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How to start a fashion business
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Here’s a few pointers on how to start a fashion business, from the perspective of someone who opened an online fashion business in the United Kingdom, selling to Europe and some of the gulf states. Firstly, some basic requirements in terms of personnel, technical knowledge, and resources, and then a step-by-step guide from fashion designs through production and sale.
Technical Expertise
So in starting a fashion business, who do I need? Well, you can be a jack of all trades, but you will need at least all of these disciplines: fashion designer, graphic designer, pattern cutter, photographer, dressmaker, web designer, salesperson.
When I started a ladies’ apparel business, I partnered with a fashion designer, so in-house we had about 3 of the above disciplines. The rest we outsourced. I think you could, at the start, do all of the above yourself if you are computer-confident fashion designer. Personally, I think the pattern cutter should be provided by your manufacture but more on that later.
Step 1: Design
Our fashion designer, a part-time freelancer, was asked last week if she could design 30 separate dresses for an upcoming, new brand. Her (fair) response: why do you need 30 unique pieces when you can have 10 designs in 3 separate colorways each? How to start a fashion business? Minimise outlay.
Check this one pattern for a simple example.
Step 2: Pattern cutting and fabrics
For our dresses, we chose a high-quality Bulgarian factory for our production. They were just great as they had some pattern-cutters, who as far as I am concerned are the backbone of the entire fashion industry. The patterns produced by these in-house pattern cutters were roughly cut according to our designs, in calico. These ladies were absolute experts and, although we did not speak the same language, understood the international words of ‘darts, seam, hem’ and the like. Pins between the teeth etc.
At this time, we also took many samples and prices of fabrics for use in the garments. We took these along to the factory, together with the designer, and asked for feedback from the pattern cutters on drape and elasticity, need for lining and the like.
Step 3: Proto fitting and adjustments
So then the proto-samples were cut, and again, as we were saving our pennies, and our designer is a size S – we fit the dresses on her. Yes, there was some hilarity, but with soap and pins, we managed to adjust the protos to a more universal ‘s’, and tweak an nudge a few things that did not quite work out. I cannot underestimate the importance of this procedure. The best way is to do it all together, in a room off the factory floor, and spend a day for fittings, tweaks and adjustments. For us, it was also a great bonding session with the factory folks.
Step 4: Salesman sample production, grading and photoshoots
Salesman’s samples are the finished product, with or without labels. Ah – there’s another thing. We did get offers from many companies on logo production. We opted for a satin embroidered logo, white text on black background, that came in at about $0.2 per label. We also asked the factory to provide care and size labels, which they did, for some more cents per dress.
For grading, we used quite standard size charts – 2 cm difference in width, 1 cm in length. We produced a few salesman’s samples for our market – 1 XS, 3 S, 1 M, 1 L.
Next up – photoshoots. We found a friend of a friend who set up the whole thing – for around 30 dresses, with retouching, and 3-4 angles per dress, plus about 5 lifestyle shots for banners/header images and things, cost about 1200 euro. It took a day, we had two models, 1 hairdresser and a makeup artist.
Step 5: (Optional) Setting up a shop (online), and producing stock
This depends on your business model. For us, we were a bit odd, because with our business model, we sent photos to potential clients, took orders, then produced them. For our online shop, we used Shopify. This was pretty cool in our case because Shopify take a % of you revenue per sale, but our site was just used as great way to showcase our product so in the end we just paid the base price.
However, whether you set up shop online or offline, I really suggest getting your customers at stage 4 above. How to set up a fashion business: secure some distributors first. It’s obviously far superior to producing 1200 garments on spec with all you and your friend’s savings – if you can find some sort of buffer with an upfront order, great. If not, then try to as much of the above as possible with as little stock as possible, and of course, anybody you ask about how to start a fashion business will tell you to use ALL your contacts/social networks/friends/families/dogs to spread the word as possible.
One last way to minimise your risk, make money and also showcase your designs is on Fashion Reserve, where the designs themselves, rather than the finished product, can be sold over and over again – register here to get going.
