After graduating from Parsons, you launched your first line, Circle by Mara Hoffman, in the year 2000. Can you tell me what that first iteration looked like, and what your design ethos was at that starting point?
When I graduated from Parsons, I was making everything by hand. It was kind of more like an art experiment. So wearable art, everything was sewn by hand, hand-dyed, batiked, beaded, and nothing was like the other. And so I began like that, making these one-off pieces.
The very first break point I had was I was bringing clothes to a friend’s store to sell on consignment, because that’s how I was paying my bills, and had a run-in with Patricia Field. And for those who don’t know, she is this iconic visionary in New York. I ran into her in this little store that I was dropping clothes off. And she liked what I had on. And she said, “Well, I’m working on this new TV show. And it’s called Sex and the City. And I would love to buy the bag of clothes that you have.” So I sold her the bag of clothes for like $250.
And then the next day, her buyers for those stores that she had in New York called me and came over the following week. And they sat on my little futon couch. And I showed them everything that I had been making in this little apartment, and they placed an order, and the order was for $5000, which was like a mind-blowing amount of money for me. And that was the very beginning.
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