Studio Joy Li

for JAVA Magazine, June, 2010

In modern relationship terminology, fashion is bad for us. Time after time it betrays us, and yet we keep going back to it. Even as we remain hopeful, we eventually learn not to put much faith in it.

Rightly so. By its very nature, fashion is an inconsistent and unpredictable partner. Sometimes the traits we initially found charming end up being plain annoying, and it stays around way too long. Other times, just when we think we're ready to settle down and make a long-term commitment, it comes through the door with a crappy new tattoo and an expensive habit and makes us wonder how we could have been so blind to its true nature. Oh fashion - "I don't know you anymore."

The truth is, fashion was always just too self-centered and mercenary to be trusted. How many of us have made the mistake of investing our hearts, only to find that the same pants we thought we understood like no other, will drop for just about anyone with a credit card or a cheap compliment? Fashion uses us and loses us...but still makes us want it.

To flip the (admittedly shaky) metaphor: The purpose of the fashion industry is to get us to stick around - to continue shelling out money in the desperate hope of not being left behind. In a partnership with fashion, any sense that we're in control is merely the result of mind games.

What's worse, and not at all metaphorical or funny, is that the fashion industry has a sad history of overlooking human rights abuses in favor of increased profits.

As you may have guessed, I am not the best choice for a fluff piece on "fashion." Not only am I cynical by nature, but...actually, "cynical by nature" pretty much does sum it up. Thankfully, I met someone related to the world of pret-a-porter with whom I couldn't agree more.

Joy Li, the designer behind Studio Joy Li on Stetson Drive in Scottsdale, has looked at the fashion industry from every angle in her 25-year career, and some of what she's seen has not been pretty. Along with her business partner, Jean Bartolomei, she has begun a design and manufacturing business that is meant to be the exception and perhaps eventually the rule - a partnership between consumer and fashion based upon mutual satisfaction and no guilt.

Studio Joy Li seeks to restore our faith in women's fashion. There is good reason to think they will succeed.

It would be easy to assume that Joy Li's success in the industry was a foregone conclusion. She's beautiful, articulate, self-assured and energetic. Though in her forties, she still has the figure that once inspired ready-to-wear mogul Liz Claiborne to make Joy THE shape of the Claiborne petit model in the 1980's ("I had to lay down in this stuff and they made a mold out of me…then they made dress forms out of the mold.") She has a degree in graphic design from Carnegie Mellon University. Isn't that enough?

"I was LUCKY!" she says more than once, when describing her circuitous rise to independence in the fashion business. And it was luck, both good and bad, along with her innate talents, which brought her to where she is today; bringing both practicality and a conscience to Studio Joy Li.

The first-born child of Chinese immigrant parents, Joy grew up in Buffalo, New York. "We didn't have toys." Instead, Joy expressed her creativity by drawing paper doll designs on the window panes. Still, the choice of a career in fashion was a non-starter as far her father was concerned. "My father always said that the fashion business was bad because it exploited Chinese labor," she says.

One stroke of luck was that Joy's father had been a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. "I still couldn't take fashion, but since [her dad] had gone there, too, he didn't mind when I took Graphic Design because it was Carnegie Mellon." Though not fashion-oriented, this education gave Joy what she needed in the way of conceptual design fundamentals.

After university, Joy found graphic design work with a Fortune 500 company in Connecticut. One day she saw an in ad in the New York Times, looking for a petit fit model at Liz Claiborne in New York City. "I took the train into New York City and I got the job on the spot," remembers Joy.

Today, the Liz Claiborne company owns many other labels, such as Kenneth Cole, Kate Spade and Lucky Brand Jeans. Between the late 1970's and late 1980's, however, Ms. Claiborne herself was still in control and in the middle of the company's first major growth explosion. Joy had the luck of joining the company during this phase and the opportunity to learn from the master herself.

As a fit model, Joy was part of a small team which would fly to factories around the world where items for the Liz Claiborne brand were manufactured. Being the definition of what was then considered a size 6 (a 2 by modern standards), Joy would try on prototype clothing inside the factory. "Usually we'd put on the samples and then we'd go over the fit - Liz was always there - I'd say this is where it's a little snug or not quite right...then we'd be on our own until they were able to re-make the sample and call us back for another fitting. I always had a pager on me."

