Fran Soublette, image consultant and specialist in fashion and communication business: "I realized that what I like the most is empowering other women"

Fran Soublette “I realized that what I like the most is empowering other women” 

Francisca Soublette's first memories with fashion are in her hometown, Osorno, where with little budget she put together looks that caught the attention of her friends and those around her. "I remember that I went to the street of used clothes with five or ten thousand pesos from that time... imagine, I was in second grade... and it did wonders." Leaving school, she went to Santiago where she studied public relations, always keeping in mind what was repeated every time she leafed through her mother's and grandmother's editions of Paula magazine. “I always saw the social ones and said 'I'm going to go out there'”. Once qualified, and without any experience, she wrote an email to the magazine where she wanted to appear on its social pages, de Paula replied that they were looking for someone in the marketing area. “I sent a super motivational email, telling them that fashion was my passion. I went through the selection process until I reached the last interviews and I was left”. She spent a year there, and then embarked on a meteoric career in fashion, which had her in commercial positions for editorial titles as relevant as GQ, Glamor and Vogue Latin America. Today she lives in Europe, where she looks for clothes for her own brand, Fran Soublette , the one that sells out collections. She specializes in business and fashion communications and also fills her agenda with style advice to her clients and followers. From Belgium, he gave us this interview where we talked about his career, his diagnosis of local fashion and his projects. 

Since your time in Paula, around 2013, to date, how do you see that local fashion has changed? 

When the Paula Clothes were made in the regions, I was in charge of traveling on behalf of the magazine. There were many Chilean brands that were just starting out. At that time, people still did not dare, they had the idea of ​​raising their brands but they followed a very classic line. I see how today's designers dare more. They have improved the quality, the materials and have incorporated the edge of sustainability, which at that time was not a topic. The versatility of designers today is also palpable. Today, there is freedom of expression through designs and also customers dare to do more. 

You see that niche, Chilean fashion, better positioned, then...

Absolutely. People are becoming increasingly aware of what it means to support local design. I feel that before it was also less accessible in terms of price, today they are more competitive. Yesterday I was reading about the work of Maria La Biyux, who has a whole business model associated with the social sphere and who has managed to reach Europe with her offer; before that was very difficult. 

As a fashion and communications business specialist, what advice would you give local brands to continue developing their business models successfully? 

Never lose your roots. There are many brands that do it to sell. Today, I'm working on a very nice social project to bring Chilean women's products to Europe, I still can't tell you much, but the idea is to look for first-rate clothing, jewelry, accessories, scarves, local handicrafts. That today has a very important connotation. Now that I'm living in Europe I notice it, how people look for that. Do not lose the origin, create from the origin. 

Despite the fact that there are even state agencies trying to promote local fashion abroad, why do you think Chile still hasn't managed to have an international image in the fashion context?

I think it's because they haven't been given the space. I feel that in Chile there is little pride in the roots we have. There is a very important limit there. For example, in Mexico that is super powerful; The projects that arise from the villages are shown, from people who weave, who create very beautiful jewelry and accessories that are promoted as the image of the country. I think that ProChile has done a very good job in that sense, but we also have a matter of scarcity of raw materials, if we compare ourselves with Peru, for example. We are geographically very far away, that is also an obstacle. 

Turning now to your career, what was it like working for Vogue Latin America and managing such important titles as GQ and Glamour? What lessons did you draw from your passage through that experience?

I was still at Paula as Product Manager and they called me from Condé Nast. I told them 'no, I'm super good in Paula'. They told me come meet us and then we'll talk. They called me for an interview and I liked the vibe, they were all super hot, all regal. High heels, pure and simple fashion, all eating pure salads. I liked it and I gave them the Ok, but I told my former boss that one day I wanted to be in charge of Vogue. He told me it was very difficult. I was very young, I was 24 years old. I was in charge of advertising sales for GQ for a year, then they gave me Glamor too, it started to go very well, I always met my goals. Then they sent me Vogue for sales and then they asked me to write, then they called me from Vogue to help in a fashion production. I continued there little by little, until from Mexico they removed the representation of the person who was in charge of the brand franchises at that time, and Eva Hughes, who was the CEO of Mexico, told me, at the age of 26, to become a in charge of the editorial, he put me in charge of the marketing team and the sales team. There I was breaking it in sales and productions, we did many large events, collaborations with brands and I began to do international negotiations. I did super well, until the digital age arrived. In 2018, the topic of strong influencers began, it was the year where the role faltered. 

