Starting a clothing line can be an exciting venture for fashion enthusiasts and entrepreneurs alike, but if you don’t know where to start, diving into the mixed world of fashion and entrepreneurship can be overwhelming.
Whether you dream of creating your own fashion empire or simply want to express your creativity through clothing, establishing a successful clothing line requires careful planning, determination, and a solid understanding of the industry. My inbox gets these questions every week, from hopeful creatives who want to know, what’s the best way to start a clothing line, how to begin, the cost involved, the value of fashion school, and the affordability of starting a clothing brand from home.
To start on your clothing line journey, it's crucial to start with a well-defined vision and concept of the outcome. I could easily divide our designers into two groups:
1. They know their niche, they’ve researched their market, and they can clearly identify their target audience (they know exactly what their audience wants to buy).
2. They know what they themselves like, and want to create things they would wear.
Begin by researching the market and identifying your target audience. Consider the niche you want to cater to, whether it's sustainable fashion, streetwear, or luxury garments. What’s their average budget? How much do they normally spend on clothing? Where do they buy? This research will help you tailor your designs and marketing efforts to resonate with your ideal customers. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Once you have a clear direction, it's time to bring your designs out of your head and onto paper. The process usually starts with sketching your ideas and creating technical drawings, and then, you can select fabrics and materials that work with what you’ve sketched.
Which brings me to my next point - unless [you know how to sew], choosing the right fabrics for your fashion line is going to require consulting with a pro. My stomach drops for the amount of people who are just starting, after seeing just how much money they’ve thrown out the window in buying 5-10 yards of fabric that would never in a million years work to be used for what they’ve sketched.
If you’ve never made anything with your own hands, ask someone who is versed in doing so before investing money in fabric for your idea. Collaborating with experienced pattern-makers and sample manufacturers can help you bring your designs to reality, ensuring they are of high quality and fit well.
Now, let's address the cost of starting a fashion line. The expenses can vary significantly depending on various factors, including the scale of your operation, your design complexity, and the quantity of pieces you wish to produce. Costs may include fabric sourcing, pattern-making, sample production, manufacturing, branding, marketing, and website development. Starting a small-scale clothing line from home can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, the fewer units you order to be made, the more money you’ll pay per unit - and that’s not even factoring the upfront costs of patterning, sourcing, development, and grading. It's important to create a detailed budget to understand the financial commitment required, before you’re neck deep in sample garments.
When considering the value of fashion school, it's important to weigh the pros and cons. Fashion school can provide a valuable in-depth education and knowledge about design, textiles, garment construction, and industry practices. It can also offer networking opportunities and exposure to experienced professionals. It can also remove you from the fashion industry for a minimum of 2 years while your competitors sprint to the same solution faster by entering a fashion incubator or hiring a consultant to walk them through the process and teach them only what they need to know. As an incubator, I’ve seen it all - the fashion school grads starting their clothing lines, and the aspiring designers who have no idea how they’re gonna get there, but it’s their passion and they want to get to the finish line, regardless of what they don’t know.
Attending fashion school is not the only path to success in the industry - I would argue that fashion school curriculums are often fragmented, hyper specialized in micro niches within the industry, and not up-to-date with what’s actually happening in the fashion & textile industry. Many successful fashion designers have achieved recognition through self-teaching, internships, mentorships, and real-world experience. Ultimately, the decision to pursue fashion school should align with your personal goals, learning style, and financial situation.
Nowadays, starting a clothing brand from home has become more accessible and affordable, thanks to advancements in technology and the rise of e-commerce. With platforms like Shopify and social media channels, you can set up an online store, market your products, and reach a global audience from the comfort of your home. By eliminating the need for a physical storefront and traditional distribution channels, you can significantly reduce overhead costs. I would argue, however, there is no such thing as a successful clothing line that hasn’t invested in quality photography, branding, and marketing to establish a strong online presence and attract customers that will become brand-loyal.
Starting a clothing line requires careful planning, a clear vision, and a solid understanding of the industry. It's essential to conduct thorough research, define your target audience, and bring your designs to life through collaboration with professionals. The cost of starting a fashion line can vary depending on various factors, and it's crucial to get concrete quotes from your collaborators upfront (as best as possible) so that you can create a detailed budget for the development phase. From there, you’ll be able to move forward and find out what having your ideas will cost to manufacture.
