How to create a fashion brand or open an atelier

There are several weeks left until spring, the whole spring is ahead, but it will fly by quickly. Very soon, many girls will graduate from school and other educational institutions, which means that it is imperative to find a job or organize your own business.

mystylex.techinfus.com/en/ publishes material every spring useful for job seekers in the world of fashion. This year, employment and starting your own business are especially relevant, because the crisis has come in earnest and for a long time. Therefore, one must work with great diligence in order to achieve worthy results. In this situation, we are exploring all the possibilities and sorting out all the available information.

Today mystylex.techinfus.com/en/ wants to share site content FashionUnited... This site covers the fashion industry very seriously, there you will not find gossip and gossip, everything is purely business.

How to start a design activity inexpensively and continue successfully?

First of all, define a goal. Creating a brand is one thing, creating your own atelier is another. Without the correct positioning of your activities, it is easy to make a mistake with the choice of product, promotion methods and places of sale.

After you have made a choice in favor of a brand or an atelier and have chosen a product, proceed to building the "research-sample-creation-presentation-promotion-sale" scheme. Production closes this scheme, because in the proposed approach it is necessary to sew only items already sold.

Start for atelier

Investments in starting a business in the format of an atelier are almost zero, but in this case it is necessary to surrender to the craft completely. You can start without a room, with only one typewriter and an overlock ($ 500 for both units), serve customers in a convenient place for them, gradually hiring home help assistants.

Be guided that in 3 months you will save up the necessary amount for renting a small studio and the opportunity to purchase equipment for a permanent staff of 2 or 3 people. Specializing in a narrow and expensive assortment - wedding dresses, outerwear, dance and stage costumes - significantly increases efficiency. Participation in shows, fashion weeks, markets is not a marketing tool for promoting atelier services.

Real Case: Elena, studio of Elena Tkachenko (Israel, Bathsheba)

A small atelier in the city center. Investment in fixed assets - about USD 2000 (equipment and repairs). 3 workplaces, presentation area, fitting room. The main customers are brides and designers of wedding and evening dresses.

Fashion designers from Israel and young designers from Paris place orders for wedding and evening dresses here. The way of promotion is word of mouth. It works in Israel. High taxes and rental rates are a bad helper, but a business has a steady income.

Start for the brand

Conduct research and start forming the information field. Find out what the consumer is missing, what is important to him, what his future is, and start talking about your brainchild everywhere.

Talk about what is happening at the moment, how you think about your business, what inspires you, why you are doing this, create information noise. This is the only time when romance and phrases about fine mental organization and what inspired you are allowed. But remember, the main thing is to be sincere. Sincerity is the main driving force for recognition today.

Invest your mind in promotion, not money. The main costs that are needed are the costs of a smartphone and travel to find the right people. If you do not own sketch programs on devices, you will also need a pencil and paper.

Take care of finding suppliers, contractors of all stripes and like-minded people, and the latter will not necessarily be from the fashion industry. Also find influential journalists, talented stylists and popular personalities.

Create a network of heralds around you. This is the end of emotions - start talking about how your product is useful, what its consumers will learn for themselves, what functions it carries, what needs of tomorrow it decides, what innovative technologies you are going to apply. Illustrate the story with examples from the news feed, sketches, and numbers.

Create news feeds. Follow the competitions of educational institutions, glossy magazines, fashion portals and other media. Costs are zero, and the fact of participation is a news feed.

Do not hesitate to appear on social networks, let your Instagram look like a fashionable gloss, add as friends to editors and journalists, to stylists and photographers, to models and fashion gurus. Is there a celebrity in your circle from any sphere? Invite him to act as a model. His fame is the backbone of your success.

The costs of the next stage are the creation of a starter product, a single model for participation in the competition or a small capsule (3-5 images are usually enough). These costs are not high - materials for one model will cost about $ 50, and you will give the same to a tailor for one look.

Your own sewing skills are a poor helper, because the task is not to get bogged down in the routine of the craft, but to create a brand. And it is better not to sew anything at all, but to resort to innovative technologies, calling on the labs of universities, advanced techies and geeks to help.

Continue to talk about what is happening tirelessly. Do not hesitate, suggest your outfit to try on a celebrity or iconic person. If it succeeds, photographers and journalists will find you themselves, if not, social networks will help you.

The next step is to create the first capsule. This is a sample of your product, this is your business card, this must be taken seriously. Create a mood board based on trend factors, make a collage of fabrics and ideas, think over technology.

You already have a database of material suppliers and manufacturing contractors, use them to create a capsule of 7-9 items - this is a good start. Costs - $ 60-100 per unit. The price for the consumer is from 180 to 500 dollars per item.

With 500 subscribers on Instagram (of course, we are talking only about organic reach and only about the target audience that you collected at the very start, bribed with sincerity and warmed up with news feeds), the first sales are feasible in 3-5 days.