We fell behind with social networks and it was difficult to sell advertising, customers began to request digital activations. I decided to leave because I had already reached the ceiling there and I couldn't grow any more in Chile. The only way to grow at Condé Nast was to go to Mexico to live, which was never an option for me. They were wonderful years, where I learned a lot. 

Why do you think it took them so hard to get in tune with digitization, considering all the resources and human capital that a company like Condé Nast has?

It's something I'll never understand. To this day I think about it and I swear I have not come to a conclusion. I feel that Latin America was not a priority. Condé Nast's headquarters are in London and everything was handled from there. The budgets that we had, the contracts that we closed were nothing compared to Vogue Paris or Italy. I think they didn't pay enough attention to us, they didn't see us as an important market. 

Was it at that moment that you decided to promote your own personal brand of clothing and consultancies?

Yes, I had to make a decision, because I was already getting bored, I had already done what I had to do and learned what I had to learn. I am very creative, I love developing ideas and I couldn't do many things anymore due to the issue of digitization. On the other hand, the girls from the brands I worked with began to ask me for advice on how to dress for events, in a good way. That's when I realized I was good at it. Before leaving Vogue, early 2019, I went to London to study a business course. From there, I started traveling and little by little I began to shape my brand. The first collection was sold in three weeks, they began to ask me for image consultancies and that's when I realized that what I like the most is empowering other women, seeing other women happy. I travel a lot looking for unique pieces and send them to Chile. I'm doing a sustainability course, because I want to go there, you have to make changes. Sustainability today in the world of fashion is too important, all brands should aspire to that. 

Within Fran Soublette's business line, what would you say are the most sustainable edges?

I am closing with Italy, for the Spring-Summer 2023 season, a very beautiful sustainable collection, of which I still cannot say much. It's not easy, especially now because of the dollar issue, it costs. My idea is, two years from now, to sell 100% sustainable clothing. If I don't sell sustainable, I'm out of business. 

What other hurdles have you come across on this path of undertaking? Do you still consider it as a venture or do you already see it as a consolidated business?

I will always dream and want more. I can't complain about how I'm doing, I sell out collections thank God. Nor can I say I have the Fran Soublette empire, I would love it, I want to go there, but there is still a long way to go. Part of the things that cost me is to change the vision of Chilean women in daring with color, with shapes. Nowadays, I have a consolidated clientele, but at first it was hard for them to dare, that was my big problem. They told me, for example, how am I going to wear a fuchsia two-piece suit or how am I going to put on sequined pants if I'm not going to a wedding. It makes me very happy to see how we have evolved in clothing, our image communicates a lot. 

Lastly, you have a well-developed spiritual side that you don't show much, how did you get there? Did you develop it, do you consider it a gift? How do you combine that with fashion, are they compatible?

Since I was a girl I read the tarot, I saw and heard things, very sensitive. I played crazy for a long time. At the University, I continued reading the tarot, even to people on TV who called me to do so. It is something that I struggled with for a long time not to have, because I felt very different from the rest, especially in this area. What I understood is that you don't need to get out of the system to feel. This helps me a lot, because I can understand my clients. It's a lot of fun, because I do image consultancies with my clients and we end up doing spiritual healing, regressions, channeling. It is a service that I do not promote, because in the end the people who come to me are the ones who have to come. It's not like selling a pair of pants, because it's a super important work of the soul and not all souls are prepared, because they are strong processes. Suddenly, I get 50-year-old men, bank managers, with whom we end up getting to the heart of his problem, which is something that had happened to him when he was five years old. I've been working a lot with women who have been mistreated and who have been abused, I get a lot of those kinds of issues. I have had to attend to women with an ink eye, who love fashion, but change always comes from within. I would feel like a hypocrite if I only changed their image, but I did not help heal their hearts. I can say that, after a lot of emotional work that I have done for several years, I am doing what my soul really came to complete on this plane. Every time I receive a message from a client who feels good, with a calm heart, for me that is the best payment I can have. Spirituality is listening to your intuition, being true to yourself.