The most exciting part? Starting a clothing brand from home has become more affordable and accessible in recent years, thanks to technology and ecommerce platforms. By leveraging these resources I’ve compiled for you, you can establish your brand and reach a global audience.
You've got four main steps to design your own clothing...
To plan your line, the first step is getting your ideas out on paper before ever getting in touch with a seamstress - unless you can sew it yourself and you just feel the need to make it! For some, this is the best way to truly flesh out their idea, because they can't conceptualize without actually having hands on the fabric.
For others, you may have a clear outline, but you'll need to take it a step further to color in the picture. If you want pockets, what kind? If you want a rouleau loop closure, how many and where? Made from what? Where are the seams? Almost every single designer we've ever consulted with or walked through this process has left off critical details, that, if not clarified before, would've resulted in the cartoon version of their idea because the fashion sketch lacked so much detail.
The most important thing to learn in this step is what everything is called - because it's not like you need to know how to make a welted pocket in a pair of trousers, but you do need to clearly label on your sketch what you want, so that you're not leaving these decisions to your seamstress to 'design' it for you.
A sketch isn't enough. You can't stop there, unless you want to be taken so advantage of and still end up not receiving the design that you want! All pattern makers and seamstresses in commercial operations expect you to show up with a tech pack, telling them exactly what size the sample is, how it should fit, what the technical design details and seam allowances are, how to cut and sew the garment, and which fabrics get used for what.
It's okay if you don't know how to make one (I could teach you), and it's okay if you want to hire someone to do it - as long as you understand the gist of what they are enough to know whether or not yours is good enough. You'll also end up referring back to it often, and knowing how to read it is critical in spotting pain points later, as well as reordering supplies based on what the tech pack says.
Even if you can draft a pattern yourself, it's important to go into this knowing that a commercial pattern looks a little different from a Simplicity pattern you'd buy at Joanns. Not only is it printed on heavy paper, it's also marked and notched for matchup points, as well as grading points. In manufacturing, it's rare to stop and mark a piece of fabric - instead, they notch it to know where something needs to be added, or where it should be joined to another piece. Commercial patterns are far more expensive than home sewing patterns (from $150-$500 on average, depending on complexity), and this doesn't even include grading costs.
Grading is the process of taking a pattern in one size and converting it to all the other sizes you plan to have manufactured. Grading across multiple size ranges is charged by the style and can be as much as $500 depending on complexity. These are all things to factor in when you're planning to launch your own clothing line, as all these phantom costs add up! The good news is, sort of like building a house, everything comes in stages. You won't have the pattern graded until your sample is perfect.
Once your pattern maker provides you with a pattern, it's time to find a seamstress who can make your initial sample. The first sample is always the worst, as it tends to bring to light all the areas you never clarified in your design, from finishings, buttonhole sizes, hem types, and construction mess-ups, to the very fabric you chose for your design. Expect your first fitting to go awkward, expect nothing to lay perfectly, and expect to pay for changes. Ideally you'll go through a couple of rounds of sampling to get the garment perfect, and from there, you'll be ready to grade your design's pattern.
You'll have your seamstress do a round of pattern cleanups on the patterns, since they made changes to the fit. They'll trace and create a fresh draft for the pattern maker, since using the patterns usually makes them messy (tiny cuts, rogue lines, etc.), as well as mark all the grading points (hip, waist, shoulder, knee, and so on..).
Let your pattern maker know what size your initial pattern is, and what sizes you'll need. If you're particular about the fit for certain sizes, it's your job to provide the call-outs to the pattern maker as to what the measurements should be for the designs.
They'll ask you what type of file you want the digital copy of all the patterns to be in (I'd suggest a DXF or Gerber file) and if you'd like a printout of every size pattern (say yes). Pay your bill, say thank you with a smile.
You're now ready to manufacture.
Shopping for a manufacturer is a bit like dating, don't send a huge order all at once and don't climb in for the long haul until you've sussed out their process and operation. You'll want your manufacturer to run a sample of each style in each color to ensure the outcome is as expected.
If all of this feels foreign language-y to you, I promise you can do it. The wisest, most peaceful and economic way, is by hopping into my self-paced course Project Fashion Forward.