Creating A Successful Fashion Brand

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design team, fabrics, fashion, fashion brands, Fashion Business, fashion illustrations, fashion labels, fashion sketches, freelance fashion designer, mood board, pre-production samples, Product design, product development, proto, selling price, Size sets, Supriya Ghurye, technical designer

Image courtesy : http://www.imodae.com

Today, several professionals from domains other than fashion choose to set up an apparel or accessories business when they look for a switch in careers.

However, starting and running a fashion label is no child’s play. For one, consistency is important as a certain form of apparel attracts and retains customers with specific preferences. Then, there is the actual design process itself. Moreover, you need to make careful choices about every aspect of business such as operations, production and sales.

Given all these elements, is there a way to streamline the process of creating and running a fashion label? We say yes! This article helps you understand some of the basics.

1. What Is Your Plan?

All those adages about failing to plan stand true in the context of fashion design. Plan out every single aspect of your label, including the ‘known unknowns’, or risks. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• What is the niche I will be operating in?
• Who is my ideal target consumer?
• How can I stay consistent with design even as trends change?
• Will I launch the entire collection at one go?
• How do I reach my ideal consumer? Which platforms (online/ offline) are they currently present on?
• How is my production team and process going to work?
• How can I gauge interest for my product?
• What is my distribution plan? Which sales channels will I be selling through?

Asking questions and answering them in granular detail helps you plan your business’s finances, your own commitment and exit strategy if any, your pitch to future investors, and most importantly, your parameters for when your creative business is succeeding or failing.

2. Who Is Your Team?

No one can live as an island, and it holds true for creative services too. The business idea may be your vision, but you still need an execution team. Specifically, in the fashion domain, you have several steps to think of- design, production, marketing, sales and analytics.

This is where a team of experienced professionals can come in handy.

Today, it is more a norm than the exception to outsource design to a skilled team that understands your business considerations and your target audience very well. Such a team can help you plug gaps in your own creative process, work with you to design a saleable product and help you understand the nuances of what makes a readymade garment viable.

3. How Are You Making It Happen?

Now that you have a sound plan and an excellent team, you can shift gears up into execution. You can either choose to create and sell in small volumes or you can go big and outsource manufacturing.

In both cases, your design team can help brief the production team about the expected output, tweak the samples and smoothen out any kinks while manufacturing the products.

Every product requires a storage facility, and this is something you need to think of very carefully. Too much inventory can eat into your working capital, while too little can cause you to lose out on sales.

4. What Is Your Selling Price?

In the planning stage, you would already have considered the pricing aspect. It is always good practice to have an optimistic price point (the standard price a few days’ post launch), a moderate price point (your launch price- early bird offer) and a pessimistic price point (your product price during sales season). Ensure that all of these prices stay above your cost price.

Once the manufacturing process is complete, reconsider your price points and adjust for any incidental expenses you may have incurred.

5. Where Are You Selling?

There’s no doubt that your choice of sales channels establishes your label’s position in the market. A product sold at Harrods is expected to be higher in price and better in quality than one sold at Primark.

Sales channels also determine your operational model itself. Do you have stores of your own, or do you stock products in some other store’s aisles? Perhaps, you’d like to ignore the offline channels entirely and sell exclusively through certain marketplaces.

The choices you make determine not just how your fashion label is run, but also the means you employ to reach consumers and bring them to these channels.

Once all of these steps have been completed and your fashion label is a real, quantifiable business, do remember to review and course-correct. Understanding what your consumers want and tweaking your label to suit those needs is the best thing you can do to build a sustainable business model and a fashion label that everyone is waiting to wear.

Stay tuned as we go into detail about each of these business aspects in the coming months. Subscribe to our newsletter and we promise you’ll be the first one to know when we publish. Meanwhile, here’s something to get your brain cells working on the business aspects of fashion.

 

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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Growing Your Fashion Label Basics: Design Studio vs. Freelancers

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creative, fashion, fashion designers, fashion illustrations, fashion sketches, freelance fashion designer, Fuel4Fashion virtual design studio, global fashion designers, global platform, new fashion brands, pattern, Product design, start up fashion labels, style, trends, upcoming fashion designers, Virtual Fashion Design Studio

The Relative Merits of Using a Fashion Studio vs. Independent Fashion Designers

As an upcoming fashion label, you would want designs that are cutting-edge, attractive and can make a mark against established brands. Price is a factor and hence you need to ensure that your costs in designing and producing your collection are kept within your budget. One of the ways to do that effectively has been to outsource the designing work to freelance designers. With platforms like Elance and Freelancer, it is possible to find hundreds of freelance designers who will work with you to create your fashion collection at a fraction of the cost that an in-house full-fledged design team would require. And you will be able to interact with them directly, so getting your ideas across is simplified. You will also get more personalized attention from a freelancer.

Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/R44vWt

While you are likely to find a number of good designers on these platforms, identifying them can be a difficult task, involving contacting dozens of them and filtering the ones that you can get along with. At the same time, you have very little guarantee that the freelancer will deliver the work as per your timelines and specifications, since (s)he is usually a lone worker with no backup. Fledgling fashion labels on tight timelines can be stuck at the mercy of such freelancers.

So what is the solution? What you would ideally be looking for is a combination of the best parts of both sides. You would like the reassurance of a talented designer team that can be selected and deliver as per your design brief in a short time. At the same time, you would like to keep your costs low and have the assurance of an experienced professional handling the project. With virtual design platforms like fuel4Fashion, you can get both.

