The Best Entrepreneurs Class of '07 Today

Polina Fashion

Polina Raygorodskaya, 22
www.polinafashion.com)
Boston

Then:
Back in April 2006, Russian native Polina Raygorodskaya drew on her experience as a fashion model to start a company that produced fashion events. As of October 2007, the business was profitable and had produced about 50 events for designers with price tags of $2,000 to $15,000. Raygorodskaya's future goal was to put together an event in 2009 that could bring in about $2 million in revenues.

Now:
"So much has happened with Polina Fashion over the past six months that it almost looks like a whole new company," says Raygorodskaya. Since the press would repeatedly contact the Boston-based company to ask about the designers whose shows Polina had organized, Raygorodskaya decided to move into the public relations sphere as well. "It made more sense for us to be representing [the designers] on a larger basis," she says. Since then, the company has put on about 20 events all in the $7,000 to $30,000 range, and has doubled revenues over the past year while becoming a one-stop shop for designers: covering everything from production to publicity to branding. The initial major event in 2009 has been postponed, but Raygorodskaya says the company is now teaming with another company for a similar idea: a three-day fashion event in June 2009.

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