Fashion business information, advice, guidance, and education for fashion brands
Beyond technical skills and creative vision, the foundation of building a thriving fashion brand rests upon you, especially your character traits.
As a creative entrepreneur, you'll embark on a unique journey, weaving together your artistic vision with your business savvy. It's a delicate dance, a perfect balance between the right and left brains, where your creativity meets your strategic acumen.
You finished your first production run, the goods are being shipped to you from the factory, and it's time to launch and start selling...
It's your first time doing this, you poured your heart and soul into this, and you have no idea what to expect. What if it will not be recieved well? What if it's too expensive? What if you chose the wrong materials? Fit? Sizes?
That unknown produces lots of anxiety, and your inner voice is having a field day.
If only you had a better idea of what to expect…
What is the ideal number of styles that you should offer when launching your fashion brand?
On one hand, you don’t want to invest in a big line until you get your proof of concept, but on the other hand, you want your line to look big enough so it will be taken seriously.
Is there a magic number you should be aware of?
...Like really know your customer!
Not what you think, wish or hope that they would be like, and not just the high-level details of their age, income level, and location but the specifics of their character, habits, likes and dislikes, priorities, what a day in their life looks like and more as if they were your best friend or a close family member that you know very well.
In fact, when you start a brand (or any business for that matter) the first question you should answer is WHO AM I SELLING TO?
Helping you avoid the thousands of pitfalls that can shatter your fashion business dreams.
That is my job!
And I love it!
However, as a result, in the majority of my content I usually address what mistakes to look out for, which doesn't leave much room to talk about the great things that our fashion industry has to offer.
After all, there is a reason why soooo many people want to be part of this industry.
You have probably noticed it on some garments that you bought.
It is a number, usually somewhere on the care labels, most likely with the letters RN# before it. As in the picture below.
An RN number or registered identification number is a number issued by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), upon request, to a business residing in the U.S. and engaged in the manufacture, importing, distribution, or sale of textile, wool, or fur products.
I have received some great feedback to my last post on should you or shouldn't you do a trade show as a start-up brand.
I heard from designers who had similar bad experiences to mine, others that are contemplating if they should do a show and others who decided not to do one after they ready my article.
What a great slogan.
I was never a fan of Nike (has to do with my favorite sport), but I do LOVE the message of this phrase and I do use it a lot!
Anyways, I’m not here to speak about that.
I’m here to speak about you and turning your talent and great ideas into a business where you can make money doing what you love!
Just one?
You're probably thinking that there are a million important lessons a new fashion entrepreneur must learn, and you'd be right.
However, not all lessons are made equal.
That's why we reached out to the speakers at this year's Be Creative Be Profitable seminar and asked them, "what's the single most important lesson every fashion entrepreneur needs to learn?"
Below is the conversation that ensued...
When I first heard about cash flow in relation to my fashion business I thought to myself: What does it have to do with fashion??? I went to fashion school not accounting, right? ....Just checking.
And my ego added: I have a great style, people love my designs, they'll buy them and my brand will be successful...
As I mentioned before...I made quite a lot of mistakes with my fashion brand and paid heavily for them, the above was one of them.
What is cash flow?
Cash flow is the net amount of cash moving into and out of a business.
We often get asked if a fashion design degree is necessary in order to have a successful fashion brand?
The key words in that question are necessary and successful.
If you have a fashion design degree, this means that you learned in theory how to design a full collection, got introduced to the technical and design terms and the process of making a fashion product. HOWEVER, if you do not have a fashion design degree you
Last week we looked into answering the big question of How Much Does it Cost to Start A fashion Brand, this week we’ll tackle the question of How Long Does it Take to Launch A Fashion Brand?
Similar to cost, the time question does not have only one answer and the answer depends on different aspects of your brand, such as your product, your target customer/ market, your commitment and availability (time and money), your business concept, business strategy and more.
Boaz was recently interviewed by Monica Lee for her Smart Creative Women website Where he shared his own story and experience in the fashion industry, shared lessons he learned along the way and talked about the concept behind our company Human B.
So tune in to listen here, learn a few things and get inspired!
