Hong Kong Design Adventures

Our #BISBYGIRL is unconventional and fun, so it's only fitting that BISBY's design process is also a bit unconventional.

Dunn Latham traveling to Hong Kong to design Bisby

BISBY is completely designed and manufactured in Hong Kong, so each season our mother-daughter design duo hops on a plane (or several) and treks it to the other side of the world. Between flights to New York then Hong Kong and cab rides to their destination, it takes several days!

Fabric Selection

hong kong fabric markets

The first step in the design journey is fabric selection. Shannon and Dunn spend hours walking through the fabric markets in HK looking for #BISBYGIRL fabrics. To give you a visual, there are 30+ streets lined with vendors selling beautiful fabrics. In the few times our designers have been there, they've only been able to see about a third of these streets! That's how massive this place is!

As they peruse, Shannon and Dunn pull thousands of swatches that catch their eyes. At this initial swatch pull, they are really just looking for interesting prints; they don't have body styles or seasons in mind just yet.

Narrowing it Down

Bisby fabric selection

Once our designers have filled their arms with bags of swatches, they head back to the hotel to sift through their treasures. It's easiest to sort by color and lay everything out so they can see what they've collected. From there, Shannon and Dunn narrow it down to a few selections for each color story. They go from thousands swatches to a couple hundred at this point.

Designing a Collection

Bisby design process

Once all their fabrics are laid out, it's time for the fun part: design! Shannon and Dunn use the patterns to inspire body styles. They ask themselves questions like: is this print a dress or shirt or both? Can we see this on our #BISBYGIRL? Is this more spring or fall? What overall theme are we most drawn to?

Because BISBY is designed so girls can have fun with mixing and matching, it's important that our fabrics all coordinate back with each other. Our solids can match several prints, but our prints can also be mixed together. This design philosophy is what makes BISBY so unique!