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Lara Presber dishes on developing her ‘signature’ style

Produced by Roxana Secara

“You can definitely say it’s a bit of an addiction,” says Lara Presber in her studio.

While she shares the space with two interior designers, it’s a perfect resemblance of her passions: a mix between interior design and architectural elements surrounded by mannequins, materials and sketches of dresses.

Presber originally went to school for architecture and pursued a career in the field.

After 10 years as an architect, she moved to Milan to study fashion design.

“I felt like I needed to make things,” she says.

Presber remained in the architectural world following her move back to Calgary, while starting up a career in fashion.

Always inspired by her surroundings, she began to incorporate architecture and buildings into her collections.

“It became my signature,” she says.

Although it wasn’t easy to keep both dreams afloat, Presber has finally found a sales strategy that does make it possible.

Crowd-pricing strategy

Presber’s new technique thrives on the saying, “building your wardrobe one piece at a time.”

She offers one to two pieces for one month, instead of selling numerous pieces from her collection. This allows her to slowly release items and gives the shopper the unique experience to buy straight from the designer.

There are perks: as the quantity of the item sold increases, the price decreases.

“It took about five years to find something that worked best for me,” she says of the crowd-pricing strategy.

Presber says that because she has so many pieces designed and only puts out one per month, she can now “coast a little” and keep busy with architecture projects as well.

When asked whether she considers herself more of an architect or a fashion designer, she says, “I like to think of myself as a designer with different clients, be it residential, commercial, or fashion.”

rsecara@cjournal.ca

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