grow. When you're surrounded by like-minded people that want the same things, that really helps you and motivates you to want the best and you get to learn from each other. And for example, if we made a mistake, we would tell our friends don't make this mistake. And if they figure something out, they tell us. I think that's really helped us grow faster than we actually would if we would have done everything by ourselves.'
Sexy can be sweet, and Sottivoranan and Busch are creating work that is both playful and beautifully made. Courtesy of Cherie
'We've had a lot of help behind the scenes,' Sottivoranan told me. 'Like the backend part, how we operate, how to make it smoother. Stolen Stores is a Thai brand and they've mentored us from the beginning as well. Child Collective is another brand that has helped us.'
'I feel like every time we face a struggle or we face a problem, we always have people we can reach out to to ask for advice,' Busch told me. 'And the people around us have always been very supportive.'
Covid aside, one of the biggest challenges the young brand faced was taking payments from international customers. As they garnered more attention online, as their audience grew, so did the complications of processing funds from different countries.
'We had to manually write every payment and send the link,' Busch told me. 'Stripe is the payment that Shopify usually uses. And that was not available in Thailand. We were struggling so much with payments, for almost a year. And when Stripe finally came to Thailand, it changed everything. It changed the way we were accepting payments and we were getting a lot more orders. And that was this start.'
'I think we were like one of their first customers,' said Sottivoranan, ' as soon as it was available in Bangkok, we got on to Stripe.'
Cherie is a brand that focuses on the romantic details that make a garment special. Courtesy of Cherie
'To be honest,' Busch said, 'when we started a brand, we didn't really think we would have international customers. We were thinking that we wanted a European feel to the brand that wasn't available in Thailand. And I, as a customer, because I thought about myself as a customer when I was ordering from abroad, the custom fees in Thailand, it was just really insane. It was 50%, I think. We were like, let's start a brand that we would buy from if we were abroad, that people in Thailand could also buy from and they wouldn't have to pay custom fees.'
'In Bangkok and Thailand,' Sottivoranan explained, 'it's quite difficult to reach the international target audience, which I feel like we've been able to do. Like 95% of our customers are abroad. And we don't over produce. Our team is not big at all. And we produce everything in house.'
'We make very small batches,' Bush said. 'We produce very small batches and then we do pre-orders, because we don't want to produce things that people won't buy. That is a waste of fabrics and it is not good for the environment. We try to be very hands-on with the sewing team and with orders.'
The ladies work in the same building where their garments are manufactured. Quality control is built into their model and they work closely with their 14 employees, a 10-person sewing team and four members of staff. This set up allows for constant communication, and should an issue arise, there is always a founder on hand to work with a patternmaker or trouble shoot a production challenge.
Helena Busch and Nutrada Sottivoranan, founders of Cherie. Courtesy of Cherie
'We really just like having everyone in one office,' Busch explained. 'We have tried not having in-house sewers and it's very hard to control the pieces. And as our pieces got more complicated, it felt necessary to make that change.
We're always making sure that we're producing the amount of a piece that is actually going to be worn,' Sottivoranan said. 'We like it to be very timeless, pieces that we know are always going to be in fashion. Pieces you can mix and match very easily. We want, because if you're going to spend something on a piece, you want it to last. We want to create pieces that are long lasting and of good quality.'
Surely all this attention to detail, combined with their beautiful designs and dedicated community, will mean that Cherie is destined to continue its global ascent. Personally, this writer cannot wait to see what accomplishments are next. There are few things as inspiring as young people ready to work for the world they want to live in, and I left my conversation feeling better about the future of our world and the industry I love most. MORE FROM FORBES Forbes Exploring Class And Character In Costumes For Prime's 'We Were Liars' By Rachel Elspeth Gross Forbes Hello, My Name Is Sprayground: Celebrating 15 Years Of Artistry By Rachel Elspeth Gross Forbes 'Dressed To Kill': PBS' 'Human Footprint' Examines Apparel And Evolution By Rachel Elspeth Gross