PORTLAND — Designer Anna Cohen is a pioneer of the fashion industry here, which has been heralded on the glossy pages of national magazines and the catwalk on “Project Runway.”

With a prestigious New York education and experience from fashion work in Italy, Cohen’s company and its earth-friendly designs soared like the yellow canary that became her signature. Yet within three years — and not long after gracing the cover of Women’s Wear Daily — she shuttered her business.

The 2008 collapse came even as orders piled in and before most shoppers were even aware that a recession had taken hold. Yet the struggles she faced hold true today, even as metro-area designers are generating national buzz and luring tourists to town:

No real infrastructure.

With little in the way of manufacturing capabilities, textile offerings or production consultants, bankers or investors versed in the fashion business, designers are struggling to make clothes at affordable prices and often burn out attempting to fit fashion around a day job.

Or, they leave. Three of the six Portland designers featured on TV’s “Project Runway” competition have left for hotspots such as New York, where it’s relatively easier to do the job.

To fill the industry’s huge gaps, a number of designers have launched businesses offering sewing, marketing and selling services. Or, equally as important, provide regular critiques or occasional tutorials that for many designers amount to a narrowly focused, on-the-fly business degree.

Industry in its infancy

Organizers of Portland Fashion Week, once simply a venue for designers to show off their work, have begun lobbying the city to recognize an industry in its infancy. It could generate more business investment and shopping tourism, they say, as well as attract services crucial to the supply chain.

In a presentation to Mayor Sam Adams, the organizers pointed to the 4,500 fashion retail jobs in the metro area in 2009 and then, to all the work and money spent a year later to retain the Danish wind-turbine maker Vestas and its 400 jobs. Although matching New York’s long-established fashion scene is impossible, industry supporters say a fraction of its success is alluring — and attainable. In New York last year, the fashion industry generated $9 billion in wages and $1.7 billion in tax revenues.

“We have up-and-coming designers here with fresh ideas and, at the other end, designers entrenched at major corporations, who don’t even speak the same language,” said Cohen, who serves on the board of the 7-year-old fashion event that kicks off Wednesday.

“We need that infrastructure in the middle because we’re really sitting on a gold mine here.”

Seth Aaron Henderson knows the area’s design struggles well. The Vancouver, Wash., man taught himself to sew seven years ago. As his vision took shape, he had a difficult time finding professionals to help with production or investors willing to take a chance on fashion.

That changed a bit when the father of two with black-polished fingernails beat out 15 other designers last year to win the seventh season of “Project Runway.” He’s a big part of next week’s Fashion Week, having teamed to create a line for Earthtec, a New Hampshire that creates clothing from fabric spun from recycled plastic bottles.

Fashion Week producer Tito Chowdhury had helped persuade Earthtec head Dennis Randall to come to Portland, a prime destination of sorts for the chief executive who’s struggled to find a reliable source of recyclables. Now Randall, who with the fashion event’s organizers met with the mayor and economic development leaders, is considering situating a West Coast manufacturing plant here.

The partnership spotlights the benefits of sustainable-minded manufacturing — Henderson’s edgy line debuts Friday night — but also illustrates the relief an experienced manufacturer can provide an independent designer. Instead of the usual struggle of taking an idea from paper to pattern, tracking down fabrics and sewing the line himself, Henderson was able to create pieces featuring graphics he designed on fabrics that Earthtec then printed and produced.

“It’s a dream,” said Henderson, who hopes his and others’ Runway acclaim will bring more resources here. “This is the ticket to a mass market retailer. That type of access is the whole thing.”

Mass market

Mass market manufacturers often produce tens of thousands of a particular piece, which allows them to buy fabric at cheaper bulk rates, for national distribution. That allows them to keep prices in check.

A local designer might produce, say, 50 pieces, and in some cases hand deliver those creations to the limited number of boutiques that can handle such small batches.

“In some ways, it’s just not worth being in business at that rate,” said Britt Howard, who operates 3-year-old Portland Garment Factory with partner Rosemary Robinson.

In a whitewashed warehouse tucked off Southeast Stark Street, the designers share their experience in the trade’s nuts and bolts to provide their counterparts fabric-buying, pattern-making and sewing. Soon they’ll add online marketing and graphics.

They, like the few others who’ve begun offering such services in Portland, say they sometimes butt against the do-it-yourself culture that’s become a religion of sorts for local artisans.

Stories abound of creatives who have amazing ideas but can’t sew a zipper into a dress. Designers with established labels have been known to create one size, then another “a little bigger,” instead of using pattern grades to produce traditional sizes. Though most designers plan a season ahead, many local artists deliver an idea in early September for a fall line.

Some designers worry that handing over any part of their work will compromise their vision. Yet holding on can lead to what Sharon Blair sees as the five-year burnout.

To prevent that, the designer created Fashion Forward, a program for emerging designers at her year-old school, Portland Sewing. The program’s first student was Portlander Bryce Black, who debuted on this season’s Project Runway and will be part of Fashion Week’s Saturday show.

Draining inspiration

Alice Dobson understands how work that’s supposed to be based in inspiration can became a drain. The Oregon native sold her Sofada label at a store in Southeast Portland of the same name. This year would have been the store’s 10th anniversary, but in April she cleared out the shop and rented out the space.

Although she still designs for longtime clients, Dobson has shifted more toward helping other designers. Her seamstresses now also sew jobs for other designers. And in May, she and her longtime sales rep, Jaimi Martin, launched Fashion Republic, a business that helps other designers sell their work to retailers here and nationwide.

Getting retail buyers’ attention is a tough job. Although Fashion Week provides a spotlight for designers’ work, the city has only a handful of other such events and only one full-time showroom.

Big national retailers have pulled buyers out of more and more cities. Macy’s consolidated its buying operations as has The Kroger Co., meaning fewer decisions on what to stock at Fred Meyer are being made in Portland.

Blair, who works to foster relationships with apparel buyers, has regular conversations with Nordstrom folks and hopes to persuade them to make the trip from Seattle.

“My goal is to show these buyers it’s worth their while coming here,” she said. “Portland can be a market center for clothing that feels good and is sustainable — the opposite of that immediate obsolescence.”

Indeed, Cohen’s most recent work aims to connect fashion with its roots. She’s created a piece made with wool from the 140-year-old Imperial Stock Ranch in Eastern Oregon and thread from Earthtec’s recycled bottles — the design serves as the dramatic finale for Fashion Week’s Thursday night show.

“We’ve come such a long way, and now we have a perfect combination of elements: the timing, the sustainability, the attention,” Cohen said. “All of us are learning and stretching and trying to make this work.”