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Ceslie A.: Ceslie Armstrong here and this is San Antonio Profiles. Welcome! I’m so excited about my guest today. One of my favorite people in San Antonio of course is Sandra Hernandez Yedor. Sandra is the founder and the president of Lili Alessandra and if you don’t know what Lili Alessandra is, you soon will. Her incredible textiles, products and soft home furnishings are literally global. And, she’s based right here in San Antonio. We’re so thrilled that you’re here today Sandra.
Sandra H.: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Ceslie A.: You are a San Antonio girl. We’re so thrilled with San Antonio Profiles to really give a platform to people who are in San Antonio that could be anywhere and your business could be located anywhere and you’ve chosen to be right here on your hometown. What’s the reason? I know there’s a lot of reasons why.
Sandra H.: I think it’s just a process of what was happening in my life at the time. I had a pretty full career in retail and I was always around Texas. I worked with all these department stores. I don’t know if you remember that. I was with Saks Fifth Avenue. Also then became a president with an international duty free company. For what various reasons positions, opportunities, careers, I wound up coming back home. At that point I knew I was going to stay home.
Ceslie A.: Don’t you feel that just the sense of the familiar here mix with the ever changing culture and the inspirations and influences in San Antonio is what I hear from so many people that are in business but particularly that have a creative edge to them?
Sandra H.: I think San Antonio for me is just really home base. It’s a unique city that’s growing. It’s vibrant. For me, we’re lucky because you can go to a restaurant and you’re probably going to know somebody there. It’s still a big city but it’s still family. When you’ve traveled all over the world and you do business all over the world, it’s really good for my soul to come home and to be in my home environment. Whether it’s a restaurant or just out with friends, there’s something very unique about the city.
Ceslie A.: There absolutely is. Let’s talk a little bit about your lines because they’re so exquisitely beautiful, but you have them very specifically categorized. It reminds me, and I have a felling it comes from your fashion and your style background in retail, like they’re almost fashion collections.
Sandra H.: I think that my background in retail and really merchandising and being part of a retail environment knowing what it is to present any kind of classification, any kind of pattern or product you definitely have to use those thought processes. At the end of the day you create something that you love but you also create something that’s going to sell. It’s important for you to put a presentation together that the particular customer profile is going to love. It’s not that you design and you know exactly who your customer is and exactly who’s going to love it. You don’t know any of that. All you know is that you’re creating something that you love or want to express yourself with.
There’s a lot of analytic work, a lot of creativity, a lot of ideas with color. Color is probably the most important besides the fabric, technique, craftsmanship everything else that gets involved. It can be the most magnificent garment off of a couture line or it could be the most magnificent decorative pillow if it’s the wrong color, it’s not going to perform.
Ceslie A.: San Antonio certainly is known as a very colorful city. When I moved back home here recently after being on the east coast for so long and New York City, I got so attuned to … We all wear black. We all wear dark gray and these very neutral pallets and really to wear color and celebrate color in our homes is a direct cultural influence of this part of Texas.
Sandra H.: I think it works because of where we are. I also think it works because of our climate. The reality is that the south is really where all the action is. Really that’s where the growth in the country has been. If you are a designer, you’re wanting to sell everywhere. Color works. It’s a powerful tool. We have a lot of color in San Antonio. Its part of our dresses, our spring events and its part of how people want to express themselves. It’s a good place to learn what to do with color and how to make it happen.
Ceslie A.: Do you feel that you are beholden to what the trends are in color as fashion designers are for apparel… when you see it’s the season of purples and aubergines and goes into pinks or something like that or do you say I know my customers? I know what they want in their homes during this season. I know you’re designing for customers who have multiple homes on different climates, different coasts that sort of thing. Are you really looking from more of a home decorative point of view or you taking a cue from the runway?
Sandra H.: Because of my background, I’m always fascinated with anything fashion, whatever the runways are doing and there is a trend that happens there but it translates slowly. You can’t totally believe that ruffles are the hottest trend off of the runway that you’re going to be able to sell ruffles on your decorative pillows. You learn after a while but usually there’ll be a trend that you’ll see that you just love and it’s not just runway. All of a sudden a color or a technique that you start seeing everywhere in decorative home or you see it in jewelry or you see it in handbags. That’s what I find fascinating… all of a sudden you can actually pick it and say, “This thing is going to have legs. It’s really going to translate.” or “People are just going to love this.”
To answer a little bit the other part of your question is you have to design product that works for the customer. The one thing that’s very defined when we study ourselves is there’s parts of the country that things are automatic for. The south which is really where we started because being in Texas, the southern belt is a very specific and women in the south love linens. They love romantic linens and lacy linens. Then if you go into more urban areas, you go to the New York Area, you go to the California area its’ a whole different mindset. It’s really not as much bells and whistles like we like in the south. You have to know that. After a while you start to define yourself, your line but you also want to expand your appeal. It’s an interesting test to be able to figure out.
