While we were attending the shows in New york and Europe we would meet with other small designers and mingle with various buyers and this was really fascinating. We could see movements of "trends" and tastes a bit before the buying public and in fact it could be said that we were participants in trends that might show up six months to a year later due to the time differential from acceptance of an order to its' production and manufacture. However an unexpected circumstance began to show up around 2005 or 2006. At this time we noticed a general drop off in orders and discussions among stores, using euphemisms like "resistance" "lower price point" "slackening demand" and it began to feel like there was an economic pinch coming in the future. Certainly there was for us as orders became a bit smaller and we began to wonder what the future held. We felt the outlines of an unseen economic crisis and sure enough we began to receive letters from various companies asking for longer credit times and I began to feel like a full time debt collector. Unfortunately, a number of these the debts were never collected as we moved into early 2007. Our customers were closing their stores and/or going bankrupt. The invisible crisis was becoming very apparent and was being called as "the housing bubble" and the bubble burst and ultimately landed with a thud as the "the great recession." As a small business this financial instability was untenable so at this time we decided to "retire" from wholesale accounts. With banks teetering and collapsing we reasoned that we would sell our own things and not be dependent upon payments from others vendors. Near our house was a slumbering street called Abbot Kinney and there we opened a store there called Koko Venice.