One condition - 3 posts a day, no less! On VK, FB and Instagram. And no "12000 rubles, available." I don't reply to direct. " Write a sincere and kind post. Don't pretend to be Karl Lagerfeld. Snobbery is not at hand.

At the initial stage, the network is your gloss, Instagram is your catwalk, and the account is your buyer. Continue creating news feeds. Any little thing can serve as an information lead - from a sketch to buying a fabric, from going to the designer to an almost finished sample under the tailor's typewriter.

Real Case: The BODY Wear brand (Ukraine Kiev)

This is an example of starting a classic "instbrand". There are not many subscribers yet, photo sessions are held once a week, the cost of finished material, which is enough for a weekly series of posts, is up to 50 USD.

The designer controls the account, sales, production of samples. The brand has existed for 4.5 months. There are no investments in fixed assets. 1500 USD was spent on current expenses at the start. Reached the planned sales figures by the 3rd month of work. Turnover investments and operating expenses pay off from the day of the start. Profit from the second month.

Do not sell samples, they are for fitting and demonstration to potential buyers. Having received a response from the audience, feel free to say that you will deliver the item in 3 days. If you have a reputation and some fame, you can take an advance payment. It is enough to produce the desired thing.

The time has come for reinvestment: use the proceeds to buy fabric, come up with several capsules, use different themes for inspiration, create images of new products, attract stylists, produce filming, send letters with photos to the media.

With such an investment of money and effort, it is possible to sell things in the amount of $ 3,000 to $ 5,000 per month. Do not believe me - check out Instagram # thebody.wear and ya_mariya of The BODY Wear brand of Maria Yaslinskaya. You will see an illustration of my words.

By the end of the quarter, you can start thinking about a small collection. Usually fashion weeks have platforms for beginners - fashion-scout, fresh-fashion and something else like that. A show is not required, a presentation or a stand will be enough.

When choosing a partner, pay attention to what kind of promotion and support the event organizer provides to the brands represented on its site. It's no secret - there are many fashion events, the participants of which are known only to a narrow circle. Not all fashion weeks and exhibitions meet the marketing requirements. Remember this.

Real Case: Anna Oktober brand (Ukraine, Kiev)

Speaking about this brand, I would like to note the relevance of all decisions at different stages of development, just write a textbook at least. From the first small collection shown at the small site of the big fashion week - a direct hit in the important gloss.

Successful change of partner and consistency of shows on the same site of the Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days. Timely business orientation of social media accounts, creation and launch of a website and an online store, partnership with the More Dash showroom in Paris - all these stages were gradually and competently written by the brand into its history.

Remember that increasing circulation will require firm agreements with fabric suppliers and manufacturing contractors. And keep balance, because sometimes excessive interest in a new brand destroys it.

By the second season, you will begin to build up your power and strength, both in collections and on the Internet. Often at this stage, so-called "angel investors" come - friends or family members who believe in you. You can also think about a studio, where you can not only create, but also keep an exposure of samples.

For the production stage, there is an outsourcing scheme well known not only to foreign but also to local factories: "sample-counter-sample-circulation". The cost of manufacturing a unit ranges from $ 5 to $ 35 and depends on the model, region and circulation.

It is necessary to increase sales and attract new marketing tools. It's time to start thinking about sales platforms. Create a database, learn about local and global market operators, pay attention to young stores and online platforms.

List your stores. Select them by style, price category. Many buyers may like it, but not every store will fit your product. Start a chat, shoot and send lookbooks, send them to buyers and magazines.

Get ready for shows, create a website (just a presentation and a lookbook are not always enough to convince buyers). After the third season, you can plan trips to exhibitions and collaborations with showrooms.

It is your will to scale the business, because at this stage, the network option will also bring tangible income. The time has come for chain brands whose product will never see the runway and store hangers. New time for girls and boys living on the net.

For such a start, an amount of $ 1000 and your increased physical and network communication skills are quite enough. By the way, constantly look for sources of inspiration and places of power, it takes a lot of energy.

Advice:

The easiest way to start is from the summer season, its collections are less expensive to manufacture, inexpensive and bulky.

Listen to more experienced colleagues, read interviews with them, analyze their public speeches, browse websites. Often they inadvertently give out important secrets, and sites contain pages with the names of sales sites.

Constantly study, read, develop. Fashion is a very fast and mobile information and commercial environment, a huge industrial industry.All changes must be responded to instantly. Don't be limited to a budget issue. $ 200 can be turned into $ 20,000 in a very short time. Don't be greedy. Be sincere.

So what is next? And then you need to master the rules of successful sales to buyers and your own retail customers. Deal with wholesale and retail margins. Find out what materials are needed for sales, and what preparation for sales should be. Study the sites for wholesale sales and orders, their types, benefits and advantages. Get to know how the sales process takes place in a showroom or at an exhibition.

But that's another story and a topic not for an article, but for a whole seminar.