LA wildfires prompt fashion industry to assess losses.

Brynn Carlson January 10, 2025 Fashion & Beauty

The Call to Action

It was an employee’s story of a friend whose house had burned down that drove Set founder and CEO Lindsey Carter to action. The brand manufactures in Los Angeles. “I have a platform. Set has a platform. My network is so large,” she says. Plus, about a quarter of Set’s consumer base are LA residents, she adds. So Carter delegated her operations team and transformed Set’s Beverly Hills HQ to a donation centre. She took to social media to request donations, and the brand offerings came rolling in.

“There’s a big difference between people just reaching out saying ‘how can I help?’ versus actionably doing something to help,” Carter says. “I don’t know if I would have it in me to ask for help, but I would appreciate the people who would step up and help without me asking.”

“When tragedy strikes, Americans mobilise. There’s so much support,” says Martin. “We’ll be figuring out how we can support as well.”

The Impact on Manufacturing Industry

The fallout remains to be seen for LA’s manufacturing industry. Set’s partner factories are in Downtown LA, which has remained safe from the fires, but Carter hasn’t yet communicated with the factory workers. “There are going to be so many displaced families that I don’t know what it’s going to look like – if our factory employees are impacted, or have relatives [who are] impacted – there’s such a chain reaction,” she says. “You just have to take it day by day.”

Resilience Amidst Loss

For Elyse Walker and her team, the disaster is reminiscent of another recent world-altering event. During the worst of the pandemic, Rabuchin had pivoted to Instagram, posting outfits that she pieced together on the floor. (“I was always like, get those clothes off the floor!” Walker said later, laughing.) She gained clients as far away as Florida and Europe. “But I had a store to pull from,” Rabuchin says. Now she’s living in a hotel with her parents and her young son, with no store left.

Her voice caught. “Oh, I just remembered another [delivery] I was supposed to drop off” to a client on Tuesday, she says. Sweaters from The Row and Khaite. “I remember what they were – I can get them from another store.”

Rabuchin was back at work. The fires were still burning in the hills.

Walker, too, is working. “That was a $30 million door on a little side street and just 6,000 square feet,” Walker said of her Palisades store. “I’m still grieving. It’s still smoldering. Right now, I’m going to rebuild my team that is hurting.”

She’d woken up on Thursday with ideas. “Rebuild? Yes, of course. What else can we do?”