Often, Claiborne would be right beside Joy in the fitting room. "Liz would actually strip down and try on clothes right next to me...she was involved in everything...she really wanted to make sure that the quality was consistent. The goal was for all the clothes to fit exactly the same, no matter where in the world they were manufactured."

One challenge for Joy during this time in her life was that she needed to maintain a consistent body shape throughout the year. "It was a challenge because when I started, I was lifting weights...and then they told me that my arms were starting to get too big...also, on some of these trips maybe I'd get sick and so I'd maybe lose a little weight…"

This was clearly a pivotal and formative period for Joy, and one that she remembers with reverence. "I wasn't making much money, but I was living high and learning about the business," she recalls. "...I wanted to get in to fashion design so bad, but I hadn't gone to school for it. Usually that meant you'd have to start as a receptionist or something and try to work your way up." Joy's foot in the door was undoubtedly more fun than that.

Within two years, Joy had transitioned from model to designer when she accepted a role at Claiborne competitor Carol Little. Other jobs followed, including ones at Guess and Newport Blue Men's.

One incident during this period brought Joy back to Earth and served to mature her thinking as regards fashion and its place in our lives. A family emergency called her briefly to China, where the contrast between the lives of the coastal U.S. fashion set and those of the average Chinese citizen could not have been more pronounced. While frivolous fashions may have artistic significance, and may be fun, Joy started thinking more about clothing that was easy to live in.

In 2001, Joy relocated to the Valley, where she decided the time and place were right to strike out and do things her own way. Two tenets of Joy's "way" were specific corrections in the path she had watched the fashion business take over the course of her career.

The first of these was that the core of Joy's collection would be fundamentals of women's clothing that were meant to be kept for several seasons instead of tossed after only one. These would employ state of the art fabrics that kept their shape and resisted wear. Designed with equal emphasis to form as well as function, the pants, skirts, shirts and dresses in the Fundamentals line come in core colors of black, white and grey and can be mixed and matched with anything else in a woman's wardrobe.

Other lines, while more to the fore stylistically, still employ the ethos of wearability and matchability. Joy describes the brand as "for the woman going from the gym to the office or for the jet-setter who believes that Europe is possible with a single carryon."

The second intentional divergence from what many consider the fashion business mainstream is Studio Joy Li's commitment to fair treatment of the people who make the clothing that bears her brand. All the clothing in every Joy Li line is manufactured in the United States, with Joy and business partner Jean Bartolomei making frequent visits to the factories.

Though Joy doesn't want to isolate any of her past employers as particularly deserving of scorn, she has vivid memories of working conditions that repulsed her. "I'm talking women who had ropes tied to their arms so they had to pull enormous, heavy boxes across the floor…" The words of Joy's father about the exploitation inherent in the fashion business were given vivid detail. "I've quit jobs because of what I saw," she says.

Was there anywhere in the world where it was particularly prevalent?

"In every country in Asia."

Studio Joy Li is located in the Mix group of shops on Stetson Drive in Scottsdale's "SouthBridge District." There, all of Joy's current lines are on display in a showroom that is crisp, airy and bright. Joy encourages women to give her feedback and become real fans. American labor and small runs of fine fabrics mean that clothing from Studio Joy Li is not priced to compete with J.C. Penny; but it is more than reasonable considering the craftsmanship and exclusivity of the line. Prices typically range from tops in the $60's to outerwear in the high $400's.

There are, however, exceptions if you're among the Studio Joy Li in-crowd. "We hold a twice-a-year sample sale. I want to keep it fresh, so we'll have a box where anything in it is $20 and another where everything is $40 and so on."

And the future? "I definitely want to expand the size range. Right now it would be too expensive to offer more sizes than we do." Joy also sees philanthropy and sponsorship in the brand's future, but first things first.

There are a couple of ways to keep current with Studio Joy Li. The best is to stop by the shop at 7144 E. Stetson Drive, Suite 100 in Scottsdale. She also has a Twitter feed, which is studiojoyli, or you can visit the website at JoyLi.net.