Trade Secrets · From the other side
To the designer they called nobody
Two to five yards says nothing about where you'll be in five years. Two true stories from the showroom side of the desk.
By Anderson Somerselle · Nov 2026 · 4 min read
Let me tell you about two designers. I'm not going to name them, because this isn't about them. It's about you.
The lunch
Years ago, when I was on the showroom side of things, I invited a small firm to come in and see what was new. As luck would have it, Peter Fasano was there that day with a new collection, and they'd bought lunch for the whole sales team. So I did the obvious thing and said, come eat with us.
The head of the firm smiled and said, "Oh Anderson, that's so sweet, but we're such a tiny firm. We only buy two to five yards of fabric. We're really not worth sharing lunch with."
I wasn't having it. It didn't matter how many yards they bought. What mattered was that they'd chosen us. So they had lunch.
Fast forward. By the time I left that showroom, they'd landed a big project and were specifying a serious amount of fabric, and they wanted to order it through me. And this month? They're on the cover of a magazine. Their first cover story.
Two to five yards. Remember that number.
The day everything shut down
The second story is the one that still gets me.
It was right as the pandemic shutdown was announced. A designer came in who had just opened her own firm. Like, just. She was pulling swatches for her first real projects, and she needed a lot of them, because she had no idea when she'd be able to get back into a showroom.
The sample department was not impressed. Someone came over to my desk and said, more or less, "She's nobody. She's not in our system. We don't even know who she is."
She was standing at my desk in tears, asking me to help her.
So I did. I insisted she get every swatch she needed. Because the world was closing its doors, she'd just opened hers, and the very least we could do was not slam ours in her face.
She went on to land the cover of an Italian design magazine. Not in our system, indeed.
What I want you to hear
Here's the trade secret, and honestly it shouldn't be a secret at all.
You are going to walk into showrooms where someone decides, in about four seconds, that you don't matter. Maybe it's your order size. Maybe they don't recognize your name. Maybe your firm is you, a laptop and a very ambitious mood board.
They are wrong more often than you'd think. I've watched it happen from the other side of the desk for years. The yardage on your first order says absolutely nothing about where you'll be in five years. Nothing.
So don't shrink. Don't apologize for being small. Don't talk yourself out of lunch.
Ask for the swatches. Ask for the time. Find the person in that showroom who sees you, because there's almost always one, and build something with them.
And to the showrooms reading this, the designer you're brushing off today might be the one on the cover tomorrow. Be nice to the two to five yards crowd. They remember.
So do I.
P.S. I've told one of these stories out loud before, on the GUSSIE, and yes, I cried. Go listen to the whole episode. Bring tissues.
If someone forwarded this to you, first of all, they like you. Second, you can get THE STRIKE-OFF yourself right here.
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