Danielle Perez

Jan. 28, 1977 (22)

Owner

7 and 7 Inc.

A T-shirt in Danielle Perez’s junior contemporary line originally was embedded with studs to spell out “Lady,” a reference to the name of the line, Lady 7. But Delia’s, a popular clothing catalog for teen-age girls and young women, preferred the word “Star.” Perez made the change.

“I’ll do anything they want, really,” Perez said. “It’s still money.”

That flexibility as well as an ability to design clothes young women want to wear is starting to pay off. Clothes from Perez’s Lady 7 line are in about 60 shops in several cities, including Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo. In 1998, the first year Perez’s 7 and 7 Inc. was in business, the company had revenues of $120,000. “This year, I hope to double it,” she said.

Clothes in the Lady 7 line range from simple T-shirts like the “Star” item, to white pullover tops decorated with flowery embroidery, to form-fitting slacks made out of stretchy material.

“It’s actually a really girly line, but it’s not for really young girls,” said Moe Moe Lwin, a buyer’s assistant at American Rag Cie., a popular L.A. clothing store that carries the Lady 7 line. “It appeals to the hip 20s and 30s working women.”

At 22, Perez herself is younger than many of the women buying her clothes. Her youth, Perez said, occasionally has been a problem especially in building relationships with fabric suppliers and the sewing houses where she contracts much of her work.

“They say, ‘Who are you? How old are you? Where have you been? I’ve never heard your name before,'” she said.

She happened upon the business when an uncle who makes clerical robes let her and a cousin use some space in his downtown sewing shop to experiment with their own clothing designs. At the time, Perez was taking classes in interior design at UCLA, but she saw her opportunity to break into apparel, and decided to drop out of school and go to work full time.

Perez’s company consists of just herself and a part-time assistant working out of a small office in downtown L.A.’s Garment District. (She spends hours scouring thrift shops and watching movies in search of inspiration.)

“I’m just happy that I’ve been able to create my own job and be happy doing it,” she said.

Daniel Taub