How Aisling Camps Went From Engineer to an Award-Winning Knitwear Designer

In our long-running series “How I’m Making It,” we talk to people making a living in the fashion and beauty industries about how they broke in and found success.

When Aisling Camps moved from Trinidad to the United States to study engineering at Columbia, she didn’t plan on eventually being kicked out of the country, but it was a blessing in disguise: It pushed her to kickstart her eponymous knitwear brand.

After graduating, she began working at an engineering consulting firm. However, she missed having an artistic outlet, inspiring her to take night classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology (which happened to be across the street from her job). Eventually, she quit her day job and started a design career. That is, until she ran into visa issues, forcing her to return home to Trinidad. 

Though her life plan was sidetracked, Camps made the most of her time back home: She tapped into the local design community and found mentorship from a renowned local designer, giving her the support she needed to build her own label.

A decade into her eponymous brand, Camps has evolved from a word-of-mouth, “iykyk” designer to an industry darling. She has the accolades to back it up, too: In 2023, the brand won Fashion Trust U.S.‘s inaugural ready-to-wear award. This year, it was a finalist for the first-ever Empowered Vision Award (created by the CFDA and Frazier Family Foundation).

“The most important thing is product, product, product,” she reflects. “You’re making something that people don’t actually need; you’re creating want. You have to make things that people are going to be dreaming about.”

Ahead, Camps talks about pivoting from engineering to fashion design, those early years of business, scaling a small-batch brand and more.

Tell me about your earliest memories with fashion, before you pursued it as a career.

My mom always watched the show ‘[Style] with Elsa Klensch.’ She would kick us all out of the room or make us change whatever shows that we were watching on TV. She would also always have stacks of magazines: Every Vogue, every Elle Decor, every Harper’s Bazaar. 

Did those early exposures influence your eventual pivot into fashion?

It was always in the ecosystem of my existence, but I never really thought, ‘I’m going to go into fashion.’ When I was a little kid, I used to want to be an artist. I used to draw a lot.

You majored in mechanical engineering at Columbia University. Why that career path?

In Trinidad, you do the British system: I did A levels and you pick subjects to specialize in. I chose physics, math and art. I was always good at physics. I love science because it’s not all about memorization, it’s about problem-solving. Once you understand the fundamental rules, everything’s solvable, which I liked. Then I always took Art Portfolio, so I had the art stuff on the side. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do. My father — who has always been very, very encouraging — had mentioned, ‘Look, the hardest undergrad degree you could do is an engineering degree, and if you could get that under your belt, you could do anything. You could always pivot.’ So I went with that.

How did you pivot into fashion design?

I graduated in 2008 and the economy crashed. I did get a job at an engineering consulting firm across the street from the Fashion Institute of Technology. But it wasn’t an ideal match for me: Culturally at the company, I didn’t see myself working there long-term necessarily. Also, I had always had my art: Even at Columbia, when I was in engineering school, I would always sign up for a studio class. I took classes like lithography, advanced painting and drawing and oil painting. Once I got into the workforce, there wasn’t some sort of equivalent to having that counterbalance. But FIT was across the street from my office, so I started taking night and weekend classes there.

Eventually, I saved up enough to pay for an accelerated associate’s degree. I left my job and went across the street full-time for fashion design — on a whim, because it was supposed to be a sabbatical of like a quarter-life crisis. It was just supposed to be a year. I was planning to probably go back to engineering, but it just continued. I finished that degree, and then I signed up for another two years to get the Bachelor of Arts from FIT.

How did your Trinidadian background influence your creativity and style and then, later on, your brand?

Every year there’s Carnival and it’s a different kind of couture. A couple of years ago I went back and snuck into behind-the-scenes where you get to see the kings and the queens’ costumes. [The designers] are so passionate about the intricacies of making these insanely massive costumes. There’s engineering involved, there are gears and pulleys, and then of course creativity.

How did your eponymous label come about? 

Visa issues: It’s easy to get a visa as an engineer, not so much as a fashion designer, in the States. I was interning a bunch and I couldn’t quite get any commitment from any company to sponsor me a visa, so I had to return home.

There are a handful of really creative designers back home, but someone that I consider a mentor just to encourage me to continue pushing was Meiling. She is a Trinidadian designer, and when I was growing up, my mom would always take me to her fashion shows. She’s like an OG and has been doing it for around 40 years. I always had a good rapport with her. She was very open and encouraging, and she said, ‘Look, I’m having a pop-up in a couple of months. I’ll give you a rack and a space. Why don’t you make some things and see if it sells?’ And that’s how the brand started.

What were the first few years of business like in Trinidad?

It was just a handful of dedicated clients that wanted pieces: I did a bridal piece for a friend. Through word of mouth, I sold one thing and another thing, and I just kept going. I also didn’t have the pressure of New York’s astronomical rent. It gave me the freedom to experiment, and I was looking at it almost as a way to build a portfolio.

What was it like running your business during that time, then ultimately getting back to the U.S.?

I was in Trinidad for two years, and I won the green card lottery. That’s how I ended up moving back to New York. 

There was a local fashion program [in Trinidad], and I had an intern who won all the prizes and I was super proud of her. I showed her how to use the machine. She was very, very quick to pick up on things and very creative. […] That was my plan, to teach [students] how to use the machines, build a studio, take it from there and build out production from the ground up. I knew it was going to take about 10 years probably. But I was like, ‘Well, what else am I going to do? I’m not allowed to be in the United States legally, so let me build my life in Trinidad.’ And I was happy with that, too.

