Fashion business information, advice, guidance, and education for fashion brands
When did being busy become the new measure of success?
How many times you heard someone says 'I'm so busy,' yet you couldn't stop but thinking, what are they so busy with???
Feeling busy makes someone feel successful and accomplished while giving others the impression that that person is indeed successful....more so, they might even envy them.
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.
Deciding whether to produce your fashion product offshore or domestically goes beyond the reasons of cost and number of units you will need to produce.
As a matter of fact it's a decision that will impact how your business is set up and operates to best fit that scenario, re; what kind of people/services you should hire and even the details of your designs.
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...
This last week I had a meeting with 2 investors who recently bought a licensing to build a fashion line for a public figure (name is confidential) and they wanted to learn more about the industry and how can we help them.
After I gave them a quick rundown of the process one of them asked: So how much of it is luck?
Did I hear right? I asked myself.
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
As a start-up fashion brand, costing your product for the first time is one of the most challenging parts of your fashion business.
When you source a factory you will have their costs for making both a small run of your product (i.e. 50 units) and a bigger run (i.e. 200+ units). For many designers, the first season is experimental and you might not know exactly how many orders you will get. So the big question is: Should you price your product based on the cost of a small run or the cost of a big run?
Today's post is an answer for a designer's question about payment terms.
Janette Hanna asked Boaz:
Hello Boaz, I wanted to learn about a document/contract? for terms when taking orders from boutiques. I would like to show them a document with clear terms, ie pay 50% on order, 50% upon delivery. Are 50/50 terms used? J. Hamill says to charge the their credit card for remainder the day you send the order. Not when they receive the order. Needing clarification.
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.
One of the most common mistakes we see with young designers is grading a pattern too early in the development process.
At what stage of the process should you grade your apparel pattern?
First, let’s explain what grading is:
Grading is the stage of sizing an apparel pattern up or down to create the patterns for the other sizes of that garment.
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!
When starting a fashion brand, thoroughly understanding your product, knowing who you’re selling to, and defining your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) are vital for the success of the brand. It sounds pretty obvious, right? Apparently not all businesses follow that.
Niche business - a business targeting to a specific group of customers with a specific common shared interest, passion, or desire.
Many new fashion brands don’t take the time to define their niche and end up spending their money and affords on the wrong targets. Starting a brand of dresses with interesting designs or with the
A guest post by Maria Pesin from Vibe Consulting
I know, I know, selling is scary. Will the customer like your product? Will you seem too pushy? Will you not push enough? What if they reject you? How do you even start? These are many of the questions my clients ask me. The truth is selling is not as hard as you think. Just like anything you do there is a process. Following the process will help take the fear out of selling. The more you do it the easier it becomes and the better you get at it. As entrepreneurs we need to get over our fear because without sales there is no business. Even if you hire great salespeople, business owners who involve themselves in sales have better results. Buyers love when the owner cares enough about their business to interact with them. Here are my 5 tips to selling your brand to store:
