Cathy Horyn Interviews CFDA Winner Sophie Theallet (at Frankies!)

The New York Times' Cathy Horyn sat down with CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award-winner Sophie Theallet and her business partner and husband, Steven Francoeur for lunch at Frankies to discuss future plans and prize money.

With a cool $200,000 in the bank, Theallet charmingly demurred on plans to blow up her small, Brooklyn-based design operations beyond the couple's living room.  Instead, the designer would like to focus on knits, having honed those skills under Galliano and Alaia, as well as a Paris showroom for Fashion Week presence, and a new pressing machine.

Given Theallet's focus on impeccable, handmade tailoring and details, she and Francoeur hesitate to get ahead of themselves by following suit and expanding production to China - a move that has worked for several houses due to the cost efficiency of labor, but that might not necessarily coincide with Theallet's MO.  Right now, Theallet works with a Korean-owned New York factory, run by a man whose sound skills the couple endorses, despite his joking about replacing Theallet with a less detail-oriented designer. 

Theallet also won a year-long mentorship, and has been partnered up with her first-choice, legendary design scion, Oscar de la Renta.  Looks like 2010 will bea  good year for Sophie Theallet.

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