NEW YORK— On a Friday afternoon a week before Sergio Hudson’s spring 2025 show, the designer sits in a bustling Garment District factory while seamstresses and tailors dart back and forth, tussling with materials and embellishments.
He’s feeling anxious about a late order of embroidery — an intricate design element of one of the dresses — that’s being flown in from India. But he’s equally fixated on something less fanciful: sell-through.
Now in his eighth year of business, Hudson said his latest collection is designed just as much for the fashion week insiders and celebrities — including stylist June Ambrose, The View host Sunny Hostin, actress Tika Sumpter, and singer Muni Long — who filled the front row of his show at NeueHouse Saturday night, as it is for the customers who will encounter the pieces at Saks, Neiman Marcus, or on his website.
“I think I hit my stride by really paying attention to what the customer is responding to… what’s selling, what’s not selling, what we could probably be doing better,” Hudson said.
A contrast to his past high-energy shows which drew inspiration from upbeat ‘90s R&B music and early aughts hip-hop, on Saturday night Hudson sent more versatile — at times minimalist, chic — looks down the runway as models glided to the smooth sounds of jazz instrumentals and Anita Baker’s “Perfect Love Affair.” There were a few stretchy, shimmery — but still wearable — gowns, classic pantsuits (some with shorts) in blues and pastels, midi-length dresses and his signature thick belt with gold or silver buckles. (The looks were inspired by the film Valley of the Dolls.)
But the newest element this season: Hudson is testing the waters with menswear — sending a couple of suits (one in grey pinstripes, another in pink), dress pants, and eye-catching, glimmery shirts down the runway — and banking on men’s “mindful and less… spontaneous,” shopping habits, which he’s learned can drive higher sales.
The designer behind Michelle Obama’s now-iconic burgundy 2020 inauguration day look, and a member of Vice President Kamala Harris’ go-to designer circle, Hudson is at a delicate time in his brand’s trajectory. Flashy moments and profitable wholesale partnerships with the biggest luxury retailers leave little question of his brand’s rock solid “proof of concept” and “ability to put on a badass show,” said Nate Hinton, the designer’s publicist. But to gain more ground on his quest to becoming “next big American sportswear brand,” as he describes it, Hudson and his business partner Inga Beckham need to execute the next phase of their strategy flawlessly.
Hudson, whose annual revenues exceeded $2 million last year, is at the front of the pack when it comes to young, Black design stars who can generate buzz during NYFW, but he’s committed to a fairly old-school approach: Splashy NYFW week shows where buyers and celebrities alike line the front rows, cultivating store-and-customer relationships and category expansion.
“It’s so cool now to be anti-fashion industry, anti Fashion Week,” Hudson said. “I’m gonna show every Fashion Week, because that’s what you need to do to build a business … I’m serious about selling clothes. My collection is gonna hit stores every season.”
There’s another important thing standing between Hudson and the next crucial stage: “Simply put, we need money.”
“Whether that money comes by way of an investor or by way of us figuring out a way to turn a greater profit — like Tibi — however that happens, that’s how it happens for me,” he said, referring to Amy Smilovic’s contemporary fashion label, which has historically rejected outside investment focusing on running a lean but profitable business.
The Right Money
The rarity and fragility of Hudson’s success has made Beckham — who on-paper is the brand’s co-founder and chief financial officer but to Hudson its “CEO, president, sales director and chief merchant” — both aggressive and circumspect in her pursuit of new streams of capital. Hudson and Beckham met in 2015 when his brand existed as simply a concept but it was Beckham — a serial entrepreneur with a background in real estate — who made the initial investment to turn it into a full-fledged business in 2016.
“What I find a bit disheartening is that the investors that I’ve talked to — they’re looking to see a huge profit already,” said Beckham. “We didn’t have $100 million to start with so it’s taken us time … we need that real investor that understands fashion and… [that] what we’ve built is really big.”
A dearth of capital is the most common challenge faced by any emerging designer — but historic racial inequities place BIPOC creatives especially behind the eight-ball. Just 0.48 percent of all venture dollars allocated last year went to Black founders — marking the third straight year of declines following the small bump (still under 1 percent) in the post-George Floyd era of 2020, per Crunchbase.
“I don’t think people really understand this business — to know that we are an independently-owned business that doesn’t factor,” Hudson said, referring to the fact that the brand waits to receive full payment from department stores rather than the common practice of accepting discounted advance payments through a third party.
But Hudson’s successes should have easily positioned him as among the most attractive bets for fashion-focused funds, industry insiders say.
In other words: If he can’t raise capital to scale to long-term commercial viability, what Black brand can?
But, early conversations with investors and banks “who want to lend us a big sum of money with a ridiculous amount of interest,” has given Beckham and Hudson pause about accepting the wrong financial support.
“So what if we don’t get to that [target you set] or we have something that happens in the economy?” Beckham said. “Is this where you come in and take my business? No, I don’t think so.”
For now, Beckham and Hudson are throwing their efforts behind turning a greater profit within their bootstrapped business — experimenting with small-scale initiatives like the men’s launch and refining new lines based on customer feedback.
“We’ve really tried to nurture the relationships with the buyers, and take into account that we need to look over these selling reports,” Beckham said. “We’ve zeroed in on that.”
Championing His Peers
Like many Black creatives, Hudson is walking the tightrope of being a bonafide diversity advocate and simply focusing on his own success as a designer. As he edges ahead of his peers on the business front, Hudson has been leaning more deeply into the former — an implicit acknowledgement of his growing influence and ability to move the needle.
In July, the designer left a comment on a post on The Business of Fashion’s Instagram account about fashion companies abandoning diversity departments formed in haste in 2020. The comment, which received more than 200 likes, said in part: “This industry is right back where it was maybe even worse… The Gap between black owned brands and everyone else gets wider by the minute.”
Hudson told BoF he wasn’t speaking for himself as much as he was on behalf of his peers whom he believes bore the brunt of the diversity backslide among the industry’s gatekeepers.
“I have friends who entered stores and were dropped two seasons later,” he said. “I had a friend who called me and [told] me, ‘I feel like they just really put me in the store because of DEI and now that that doesn’t have to be done anymore, it’s over.”
Looking ahead, Hudson doesn’t see himself as having the answers to all the challenges taking aim at BIPOC brands — especially when he continues to contend with many of those obstacles albeit to a lesser extent. But, he believes he has the potential to fortify the business case for Black-owned labels.
After Hudson took his bow at the end of his show Saturday night, a rush of attendees made their way toward a backstage entrance (some were turned away) eager for a photo op with the designer in his VIP area. Amidst posing for dozens of pictures, Hudson paused to reflect on the night’s momentum.
“I hope people see the vision of what we want the brand to be,” he told BoF. “And, tomorrow, [I hope] we pick up a few new accounts and we get a lot of pre-orders.”
