In Her Words: Diane Petan, Empowering Women Through Fashion
Wealth management executive weaves business acumen with entrepreneurial passion to create a line of sustainable, affordable apparel and solve a problem women face every day
I live in Soho. I'm in the shopping mecca of New York City. Early in my career, I had a closet full of designer brands. I still do. I can't get rid of them. It's too heartbreaking. When I was younger, getting dressed was fun because I could go into my closet, and everything fit, and it was easy. Then after having children, and with stress, and life, and menopause, my body changed in pretty significant ways, but my life didn’t, and my energy didn’t.
For my day job, which is in technology sales in the wealth management industry, I need to be out there seeing clients and I need to be able to get dressed in 10 minutes and look great. One day a few years ago, I walked in my closet, looked around and saw all these clothes and realized none of them fit, none of them looked good, and I wasn't really comfortable in any of them. Meanwhile, I had a big business meeting, and I wasn’t going to wear leggings. It just wasn’t working. I was pretty much in tears.
I called my best friend Leslie Byron, who is a fellow mom. (Our children are in college now, but they started school together in the first grade.) She’s also a career fashion executive. She has built brands for Ralph Lauren and Ann Klein — some of the biggest brands — and her specialty is pants. When I called her crying, she picked up the phone and said, “Oh my god! What's wrong with the kids?” And I had to tell her “The kids are fine, but I don't have any pants to wear.”
I knew I needed to have a uniform so I could get dressed in five minutes …
So, Leslie and I put our heads together and we set out to make the perfect pair of black pants. That’s how Duette NYC was born. Leslie could do this in her sleep because she has made millions of pairs of pants. We sat down and thought about what women really wanted. I knew I needed to have a uniform so I could get dressed in five minutes and then be able to layer and either go upscale to a designer jacket or scarf and nice shoes or go more casual with a Nike sweatshirt. Either way, I want that uniform of pants and tops that I can just put on every day whether I'm going to the office, to a social event, or to a funeral. I want my go-to pieces in basic colors that just feel good and make me feel empowered.
We also realized that we wanted to leave a legacy and not just make more fast fashion. We did almost two years of research so we could make everything out of sustainable fibers. We ended up finding out that one of the biggest providers of sustainable fibers is the Lenzing Corporation in Austria. We also discovered that if you go out in the street, you'll see more and more sustainable fibers, often in athletic wear, that feels like scuba. It's not fine luxury fabrics, and that's what we wanted. Leveraging Leslie’s connections with weavers and factories, we started experimenting with threads from this sustainable source and I don't know how many fabrics we developed until we were very happy with what we had.
We started making our prototypes and bringing friends and family in to try them, and everybody fell in love with the pants. They were just so comfortable. We didn't want to take them off! We launched and then CoVid hit. The good and bad was that our pants were not only beautiful, but also incredibly comfortable and washable. They’re pants that you want to live in from day to night, and that was really what we did.
The good and bad was that our pants were not only beautiful, but also incredibly comfortable and washable.
Another one of my best friends, Joyce Frost, who took a small stake in the company, had a relationship with a friend of a friend of someone who was a very senior person at QVC. She opened the door for me by saying “Can you just have a 10-minute conversation with my friend Diane? I want her to talk to you about what she's doing.” Leslie and I put our heads together. I did a pitch deck. I got the president of QVC on the phone with her team, and I just told them the story.
We weren't even two years in business, and we sealed a deal with QVC to do their first line of sustainable basics. They didn’t really have other lines that were doing things that were earth friendly. We are one of the few that are. We created a line specifically for QVC that we call Day to Day by Duette and it did help our brand for sure. It's not like you've won the lottery being on QVC though. It's tough. The margins are slim. There's a lot of work. I don't want to sugarcoat it. But if you do well, it can be fantastic.
Our pants are still our best sellers, but we now offer a nice selection of basic pieces. All our clothes have a fair degree of stretch so that they really envelop the silhouette, but also have these lines in them that complement all body types. Leslie is also an architect. She got her degree in architecture from Penn. In one of her first jobs out of college she was building buildings and hotels in New York City. But she always loved fashion so when she thinks about fashion, she thinks about the lines that flatter a woman's body.
Right now, Duette NYC is exclusively online. We are on Wolf and Badger as well, which is a global aggregator for sustainable lines, and they'll ship all over the world. We do occasionally have sample sales here in New York City where you can come and touch and feel and try on the clothes. We were talking to a couple of big department stores that want to possibly feature us in some pop-up shops. Those things are kind of bubbling. Otherwise, there are a lot of very strange policies in department stores that often aren't great for small brands. For example, if they don't sell your line, they make you buy them back, which we didn't want to do.
