About
I’m Leslie Barbazette and I design, develop and make products.
I currently work in Los Angeles at Karen Kane, a family-owned-and-run apparel company as the VP of Production and Operations. We have a cutting room floor and production sewing room in our building and make most of our apparel in Los Angeles. I’ve been brought into modernize our systems and processes to make things run more efficiently and less manually. This is work I find invigorating and rewarding. Offering solutions and faster or easier ways of doing things while encouraging people to work smarter instead of harder is very fun work.
Prior to working at Karen Kane, I had a brief stint at The Great as Head of Product Development, Production and Technical Design, which is why I moved down to LA from Berkeley.
From 2018-2022, I worked for Stitch Fix, where I created and ran the brand Mohnton Made, a modern basics knitwear line for Men and Women made from sustainable materials, utilizing natural dyes and made in our factory in Mohnton, PA. We recently collaborated with Green Matters Natural Dye Co on an Earth Day capsule made from hemp with natural tie-dye finishes. We bought the Mohnton Mills factory right before I started at Stitch Fix in 2018, I was tasked with getting the factory up and running to our standards. I partnered with the GM of the factory to create an org design that would enable them to function as an end-to-end unit, from design, pattern making to knitting fabric and cut/sew production. Domestic manufacturing is a shrinking industry that we revived in Mohnton, Pennsylvania becoming the largest employer in the town.
I was also Director of the Mens Exclusive Brands Product Development and Production team, where I set the strategy with the team of seven developers to make the best, data driven designed product we sell at Stitch Fix. My focus with the team was on increasing flexibility by utilizing fabric platforming, where we would take a fabric position above our needs to be ready to chase into production, or cut production as the forecast shifts, and be able to utilize the fabric elsewhere. This cut our lead-times in half and enabled quick reaction to forecast swings, which became the norm, and not the exception.
I recently took over the Responsible Sourcing and Sustainability departments where I oversee the factory audit team and set the strategy to reach the sustainability goals we’ve set as a company. I spearheaded the work of partnering with innovative companies in sustainability to move the needle on making better product - focusing on ways to make polyester and nylon biodegrade using CICLO or utilizing plant waste from food crops to make an even more sustainable version of hemp with Circular Systems. Sustainability in product is more essential now then ever before and that trend is not going to change.
From 2012 to 2018, I worked at Mark and Graham, a Williams-Sonoma brand, created in 2012, designing premium personalized gifts, ranging from personal accessories and apparel to entertaining and games. As the second employee and founding Head of Design of Mark and Graham, I helped shape the pillars of the brand, which are classic design with a modern or preppy twist. I love simple, classic design. My focus with M+G is to create modern heirlooms that will be passed down and outlive trends. Let's face it, getting a gift with your name or monogram on it is hard to throw away or re-gift, so my goal is to design products that are on trend, but not trendy (I still can't part with the beach towel I got when I was 8 with my name embroidered on it).
As the Head of Design and sole designer at M+G for the first 2-1/2 years, I learned how to be creative and flexible with process. I have a start-up attitude and an aptitude for getting things done efficiently without skimping on quality. Collaborating with heritage brands (Armor-Lux) and talented jewelry designers (Maya Brenner, Ariel Gordon, Sarah Chloe) on exclusive product has been such a treat. It has been an amazing journey creating a brand from nothing to a $25M business in 4 years.
Prior to working for M+G, I worked at Levi's for 9 years in several different roles including a 10 month assignment in Hong Kong, which was one of the best learning experiences of my career.
During my time at Levi's I wrote a knitting book, with my best friend, called Viva Poncho, because, as a knitter, ponchos are the perfect thing to make when you get bored of scarves but aren't ready to tackle a sweater. In addition to designing half of the ponchos, I also designed the layout of the book and worked with our photographer to deliver a fully digital book, ready for press. This was the first time Stewart, Tabori & Chang, and imprint of Abrams, had produced a book this way, (up until then, they had always printed and scanned photographs, so we pulled them into the 21st century, and this is now the norm).
Right out of college, I lived in London where I designed book and DVD covers, and was lucky enough to design FilmFour releases; including the Dancer in the Dark special edition box set for Björk.
I currently live in the Silverlake/Virgil Village neighborhood of Los Angeles with my 17 year old daughter, my partner Jay, 2 dogs (one good one and one bad one) and 2 cats. We live part time in Grass Valley in our airstream and have dreams of opening a craft school. I run a small yarn business made from our neighbor’s Alpacas.
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