NEW YORK - His small workshop in a friend's house in industrial Brooklyn is a far cry from the glass skyscraper on Madison Avenue where he worked as an investment banker. But Eric Steffen is happy.

Aged 39, he's ditched his career in finance to reinvent himself as a menswear designer. At a table in the low-hanging, windowless basement, he unrolls denim and velvet. In a room on the ground floor stand a dozen sewing machines bought from a factory that went bankrupt.

It may have been a difficult leap and the success of his nascent company, Fitted Underground, far from assured. But in a city like New York, where fashion is a major industry and looking smart is a must, Steffen is not the only well-paid professional dreaming of a more creative job.