Where do you see the thread coming through from your career experience in wealth management?
Well, certainly having a business acumen you know, in my earlier years working for big banks I was given the opportunity to start new initiatives. Some succeeded and some didn't. They say you learn as much from your failures as you do from your successes. When you’re trained in those big institutional settings, with lots of personalities and lots of diversity, you learn so much.
After working in wealth management, which is a regulated industry, due diligence and compliance is in my head. Do not be afraid to ask the tough questions, because it's your butt on the line. That applies to every business.
I think human relationships are huge. I'm in sales and I like helping people. I'm trying to figure out what they need, what makes them tick. I want to help you if I can. If I can’t, I'm going to tell you and I'm going to move on. It’s the same with the clothing business. There are a lot of women like us who want it to be easy to get dressed. They want the no stress of getting dressed. The desire to serve or to help and to be involved in building relationships with people carries through to what I’m doing with Duette NYC.
Technology is another thread for sure. From the time I was a younger person in high school. I was always a STEM person. I love math. I love technology. I've always been that way.
Belle Curve Stories is about women navigating life with grit, grace, and growth. What do those words mean to you?
I grew up in the Midwest in a rural area. My family always encouraged me to follow my dreams and not give up, to not let anything stop me from what I was passionate about and what I wanted in life. I've lived by that. Grit is pushing up your sleeves, getting into the work, being humble about it, and just not giving up. It is that resilience. Have that drive, that energy, that passion inside your heart. Give yourself the opportunity to feel really good about what you're doing. Sometimes we get stuck in jobs or careers where we're not in control or somebody else is telling us how to feel or what to do. It takes grit to really have the courage to do something on your own that's different, but something you're very passionate about and dream about. Push up your sleeves, tap into your head and your heart and just just go for it.
I never thought twice about my age or where I was in life when pursuing this passion. I wanted to grow. I wanted to do something meaningful for myself, for friends, and for other women.
One time a few years ago, I met with this Navy SEAL and I asked him how he dealt with obstacles. He was a big dude and he said, “Imagine you're floating through a stream, and you come up against a rock. You're gonna float around that rock and you're gonna keep looking down that stream. That rock is never going to stop you. And for any rock that comes up in front of you, you're going to just dance and swim and keep going down the stream.” I have these little visualizations that I do every day and that's one of them.
Grace is a good one. In challenging times or good times, I think about keeping your cool, keeping your head on straight, balancing that energy between your heart and your head, and staying above the fray. There will be times where things are tough and you're going to meet people that are tough. If you just keep your wits and your grace about you, you will get through it, and you'll get through it successfully. It's times when I haven't done that where I have regrets. If I follow that path of grace, it just helps relationships of all kinds in all places.
We should never stop growing, whether we’re pursuing passions or hobbies or friendships or relationships. I never thought twice about my age or where I was in life when pursuing this passion. I wanted to grow. I wanted to do something meaningful for myself, for friends, and for other women. We wanted to grow an industry by introducing something sustainable and earth friendly that is also affordable and easy to find. There are some luxury lines that may charge $800 for a pair of sustainable pants. We didn't want that. We wanted growth to mean a lot of things personally and professionally, with our families and our business. It's opportunity and positivity, I think.
I have learned and continue to learn that there are many extremely smart, talented women in our age group who may have been passed over or pushed to the side if we worked for big companies but have incredible opportunity and talent. We need to help each other and create networks to do so, and just really give each other the encouragement that we need.
If you were to talk with your younger self from 25 years ago, what would you tell her?
I probably would tell her to take more risks early on. I was at Goldman for almost 20 years. I think some of the younger people I've come across are not as afraid to change jobs and take risks and I think that's cool. There are also other things I might have done other than finance and business, like something in the arts. I love dancing. I'm actually a pretty good singer. I wish I would have had the courage to do some of those activities as well, but it’s never too late.
As told to and edited by Teresa Bellock and Sandra Ditore.
Diane Petan, co-founder of Duette NYC, worked in financial services for many years before partnering with Leslie Byron to start a line of sustainable, affordable clothing for women. Diane also currently serves as managing director for Masttro, a financial reporting platform for ultra high net worth families. Residing in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, Diane, her husband, and her two college-age children, share a love of the arts and have filled their home with art and music. She invests in women-led ventures, is passionate about mental health and addiction issues faced by teens and young adults, and considers herself to be an enthusiastic chef.
You can find Duette NYC on Instagram, visit their website, or you can Google “best black pants” and they’ll come up.
I feel inspired to get moving on my own "stuff" AND I'm going buy me a pair of pants today!
What a beautiful story !!! I’ll be ordering my pants soon -:)