How to start a fashion business
www.fashionreserve.com/wp-content/uploads/edd/2015/08/clo...
Here’s a few pointers on how to start a fashion business, from the perspective of someone who opened an online fashion business in the United Kingdom, selling to Europe and some of the gulf states. Firstly, some basic requirements in terms of personnel, technical knowledge, and resources, and then a step-by-step guide from fashion designs through production and sale.
Technical Expertise
So in starting a fashion business, who do I need? Well, you can be a jack of all trades, but you will need at least all of these disciplines: fashion designer, graphic designer, pattern cutter, photographer, dressmaker, web designer, salesperson.
When I started a ladies’ apparel business, I partnered with a fashion designer, so in-house we had about 3 of the above disciplines. The rest we outsourced. I think you could, at the start, do all of the above yourself if you are computer-confident fashion designer. Personally, I think the pattern cutter should be provided by your manufacture but more on that later.
Step 1: Design
Our fashion designer, a part-time freelancer, was asked last week if she could design 30 separate dresses for an upcoming, new brand. Her (fair) response: why do you need 30 unique pieces when you can have 10 designs in 3 separate colorways each? How to start a fashion business? Minimise outlay.
Check this one pattern for a simple example.
Step 2: Pattern cutting and fabrics
For our dresses, we chose a high-quality Bulgarian factory for our production. They were just great as they had some pattern-cutters, who as far as I am concerned are the backbone of the entire fashion industry. The patterns produced by these in-house pattern cutters were roughly cut according to our designs, in calico. These ladies were absolute experts and, although we did not speak the same language, understood the international words of ‘darts, seam, hem’ and the like. Pins between the teeth etc.
At this time, we also took many samples and prices of fabrics for use in the garments. We took these along to the factory, together with the designer, and asked for feedback from the pattern cutters on drape and elasticity, need for lining and the like.
Step 3: Proto fitting and adjustments
So then the proto-samples were cut, and again, as we were saving our pennies, and our designer is a size S – we fit the dresses on her. Yes, there was some hilarity, but with soap and pins, we managed to adjust the protos to a more universal ‘s’, and tweak an nudge a few things that did not quite work out. I cannot underestimate the importance of this procedure. The best way is to do it all together, in a room off the factory floor, and spend a day for fittings, tweaks and adjustments. For us, it was also a great bonding session with the factory folks.
Step 4: Salesman sample production, grading and photoshoots
Salesman’s samples are the finished product, with or without labels. Ah – there’s another thing. We did get offers from many companies on logo production. We opted for a satin embroidered logo, white text on black background, that came in at about $0.2 per label. We also asked the factory to provide care and size labels, which they did, for some more cents per dress.
For grading, we used quite standard size charts – 2 cm difference in width, 1 cm in length. We produced a few salesman’s samples for our market – 1 XS, 3 S, 1 M, 1 L.
Next up – photoshoots. We found a friend of a friend who set up the whole thing – for around 30 dresses, with retouching, and 3-4 angles per dress, plus about 5 lifestyle shots for banners/header images and things, cost about 1200 euro. It took a day, we had two models, 1 hairdresser and a makeup artist.
Step 5: (Optional) Setting up a shop (online), and producing stock
This depends on your business model. For us, we were a bit odd, because with our business model, we sent photos to potential clients, took orders, then produced them. For our online shop, we used Shopify. This was pretty cool in our case because Shopify take a % of you revenue per sale, but our site was just used as great way to showcase our product so in the end we just paid the base price.
However, whether you set up shop online or offline, I really suggest getting your customers at stage 4 above. How to set up a fashion business: secure some distributors first. It’s obviously far superior to producing 1200 garments on spec with all you and your friend’s savings – if you can find some sort of buffer with an upfront order, great. If not, then try to as much of the above as possible with as little stock as possible, and of course, anybody you ask about how to start a fashion business will tell you to use ALL your contacts/social networks/friends/families/dogs to spread the word as possible.
One last way to minimise your risk, make money and also showcase your designs is on Fashion Reserve, where the designs themselves, rather than the finished product, can be sold over and over again – register here to get going.