Kelly Robertson
If you’re a clothing designer, you may want to know what’s the best way to get started. It’s not an easy task, but if you work hard enough – you can get there. Here we present you with some advice taken from the “How To Become A Professional Fashion Designer E-book.”
The process of launching your own (successful) fashion label, includes the following 7 steps…
1. Identify a niche
You can’t compete with the likes of Zara, so try finding a niche where there’s money to be made from. The keyword here is quality, rather than quantity. Moreover, you should identify your ideal customer – answering the following questions can take you a long way:
- How old is your ideal customer?
- What is the thing that your ideal customer “likes” and “dislikes” about their body?
- How much money is this target market willing to spend on an item of clothing?
- What purpose does this target market mainly buy clothes for? Is it for work or to impress the opposite sex?
- What size and shape is your ideal customer?
- What stores does your target market shop at already?
- What fashion blogs and websites does your target market visit regularly?
- Is your ideal customer a risk taker or a more subdued purchaser?
2. Find a bulk clothing manufacturer
First you need to understand the pricing structure of the fashion industry. If you’re going to sell to a retail store, you have to establish a “wholesale” price and “retail” price for each garment. The former is the amount that the store Owner or fashion buyer pays for your garment, while the latter shows how much the store sells the garment to the customer.
The normal “markup” from wholesale price to retail price is 100%. So if your wholesale price is $75, the retail price will be $150. Now you still need to make money while selling a pair of jeans for $75 and that’s where a bulk clothing manufacturer comes in. These sort of companies specialize in the processes of making lots of garments at the same time, so they can offer a better price per piece. You’ll still need to meet their minimum order quantity or MOQ.
3. Prepare a professional “Range Catalogue”
Your job is to put together a professional “Range Catalogue” and while it sounds easy – it’s not. You’ll have to demonstrate the potential buyer that you’re a professional and in that sense your Range Catalogue must contain the following:
- Contact details
- Design inspiration with theming boards
- Illustrations of each of the designs in your range
- Professional photos of each of the garments in your range
- The wholesale and retail price of each garment
- The Delivery Date of each garment – when the garment can be delivered into the store
- The different colors and sizes that the garment comes in
- The description of the fabric and design details of each garment or accessory
- The size of the pack – usually its 10 garments per style, like one size 6, two size 8’s, three size 10’s, two size 12’s, one size 14 and one size 16. This is called the “Pack Ratio.”
- An order form
Only when you have the Range Catalogue ready, go visit a fashion buyer.
4. Get pre-orders before proceeding with bulk production
To minimize risk, start collecting orders for your range 3-4 months in advance as that’s usually the time frame fashion buyers normally buy. In turn, you’ll get a solid indication of what “works” and what doesn’t. Fashion buyers tend to have a great feeling what will sell and what won’t – use their experience to your advantage.
After presenting your range catalogue and samples to fashion buyers, you’ll start gauge their interest. If you are close to the MOQ, then proceed with the bulk order. If not – try contacting other fashion buyers and always ask for the input: why they don’t like your work and how could you improve it.
5. Prepare promo materials for stores
This is basically doing part of the work stores should be doing. And by preparing promo materials you’ll not only show how professional you are, but also help them along the way. Give them everything they could use in a digital format so they could additional tweak flyers and catalogs if needed.
Remember that photographs always help a garment sell, as the customer can easily see what the design looks like on, even though it may not look good on the hanger.
6: Send samples to fashion editors, stylists and magazines
This is a great way to build your brand exposure and consequently boost sales. Not only will you be sending out press releases about your new collection, but also samples of your designs (together with chocolates) to strategic fashion editors of the best fashion magazines. Moreover, make sure to include some photos in the package, stored on an easy-to-use USB drive.
The main idea is to make it seamless for the editor to pick up your label to write about, as you have done all the hard work for them.
7. Launch an online store
Professional looking website is a must, but you should also include an online store to allow customers to buy garments directly from you. By kicking out the middle man, you’ll be earning more, hence investing in a good online presence (with the store) is money well spent. No need to (always) split the revenue with the physical store when you can have it all (minus production costs). There are many online services that make building e-commerce sites easy. Try them out and see which one works for you…
And we just scratched the surface. There’s so much more to talk about here and if you want to succeed you’ll need all the knowledge you can get. We advise you to check out the “How To Become A Professional Fashion Designer E-book.” It’s pretty compelling as far as we can tell — though we’re not in that business. 😉
