In the face of COVID-19 and during a time of mass closures and uncertain futures for most retailers, Ana Gutierrez is launching her new clothing line, La Monarch, despite the current economic climate in Canada.
COVID-19 has forced many retailers to close temporarily or, in some instances, forever, however Ana Gutierrez is not letting the fear of failure prevent her from moving forward with the launch of her versatile fashion line, La Monarch
“There was no point in being scared. It was now or never,” said Gutierrez.
Originally set to launch via pop-up shows across the country this spring, Gutierrez was forced to reevaluate her launch schedule once COVID-19 hit. “I wanted to introduce La Monarch to people in person so they could really experience the line but that’s not possible for now. Instead I’ve poured a lot of effort into the website and launching the brand that way.”
Inspired by the monarch butterfly that travels between Mexico and Canada each year, Gutierrez has been slowly cultivating the line of versatile and timeless pieces for almost 10 years. “The monarch butterfly’s ability to adapt and travel resembles my own experience, having spent time living between both countries (Mexico and Canada) from a very young age. Travel has also been an essential part of my life and a key factor to my attention to detail and creative nature.”
The brand is sophisticated and effortless in its design. For spring the line features a mixture of bright and muted colours and airy fabrics. However Gutierrez is already immersed in the development phase for La Monarch’s fall collection, and even the early product development stage for spring 2021.This played a major part in Gutierrez deciding to defy the odds and launch a new brand during a pandemic. The cyclical nature of the fashion industry means things move fast and you can’t afford to miss an opportunity to showcase your current collection.
“I had the spring line ready, so it didn’t make sense to keep the stock hidden. I want to keep going, despite this pandemic, and with the response I’ve gotten from launching online, now I know it has been the right decision to not have let this situation slow me down. Things are much different than what I envisioned, but at the same time I’ve learned how to quickly adapt my business and be resourceful in a way that maybe I would’ve never learned had things gone so smoothly. Now I know I can handle any problem, even very unexpected ones.”
Switching lanes under such inflammatory circumstances is daunting, but Gutierrez notes that it forced her to focus her energy on the digital aspect of La Monarch, something that she says would have ultimately happened but was of secondary importance to selling in person. “My original plan was to launch La Monarch both in person, at popup shows, and online at the same time, however I wasn’t pushing the online aspect of it because I was starting off with limited stock and wanted to preserve what I had for people to purchase in person.” Instead all items are now available online and cultivating that aspect of the brand has been rewarding for Gutierrez, despite the challenges.
Launched in early 2019, Stylephotos.ca began its journey as an in-house photo and video studio for the parent company – OriginalLuxury Inc., shooting luxurious brands such as Philipp Plein, Artioli, Billionaire, and so on. Within a short period of time, the owners (two graduates from the Schulich School of Business at York University) realized that the cost of photography and the average turnaround times in the industry were quite excessive and offered their services to the general public.
Today, StylePhotos Canada offers photo and video services for all players within the e-commerce industry. Covering virtually all product categories, the company currently fulfils product photography and videography requests of such retail giants as Canadian Tire, Puma Canada, Mark’s, National Sports, Gertex, and many more.
“In addition to large retailers who observe this shift towards e-commerce, there is a surge of small local designers and retailers who now can afford to have high quality content thanks to Stylephotos’ Canada pricing strategy and volume approach,” said Husan.
DIFFERENT FORMS OF PHOTOGRAPHY FROM FLAT-LAY, TO 360 VIDEOS, TO LIVE MODELLING SHOOTS. PHOTOS: STYLEPHOTOS 
STYLEPHOTOS.CA ECLIPSE SYSTEM FOR SMALLER ITEM PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY, INCLUDING 360 VIDEO CAPABILITY. PHOTO: STYLEPHOTOS
“Currently, StylePhotos offers flat-lay photography, model photography and videography – to create that touch and feel sensation for consumers – , jewelry photography and videography, as well as something entirely new – 3D photography that was introduced in January in Beta stage by Shopify.
“Given the current state of affairs, we can only hope that the COVID-19 pandemic will not put an end to a vast majority of retailers, who are struggling to pay rent, and order collections for their respective stores at the same time. Irrespective of how long it would take for the economy to recover, one can state with confidence that the retail world of today, will be characterized as pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19, with significantly higher emphasis on e-commerce presence in the post-COVID-19 era.”
Khasan Aripov said the company is very niche in what it does in the marketplace.
“We are right now the least expensive in terms of the pricing in terms of product photography. We have the quickest turnaround time and we have the highest quality. We managed to achieve this because we have the technology we bought from Europe,” said Khasan.
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Khasan said the amount of calls have picked up during the COVID crisis from larger re-sellers who have quite a lot of product and need to get their growing inventory onto the web.
“Everyone has to have e-commerce by now. So now we’re at the stage where a lot of businesses are contacting us just to get their business optimized. The products have to go to the web quickly,” he said.
“We have built an online order guide which should be live very soon. Basically people will be able to go on our website and generate the style guide automatically for their product and then it goes straight to our photographer where they’re going to be shooting the products and they can reproduce exactly what the client is asking. We’re trying to build a more scalable business while making it more standardized and more affordable.”
Khasan said those companies that had a strong e-commerce business leading up to the COVID crisis are not suffering as much as others who have been heavily focused on physical retail.
“A lot of photo studios right now try to milk as much money out of clients as possible. The problem with this is people usually run out of money to actually promote their products,” he said.
“There’s been a drastic switch. We’re getting calls anywhere from people selling tea, which have a small tea shop, to people selling clothing, people who have chocolate companies, a lot of people are calling about face masks and hand sanitizers. The market is changing and I don’t think we’re going to be going back to our daily routine from what I’m seeing.
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