When I won the green card lottery I felt very conflicted. I literally just got ousted very unceremoniously, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, you can come back.’ But the United States is where all the opportunity is to grow. You have to take advantage of opportunities, especially in this industry.

So in 2015, I came back and found myself in a boutique called Addo in Sag Harbor and started selling there. I did that for three summers, and I was just churning out product and making pieces to order nonstop all summer. […] People would come in the store, try things on, and I would just make whatever size.

How did you choose knitwear as your specialty?

While I was at FIT, I was constantly looking at the job listings, and I noticed that there were a lot more job listings for knitwear, and they paid better. It was that practical of a thing. If you are an immigrant in this country, you know how stressful it is trying to secure a visa. So I wanted to give myself the best possible chance to do so.

Who do you design for?

It’s somebody who appreciates quality, craftsmanship and subtle details. My stuff is very understated, but if you get up close to it, you notice that this is really nice fabrication. I use really expensive yarns, and we don’t do cut and sew — everything is knit to shape, which is more expensive and time-consuming to do. So if you get up close to it, you really see that there’s a lot of care and attention given to it. That’s who I’m trying to speak to: People who are looking to capture a little piece of art they could wear on their body.

Has your engineering background served a purpose for your brand?

Knitwear is a very technical specialization and niche in fashion. You do have to be really meticulous, and there’s a lot of math and measuring. It’s a process of thinking and being analytical. While at Columbia, my team made a robot and I was on the machines all the time perfecting it. I was making this spring-loaded arm in the perfect shape. So you go, you try it, it’s like, ‘Ah, it’s not right,’ and go back. It’s the same thing with a dress.

You have to be very, very focused, analytical and have attention to detail. All of those things got hammered to me as an engineer.

You produce small-batch pieces, handmade in your Brooklyn studio or in a family-owned factory in Italy. What challenges does that process present when it comes to scaling and wholesale?

It’s a tricky dance with the numbers: How many pieces do you get ordered? Do you hand that off or do you make it in-house?

A lot of the difficulty with scaling was securing a factory that wanted to work with me with small minimums and making very complex pieces. I took a sabbatical in 2017, and through owners of the yarn mills that I buy my stuff from, they had introduced me to a factory owner. I went to the factory every day. They were very excited to work with me. They thought my stuff was really creative, and they liked that I had my background in engineering and that I understood the details of what it is to make something because they’re accustomed to getting these random sketches. I would go back and forth to Italy that year, two months at a time, and taught myself Italian and how to translate the hand-loomed pieces to be made on industrial machines, ones that are automated.

You’ve been transparent about how difficult it is to gain access to this industry, especially as a Black designer. Do you think these obstacles are still present for rising designers today?

I think it’s just a difficult industry to thrive in, period. Being a person of color, you sometimes have less access to certain things. Like, you have less access — in general — to capital. There is a big disparity there. And the industry is disproportionately white, so people tend to stick together with people that they know. To say that that is not true would be understating a well-known thing. So yeah, there are obstacles, but you can’t really focus on that. You’re just going let it to roll off your back and do what you can to be seen anyway.

What have been some of the biggest changes that you’ve witnessed in the industry since you first started?

The increased support for Black designers and designers of color: In 2020, there was a sudden huge rallying cry to try to even the scales a little bit and to support [Black designers] in an industry that’s so predominantly white. It has definitely died down since then, but I was happy to take advantage of that opportunity.

In 2023, you won the Fashion Trust U.S. Ready to Wear Award. How did that moment elevate your brand?

Cashflow is the biggest hurdle that you have to overcome with this business. You know that you have money coming in, but it’ll be six months from now, and you can’t wait to pay bills, your factory and staff. You have to pay for yarns upfront so that your stuff can get made and you can get that check six months from now. So having that cash injection, oh my gosh, I could do things simultaneously. I could develop new product while paying to make existing orders.

What are your goals for your business in the next five years?

I would like to expand my team. Currently, it’s just me and one other person most days. We do a lot and wear a lot of hats. I would like to be able to delegate a little bit more so that I could lean into being the business owner, lean into being the person that could take a macro look at things and not always be stuck in the nitty gritty constantly.

I would love to build out the direct-to-consumer part of it […] to be 50% of revenue. This is a very volatile industry, and just being dependent on things that are constantly in flux, I would like to shift gears and be a little bit more in control of my own revenue as opposed to having it dictated by outside factors. I also want to invest in and build our community: People who are buying directly from us, I want to have a closer connection with them.

What advice would you give to someone following a similar career path?

You have to be tenacious. You are going to get a lot of no’s. You’re going to face a lot of defeats, but you can’t let it stop you. You have to keep going and know how to pivot. 

When in doubt, invest in yourself and your business, but put it back into where you know it’s going to be worth it. Look at everything that looks like it’s an obstacle as an opportunity. And take advantage of whatever it is that’s right in front of you because there’s always some sort of silver lining that will make itself apparent. 

You really got to focus on your craft. At the end of the day, product is the most important thing. You’re making something that people don’t actually need — you’re creating want. So it needs to be really special.

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This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Source: Fashionista.com