Fashion's phat cats - career spotlight - K.A. Kitties fashion design and consulting firm

Black Enterprise, Oct, 2002 by Shani Smothers

Kitties are known to purr, meow, saunter with eclectic style. K.A.Kitties (www.kakitties.com) are no different. This 2-year-old company is bringing fresh flavor to the fashion industry. Dorothy "Dot" Antoine, Zareth "Z" Edghill, Kianga "KiKi" Peterson, and Jazmin "Jaz" Ruotolo are partners in a New York-based fashion design and consulting firm that works with urban fashion labels, including Sean John, Mecca, Gasoline, FUBU, gocawear, and Nataki Naliaka.

Antoine and Peterson met while working as head designers for FUBU Ladies. They got to know Ruotolo when she was hired as a freelance designer. After several internal changes within FUBU, the three "kitties" decided to put their long-term goal of starting their own company into immediate action. An article in the June 8, 2000 issue of Women's Wear Daily put K.A.Kitties on the fashion map. Peterson says that after the article appeared they began building clientele.

A year later, with the help of former FUBU Ladies CEO Elliot Lavigne (now president of Sean John Loungewear), the kitties registered their business as a limited liability corporation and moved into an office. Edghill, Peterson's cousin, wanted to help, so she left her job at Happy Kids, another design firm, to bring business management and production expertise to the company. The K.A.Kitties got a major boost when they won $20,000 in the Olde English 800 Making It Real Business Series and Grant Competition last year. Their business plan was judged to be the best among the New York companies that were entered into the competition.

The partners' fashion ambitions definitely began with a teenpreneurial mindset. Peterson, 27, says, "I've wanted to do fashion for as long as I can remember. When I was in kindergarten, I used to get in trouble for drawing women with clothes on all over my desk and homework." Antoine, 27, says she was the same way: "I wasn't even in high school yet when I started making prom dresses for high school students." Ruotolo, 32, says her professional start wasn't until age 23, but she's been drawing since she was 12. "I would make my mom sew," she says. "She was my seamstress." Edghill, 32, began her career at age 20, but she literally grew up in the uniquely New York world of fashion and culture. "My mom was a fashion model and dancer, so I've spent practically my whole life in that world," she says.

K.A.Kitties is currently working on a Mecca Ladies line. The K.A.Kitties clothing line was released in September and is available at Marshall Field's department stores, as well as boutique chains such as Pieces, Dr. Jay's, Epic Stores, Mony's, and Up Against The Wall.

Peterson advises aspiring teen fashion designers to "overextend yourself and just soak up anything and everything that you can in all the different areas." Antoine says, "You have to just want it that bad, and you just have to get there. I just pushed myself to find out more about how other successful people did it. It just takes a little research." Buotolo says aspiring teen designers have to "live and breathe fashion design, and choose the people you work with carefully."

Interested in making your mark in the fashion industry? Click on www.fashion.about .com/cs/cooljobs for information about fashion careers, and for links to information about the industry.

RELATED ARTICLE: highlights.

Names: Jazmin Ruotolo, Dorothy Antoine, Zareth Edghill (seated) and Kianga Peterson

Titles: Partners, K.A.Kitties, L.L.C., New York

Education: All four of "the kitties are graduates of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (www.fitnyc.suny.edu)

Teen Ambitions: Ruotolo began drawing fashion at age 12. Antoine and Peterson launched their careers as professional designers at ages 17 and 19, respectively.