Marin Camille Hood and Julia Zolinsky had a plan. The two women, who both live in Oakland and work as museum fundraisers, were breathing life into a years-old dream of Hood's: a vintage lingerie brand called Blackbird Underpinnings, inspired by styles of the '20s and '30s.
"We came up with a budget, which led us to the decision: We need startup capital," Zolinsky said. "Where are we going to find that?"
Hood and Zolinsky turned to crowdfunders. They raised $40,765 in a month and haven't even picked a factory yet. They hope to send funders their rewards - lingerie from the line - by March.
Crowdfunding has been around since 2008, when Indiegogo was started in San Francisco. Since then, several similar platforms, including Kickstarter, have allowed people to back projects such as indie films, first-run tech gadgets, political campaigns and fundraisers for cancer treatments.
Now, interest in crowdfunded fashion is on the rise: Kickstarter said backers pledged almost three times as much money last year as in 2012 to fashion projects (both successful and unsuccessful), and more than 60 times as much as in 2010, the company's first full year. Thirteen times as many fashion campaigns were launched in 2013 as in 2010, though fashion campaigns remain the least successful project category on Kickstarter.
Indiegogo would not provide more detailed information but said that money pledged toward fashion projects on its platform grew 500 percent in the last year.
Crowdfunding is a particularly comfortable fit for manufacturing: Every item is pre-ordered, so no brand needs to guess how popular gray pants will be in 18 months. The idea is so alluring that some designers are making custom crowdfunding platforms to keep up the cycle without giving a cut to a third party.
"Fundamentally, no fashion brand ever lines up supply and demand," said Josh Gustin, whose men's denim line began on Kickstarter and continues on a custom crowdfunding site at www.weargustin.com.
"If you line up supply and demand, you give people a voice into what we make, and it eliminates all waste," Gustin said.
Part of crowdfunded fashion's rapid growth has been on the tails of crowdfunding's overall rise. As it has become more popular, more people think it's their magic ticket to introduce a new product - and the reality can be harsh.
"Crowdfunding is not a field of dreams," said Indiegogo founder Danae Ringelmann. "It's not put up the idea, walk away and watch the money run in. It's an active, involved process."
Fewer than 10 percent of projects on Indiegogo reach their set funding goal, according to the Verge. (That's tempered by two facts: Indiegogo accepts any kind of project, and projects that don't reach the goal still get the money raised so far.) On Kickstarter, about 45 percent reach their goal, and only then do they receive funds. About 25 percent of submissions are not accepted because they don't fit into one of Kickstarter's 13 creative categories.
'Basically didn't sleep'
Gustin said he and Powell "basically didn't sleep for a solid three months" and worked full time before and during their Kickstarter campaign. Hood and Zolinsky prepped for a year and a half before the campaign, then hosted an event mid-campaign to build buzz even more. "It was incredibly labor-intensive," Zolinsky said. "A Kickstarter is a job."
And it can be expensive. Platforms take a small cut of funds, as do the payment-processing companies. Zolinsky and Hood had to fundraise for their fundraiser: They solicited seed money from friends and family and spent $7,000 to make samples, hire models and a videographer, and host the mid-campaign event.
Michael Paratore, a Mill Valley corporate lawyer, quit his job to sell leather sandals called Mohinders on Kickstarter. He spent about $2,000 on the campaign and its video and made several sourcing trips to India, a luxury he knows he could afford only because his wife is able to support both of them.
Once a successful campaign is over, product - sometimes a lot of it - has to be shipped quickly. For first-timers, it can be a daunting task, and deadlines aren't enforced.
"There are horror stories about Kickstarter, where people are a year and a half later still not getting their product," Gustin said.
Many benefits
Despite the work and stress, designers find crowdfunding indispensable. They get capital up front, don't need to go into debt and don't need to guess at their material needs. A one-month campaign gives them an "event" to pitch to the press, and some campaigns go viral. Demographic and geographic information on backers - plus a way to reach all of them - is something even seasoned marketers dream of.
"When people are voting with their dollar, it's better than any focus group you could ever get," Ringelmann said.
Budding designers with successful campaigns under their belts have a range of next steps. "Oh God, no," said Hood. "We said we're not doing another Kickstarter ever" - the experience was valuable but too stressful to repeat. She hopes Blackbird Underpinnings will have extra stock after they fulfill their Kickstarter orders to begin an online store.
Others take cues from their campaign's metrics. Paratore was heartened to see that a third of his sandal sales were from "stranger" traffic - people encountering the campaign while browsing Kickstarter.
"Crowdfunding can be a bit deceiving," Paratore said. "If you have a successful campaign but 90 percent of that is from friends and friends of friends, it might not mean that you have a really good product that's going to catch on."
Some designers return to crowdfunding. After a successful first campaign selling Sunskis sunglasses, Michael Charley's second campaign sold similar glasses with black frames- the addition most suggested by first-round backers.
Gustin had spent six years learning to make denim and selling it in small boutiques but hated the business model. He and co-founder Stephen Powell loved the idea of crowdfunding but didn't want to be under a third party's control.
After their initial Kickstarter campaign, Gustin and Powell started their own site. They release small product runs twice a week, and once enough buyers have backed an item, they put in an order with their factory. The direct-to-consumer system lets them sell jeans at wholesale prices - $81 instead of $250.
Their success wasn't easy - or cheap. Gustin estimates that he sank in $100,000 in his first six years, and the custom crowdfunding platform they had built for their site cost more than $200,000. They don't get the same audience as Kickstarter projects, but they don't have to pay a 5 percent fee to the platform.
Must be sustainable
"To us (going back to Kickstarter) kind of feels like failure," Gustin said. "It means you haven't been able to build a following, and that's not a sustainable business."
Gustin is one of the first apparel companies to base itself on crowdfunding, but it won't be the last. Hucklebury, a San Francisco men's shirt brand that just closed a successful Kickstarter campaign, hopes to launch its own fashion crowdfunding site in a year or two and open it to other brands, said founder Parag Jhaveri.
Gustin benefited greatly, he said, from having a manufacturer and industry connections already in place, something that newer brands may struggle with, but the allure is undeniable.
"It's kind of cool to see you can take an industry and say, 'I'm not following any of those rules,' " Gustin said. "We're creating our own set of rules and asking, will people respond? And they do."
Charting Kickstarter's growth
Fashion
2010: $275,233 pledged to 180 projects (both successful and unsuccessful)
2011: $1,351,659 pledged to 612 projects
2012: $6,317,799 pledged to 1,659 projects
2013: $17,968,437 pledged to 2,397 projects (through Dec. 27)
Overall
2010: $27,638,318 pledged to 11,130 projects (both successful and unsuccessful)
2011: $99,344,382 pledged to 27,086 projects
2012: $319,716,629 pledged to 41,612 projects
- Ellen Huet
Ellen Huet is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ehuet@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ellenhuet
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