Predicting and Seeing Fashion’s Future

Bud Konheim first hired Nicole Miller as a designer for P.J. Walsh in the late Seventies and in the decades that followed the duo built a sizeable designer business from the ground up. Starting out of the gate with $4 million in first-year sales, the business partners were off and running. The fourth generation in his family to immerse himself in New York’s fashion industry, Konheim kept a gimlet eye on the arcs and pitfalls of Seventh Avenue. The Dartmouth graduate  and former Marine may not have had the stereotypical background to excel in the cutthroat world of fashion, but his flat-out candidness disarmed pretty much everyone he met. Wondering what his thoughts were was rarely an issue — he would not only tell you but would also spell out how that played out in the worldwide landscape. The fast-talking, amiable executive started a 2007 presentation at WWD’s Sourcing Leadership Forum by greeting his “fellow sourcerers.” But truth be told, at times Konheim had Nostradamus tendencies in predicting what lay ahead for the fashion business. Konheim pegged such milestones as: • The demise of shopping malls in 1990. • The waning power of department stores in 1988. • The power

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