Three years ago, Gary Lenett was ready to walk away from the clothing company, Dish Jeans, he had run for over 25 years.
“I said to my wife, ‘I’m done.’ I was 95% [sure] I was going to walk away,” Lenett said.
“I’ve been in the fashion business 25 years. I’ve seen four or five cycles of trends, and quite frankly it bores me now.”
As the fashion business changed, the company had closed its Burnaby manufacturing facilities and was only designing jeans. Lenett believes today’s fashion industry, driven by disposable fast fashion, has taken much of the creativity and imagination out of designing and selling clothes.
“Everyone’s buying the same trend reports. It’s not like the olden days when we had to go out and find little niches and look at early adopters and try to figure things out.”
But before Lenett quit for good, a longtime supplier asked him why he was leaving and what it would take for him to stay.
“I said, ‘I’d stay if I could work with you,’” Lenett said. “He was an expert in performance apparel.”
Lenett relaunched his business, but instead of designing and manufacturing jeans, he created a new niche product. Dish Jeans and his men’s line, Du/er, make jeans and other clothing that work as office and casual wear but are also designed for activities like riding a bike.
Except for buying fabric, the business does all its manufacturing at a facility it owns in Lahore, Pakistan.
“We took a very broad approach,” Lenett said. “We don’t look at trend. We look at how to solve people’s problems through fabric technology.
“What’s your differentiation? That’s where I got excited. My passion is fabric technology, and that is proprietary. It’s not something someone can copy, and we can be really innovative and solve problems rather than chase design that everyone else is doing.”
Taking a risk on a new approach has completely invigorated Lenett’s passion for his business.
“I went from the brink to crazy excited.”
On finding a problem to be solved | “Last year I completely gave up driving, and to me that was a huge opening, because I might have the most important business meeting of the year but I still want to ride my bike, and there was nothing on the marketplace I could find that could accommodate that. To me, that’s a problem to be solved.”
Has a work or life challenge taught you a key career lesson? Contact Jen St. Denis at [email protected]
