After closing boutique,
pair start ‘entertainment’ firm
as different way to sell fashion
DinaWorld Adventures is a young company that’s taking a different approach to the age-old act of selling clothing and accessories. The owners are placing storytelling at the center of what they call a “fashion-focused entertainment company.”
Co-owners Dina Fesler, a fashion designer and world traveler, and Anne Nicolai, a public relations pro, originally wrote a five-episode series of adventure tales based on Fesler’s annual trips to China. They sell memberships to the company’s “armchair travelers club,” for $75 to $350 each.
Members receive each month a new story in the series, with a selection of related Fesler designs that they can purchase for a limited time. Nicolai says they planned to limit members to 50 in their first year, but weren’t able to. “People don’t like to hear no,” she says. Members also receive invites to fashion events.
DinaWorld’s first fashion show, in October, unveiled Asian-inspired clothing that was long on luxurious fabrics and interesting cuts and short on torso length. (Crop tops were prevalent.) Resplendent in a fringed gown she picked up in Shanghai, Nicolai orchestrated the show to contain an element of surprise. The location was kept secret until the last moment.
“We’re trying to entertain people. We’re trying to give them a vicarious escape from everyday life,” Nicolai says. “Life is stressful, work is stressful. None of us has enough time just to dream. And we’re selling dreams.”
Nicolai and Fesler plan to publish book versions of the stories, and to launch a licensing operation, so that people could find in department stores DinaWorld tableware and the like, all inspired by Fesler’s travel tales. “We want to get into everything from luggage to the check blanks that you order from Deluxe,” Nicolai says.
Nicolai concedes it’s a complicated idea. “We do hear, ‘I don’t get it,’” Nicolai says. But she believes what she heard at a licensing show. “If you talk about your concept and everybody gets it, you’ve done nothing new. But if you have screwed-up faces from half of the people, then you’ve probably got something.”
Fesler used to have a store, called The Emperor’s New Clothes, in Edina, but closed it in 2001. “What we have is a fashion designer who no longer wishes to run a retail store, and a writer who no longer wants to engage in the typical public relations consulting business,” Nicolai says.
Anne Nicolai and Dina Fesler, DinaWorld Adventures: 952.835.3335; anne@dinaworld.com; www.dinaworld.com
