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DiLascia: The Profit Updates in 2023

by Kate Sparks
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Born and raised in New York, Patrick DiLascia needed more real estate to turn his dream into reality: launching his own clothing store. He decided to move out west, loaded up a truck bound for Los Angeles (where there’s plenty of space), and built the business from scratch. DiLascia created a website, secured a storefront, and got into big retail clothing stores like Nordstrom’s and Barney’s New York. His business thrived so quickly that Patrick’s brother and sister followed him out to L.A. to help run the business.

When the largest retailer for DiLascia folded, Patrick’s business started to slide. To make matters worse, the three siblings were not getting along. Sales dropped and the business was falling deeper into debt when Patrick reached out to Marcus Lemonis and The Profit for help.

Marcus had dipped into the fashion industry in recent years and was impressed with Patrick’s designs. He had seen the DiLascia logo online and at Barney’s and Nordstrom’s. He would need to see if he could somehow harness Patrick’s obvious creativity – he saw the potential for success and was willing to lend a hand.

DiLascia on The Profit

The Profit Season 4 Episode 2

Patrick had grown up in upstate New York, where his father owned and ran a bakery. When his mother passed away, Patrick moved to L.A. to pursue his dream.

Marcus learned this was not Patrick’s first experience in the fashion world. He was a sales associate at American Eagle before working in Italy for Armani and was a buyer for all 600 Burlington Coat Factory locations. He told Marcus he had secured a license and exclusive branding deal with TMZ. Marcus was impressed. He felt Patrick’s resume showed he was a good salesman and that big companies had trusted him with their brand.

Most of Patrick’s revenue came from his men’s and kid’s product lines, with women’s apparel accounting for just 20% of the business. Marcus felt the women’s line of DiLascia was not offering enough options. There were no hoodies, fitted shirts, or tank tops, traditionally big sellers for women.

DiLascia’s Finances

Sales were plummeting. DiLascia’s revenue went from over $1 million in sales to less than $600,000 in two years – a breathtaking loss of more than half his total revenue. A third of their revenue was lost with the closing of Kitson, a large retailer. Marcus felt this showed how vulnerable the business was and wanted Patrick to pursue wholesale accounts that would bring more revenue and consistency to the operation.

Dan, Patrick’s brother, told Marcus that the L.A. store was bringing in only $60,000 a year, which was just able to cover the rent. Patrick used the L.A. location as his office and his home. As sales dropped, his siblings stopped getting paid and most months Patrick himself did not get paid.

Patrick had used the entire $100,000 his mother had left him to open up the store. Dan loaned him an additional $20,000 and helped him get the first shop started. Patrick and Dan’s sister, Kelly, were attempting to bring some structure to the business, though Patrick seemed to resent it. When the store began to lose money, Kelly wanted to change things up, but Patrick resisted, feeling he was the one with the buying experience.

While touring the warehouse, Marcus learned that DiLascia had $207,000 in negative equity. He offered Patrick $200,000 in exchange for 50% of the equity, and as always, Marcus would take total control of the operations. He would also give each of the siblings 10% ownership in the business.

Marcus planned to build up the women’s product line, focus on product development, and pay off debts owed to vendors. The store had an ineffective structure and Marcus wanted to refine the brand and develop an effective process for inventory production.

Marcus felt that adding hoodies and sweatpants to the women’s line would help to increase revenue and add value to each purchase. Patrick worked with Marcus to develop design ideas but was resisting feedback received from a focus group.

Marcus showed Patrick his own clothing brand’s investment in Los Angeles called Two Arrows. They toured the development process, where Marcus offered Patrick a room in the facility where he could freely work and create. Marcus strongly advised selling the DiLascia location. Patrick resisted until Marcus made it an ultimatum, leaving Patrick with no choice but to close the store.

Patrick and Marcus then headed to Bloomingdale’s, where Patrick impressed their sales team enough for them to offer DiLascia the chance to do a trunk show. 

On the day of the show, Marcus noticed that a box of merchandise had not arrived, yet Patrick did not do anything to deal with the situation. However, Patrick did make the changes Bloomingdale’s had wanted without incident.

Marcus realized that Patrick was immature and still growing into the kind of businessman he could be, and was doing what he needed to do for the best interests of his business. Overall, Marcus was happy with the investment. Did that last?

DiLascia After The Profit

 

If you want to be depressed, just take a look at Patrick DiLascia’s Twitter page. It would seem, judging by the angry and abandoned tone of his recent posts, that things are not going well for DiLascia. 

After The Profit aired, Patrick joined Marcus’ ML Fashion Group in New York City, however, the partnership did not last long. Within a year, Marcus tweeted out that Patrick was no longer involved in the operations of DiLascia, though he did retain the wholesale side of the business.

In an episode update, Marcus revealed that he not only lost his original $200,000 investment, he also lost another $36,000 in legal bills related to a lawsuit with Patrick. He had been warned about Patrick’s issues with integrity from people that had worked with Patrick before but had felt Patrick was being upfront with him about wanting to grow the business.

Eventually, Marcus discovered that Patrick had been less than honest with Marcus, and had not been transparent about his finances and the troubles he faced. 

Patrick opened a higher-end product line under the name “Patrick,” and opened a new brick-and-mortar location in downtown Los Angeles in 2017. The website has since folded and the storefront was shuttered sometime in the last two years.

Marcus still owns DiLascia, which redirects to jetsettees.com, a t-shirt company he started. He blames himself for this deal going south and has learned a valuable lesson going forward.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is strictly informational; SEO Insights is not affiliated with DiLascia, The Profit, or any of its subsidiaries.

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