Ceslie A.: Let’s talk about some of the artisans that you work with because you collaborate very closely and that is such a different path to take in a company like yours. Was that just natural when you founded the company, you knew that you would collaborate with different artist?
Sandra H.: No, I didn’t. I think the beautiful part of this whole journey is that I didn’t have a clear vision of anything except that I was going to do something on my own. I had worked for a lot people and I worked for some amazing women. I just reached a point where I wanted to do my own thing and I still had a ton of energy and a ton of desire to make it happen. There wasn’t a master plan, there was just this one vision that I was going to do my own thing. Then one thing led to another, it was an evolution.
Ceslie A.: It’s incredible.
Sandra H.: We have things made in India, what I call my boutique factories where the artisans do all this handwork. It’s fascinating. It’s such a beautiful craft and many times when you go to India or you go to different parts of the world, it’s a different culture completely and it’s a different way of life. I had to find myself and figure out where do I fit in to all of this, but you get so caught up in what they can do. At the end of the day I’m bringing their craftsmanship back home and people love it.
Ceslie A.: Art being the universal language. You’re taking their incredible vision and putting it into something that surrounds us, that we live with, which is so fantastic. When you come home from a hard day or your fearful about something or you want to celebrate something, to be able to come home and have this beautiful quality inspiration around you, is that part of your process? I know that you’re a very positive person and you really are always searching to improve and to better. You’re not a stagnant woman whatsoever Ms. Sandra and that’s so wonderful about you.
Sandra H.: You picked up on that one up pretty good. I guess I am very positive with what I do and oftentimes I can’t stress enough, you don’t always have the final vision of where you’re going but that’s also the beauty of it. If you allow it to evolve. I think my entire life and career has been an evolution. Many times you’re scared or afraid of something and all of a sudden it turns out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to you. I think in my world of creating something it’s that way. We do all of our designs here. We do almost architectural plans and we send them to these factories so far away. It’s a miracle that they do it exactly as we asked them. Sometimes it’s just an interesting process, a fascinating process to me.
Ceslie A.: Coming up in retail which is a very stressful busy environment, everyday there’s product arriving. There’s product leaving. It’s contently churning of the fulfillment process, long hours and you came up against some of the biggest corporations in retail. You said that you work for some incredible women, do they have a huge influence on you moving forward now?
Sandra H.: Absolutely. It was really the foundation. Not only were they large corporations, but when I first started in my career, I was young. I was vulnerable. I just thought everything was so exciting and it didn’t matter that they were asking me to work so many hours. You didn’t even think about it. You got caught up in the energy of retail and it was really a lot of fun. It was exciting and I was in Houston, Texas and the economy was fabulous. The people that I worked with all those years have evolved to become so great and do so many things. It was a training ground for me, a learning process and I think it served me well and has taken me to where I am today.
Ceslie A.: Let’s talk about that because it is scary whether you’re a man or woman it doesn’t matter when you take that leap to become an entrepreneur, there is a scary time along the way. You talked about really trusting your vision and trusting oneself. I know many times I’ve thought about a decision that I’ve made and I’ve gone home and curled into fetal position and thought “Oh please, please. Am I doing the right thing?” You must feel that way when you started your business too.
Sandra H.: I did.
Ceslie A.: It’s hard to admit but everybody goes through it.
Sandra H.: There’s no way you cannot feel it. Especially if you’re doing it like most people on a shoestring budget and there’s not a ton of money there to make this all happen. It is scary. I think I have always had self confidence. I always knew and believed in myself. For many, many years when I was building the company and we’re certainly still in the building stage, I felt like “I’ve gone after this category. I’m going after this business. I know it’s going to really be great. Am I really just ready for it to be great?” It was a lot of years where I thought “Where’s the sunlight? I’m waiting for my sunlight.”
Finally it all started to come together. It’s not going to happen overnight. If it does, more power to you. Take it and run with it. Chances are you’re going to evolve and you’re going to have things that sell and things that don’t sell and you’re going to correct and you’re going to evolve into the line and into the company that you want to be. It’s not overnight.
Ceslie A.: It isn’t overnight. Don’t you feel though that sometimes particularly as women maybe we don’t trust our gut enough? We don’t really listen intuitively enough and take action on that. There’s been lots of research done on that. Lots of books written about it. It’s the second guessing. Do you think that the self confidence level is what’s really an important ingredient for launching your business?
Sandra H.: I think its huge and you mention women. I think we’re trained to second guess ourselves and to feel like we’re not quite as perfect as we should be. I think that’s just part of the way women are today even though probably today’s women are so different than they were 20, 30 years ago and so on. It takes a lot of ambition, a lot of drive to make something happen no matter what the project is. It can be a business or it could be something else that you totally believe in. It takes a lot to be able to make it work. With time, if you’re dedicated and your focused you make it work. It will happen.
