Discover the Universe of Latin American Fashion Summit
We connected with Estefania Lacayo, co-founder of Latin American Fashion Summit (LAFS), to understand the challenges Latin American creatives face when confronted with the international fashion market. A Miami-based industry expert, Lacayo shares her insights and what to expect from the upcoming Raices by LAFS event on March 2023.
Shared Magazine: When did you first realised that a platform such as LAFS had great potential?
Estefania Lacayo: At the time, I had been living in New York for 14 years working as a luxury consultant, and I didn’t know anything about the Latin American fashion scene.
I believe it was 2014 or 2015, when I heard about the fantastic success of Colombian designer Johanna Ortiz in the e-commerce platform Moda Operandi. Her brand was number one in sales that year, and still is today!
That ignited the desire of many Latin American designers to amplify their brand reach to other regions. As a brand, Johanna Ortiz had been on the market for 18 years, but this commercial breakthrough was what really took them to a whole new level.
LAFS in Cartagena, Colombia 2022
What is the main challenge Latin American brand face when entering foreign markets?
Since we started LAFS, I have met many entrepreneurs and fashion creatives with outstanding quality products. They are great at what they do, but most of them do not have any idea of how the fashion industry works outside their country, or outside Latin America.
They would pay to be in fashion runways, but would not have a look book, a line sheet for the collection, a system to place orders or a showroom.
In 2017, I attended a Summit with my husband —completely unrelated to fashion– and realised a similar platform was missing for Latin American designers. A platform where fashion directors, buyers, influencers, creatives and industry professionals could meet, share, collaborate and grow.
With Samantha Tams, we first thought LAFS could be a platform for fashion conferences. Then, we realised that with all the internet access and how this is a game-changer for the industry, we could amplify the potential of LAFS to something even bigger.
Estefania Lacayo and Samantha Tams, co-founders of LAFS
In a recent Forbes interview, Samantha mentioned that Latin Americans we tend to hoard information. How do you feel this attitude has changed after four editions of LAFS?
It has been baby steps, but today we feel the Latin American fashion creative scene more cohesive and collaborative, and we like to think LAFS had a part in that.
Digital tools have given us the means to build a platform that connects people, but the real life, human-contact is irreplaceable. People need to meet, face to face, to talk about their projects, present their designs in real life, and most importantly, feel the energy of others.
There is a lot of education to be done in the industry, and that is what we offer in LAFS. Besides a solid networking, expert-talks and trunk shows, we bring the decision-makers of the international fashion scene to discover Latin American top talent.
LAFS agency is currently being promoted in your website. What type of services can brands expect?
We have reached a point where brands, companies and even government institutions would come to us for the contact of an expert, a designer or a creative for a project of theirs. It become a non-stop exchange of information, we eventually we decided launch LAFS agency as a match-making professional platform.
People needed a validated and trust-worthy data base of professionals, and that is exactly how we structured LAFS agency. A connecting platform for Latin American professionals around the world.
LAFS event on March 2022 in Cartagena, Colombia
What are your long term goals with LAFS? As a Latin American fashion system.
We aim towards getting a financial entity that can fund and provide capital to the LAFS community. Today, LAFS is a 95% business owned community. Latin American women need to know these things are possible.
There are very few latina women who know how to raise substantial funds for these type of projects. We want to provide access to business and financial information on how to scale up a brand, how to pitch to investors as a fashion creative, how to get loans for a brand project, etc.
We want to change mentalities and empower Latin American culture.
What can we expect for the Raices conferences by LAFS, next March 2023 in Santo Domingo?
Raices is a new format inside the LAFS universe. 3 full-days of non stop networking and speed-dating with top-tier industry professionals and decision makers, inspiring conferences by industry leaders and a LAFS pop-up with the best curation of Latin American design that will connect brands with international buyers and sell to end consumer.
For this edition, Raices will be hosted at the Ciudad Colonial in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. As a place that is rich in history for Latin American culture, we consider it would be a perfect match for the event.
We had Intermix on LAFS March 2022 event, who placed orders for 5 brands, as they loved the selection and designers. Globally, people come to LAFS to find the most innovative, heritage-inspired and authentic talents from our region.
We don’t just want to connect brands with buyers, but to create a platform where you can find like-minded creative people. Most designers that got contacts, orders and results from LAFS were the ones that came to the event and actually met people in our network activations.
– Interview by Adriana Seminario, October 6th 2022