Fuel4Fashion is a virtual design studio that brings together talented design professionals from across the world, giving you a diverse talent pool from which you can choose who would work on your project. You get a chance to view their previous work, and have the assurance that a team of experienced professionals is managing the design process at an affordable cost. The additional advantage is that you get a variety of designs that you might not find in your local talent pool – African prints, bright Latin American colour combinations, and the style and cut of sophisticated European design houses become possible with this platform. You are assured of timely project completion, access to new ideas and efficient communication that ensures the outcome is as good as, if not better than what you visualized.

Image courtesy: http://www.fuel4fashion.com/about-us.html

While working with both freelancers and agencies have their respective advantages and shortcomings, using a virtual design studio like Fuel4Fashion gives you the best of both. This will ensure that your fashion label will make a strong impact and yet you keep your creative costs within control.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion, the first virtual design studio that caters to new and upcoming fashion design labels with a diverse portfolio of design services. She is a member of the Cherie Blair Foundation’s Women Entrepreneurship Program and has over a decade of fashion industry experience with international labels and start-ups.

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Changing trends in corporate uniforms

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apparels, business, clients, colors, corporate wear, fabric, fashion, freelance fashion designer, New York fashion week, pattern, Product design

Corporate uniforms are meant to create a lasting impression outside as well as inside. To brand your business with a corporate label it’s important to create an image which works for both the employees and the public. A corporate uniform instills a sense of loyalty among employees and also boosts the public perception of the quality and reliability of the brand. With that kind of influential power corporate uniforms covey the message you want and that too quietly. There has been a paradigm shift in the corporate wears of the earlier times as compared to now.  Now even the corporate wear focuses on style, since people wear them to office daily.

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Pretty Uniforms of the 1970’s

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Scarves were a thing in the 1980’s!

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Air Hostess inn 1990s

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Hats were so hit earlier!

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Earlier uniforms consisted of easy fabrics and patterns

The uniforms not only make the employee feel good but also make him feel proud of the organization that he is working with. This year’s New York Fashion Week brought with it waves of inspiration for corporate to develop their brand apparel. There are a number of new trends that have found their place in the brand apparel program for the corporate organizations.

First is the Custom Caps: Caps were always a unique feature and it’s not a surprise that caps are now getting hotter day and day. Nowadays there are more than one ways to customize these caps for service industries.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/gXUcVJ
Caps!

After caps, the next big thing is the performance clothing.  Performance wear is a functional, multi-purpose wear which has useful properties like anti-bacterial or UV protector. Some sports adventure companies are now trying to make performance clothing, a part of their uniform.

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Performance clothing

Then the next hit item on the list is Jackets which are popular mainly due to their versatility.  From winters to summers these jackets are the coolest gig on the planet.

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Cool Jackets

Nowadays the corporate dresses are also influenced by the recent fashion trends. Check out these new corporate uniforms for women.

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Sexy new hits with scarves

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Professional Dresses for men

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Uniforms are the best

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Corporate Uniforms with various gigs

How do you feel about the change of corporate uniforms from earlier times to now? Chirp in the comments section.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer, Sourcing and Manufacturing Consultant helping fashion brands to plan, design and develop new collections with small quantity garment manufacturing. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest Instagram

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London Fashion Week’14: Overview – style and trends – Part 2

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apparels, Ashish, blog, Burberry, Clemmens Ribero, David Korma, fashion blog, fashion designers, freelance fashion designer, garments, Jonathan Saunders, Julien Macdonald, LFW, London Fashion Week, Mary Katrantzou, Mulberry, oxblood, Product design, Roksanda Ilincic, Supriya Ghurye, Tom Ford, Topshop Unique, Vivienne Westwood

In the previous post we have discussed about the innovative trends on London Fashion Week 2014. As we discussed earlier, the emergence of appealing trends like oxblood gave earthy looks and designers took it very seriously.

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Roksanda Ilincic’s show for LFW’14

The make-up done is pale and unappealing, done on purpose to highlight the hues of the dresses.

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Burberry LFW’ 14

 Also some designers took their geometry class very seriously and their collection was a walk down the memory lane with monochromatic styles integrated into both prints and shape. Amongst all, the most original application of the above trend was of Christopher Kane. Also Roksanda and Jonathan Saunders’s championed this trend in a rather bold way.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/xOWu9M
Burberry LFW’ 14

Similarly many out of the box trends appeared on the ramp, these fresh pieces looked fabulous and they stirred sensation throughout the week.  Some designers lived folk lore fantasies by assembling a very highly dramatic look compiled with huge-oversized ponchos which created a hot and sizzling air on the ramp. Burberry changed course from its military inspired collection.  High earthy looks were common and the ponchos were made of scratchy blanket stuff.

Designer Mary Katrantzou shifted her focus this year from her famous digital prints and brought forward crochet-heavy embroidery which up classed the street fashion. The dresses, this week had an experimenting edge and to the surprise of many people were also very receptive.

Image Courtesy: http://goo.gl/TmWyiK
Mary Katrantzou LFW’ 14!

If you are thinking that only sober dresses dominated the ramp then you might wanna check out the high voltage collection that dripped glamour presented by who else than Tom Ford. His colors fantasized with the college jersey as well as the fenzy looking corporate day dresses.

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Tom Ford LFW”14

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Ashish LFW”14

Also Clemmens Ribeiro’s digital designs totally became the show stopper of the day. There was nothing in these power-packed fruity dresses that could be resented.

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Clemmens Ribero’s SS 14Played safe….

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Topshop Unique LFW”14

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Roksanda Ilincic LFW’14

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Julien Macdonald LFW’14

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Vivienne Westwood red label LFW’14

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Mulberry LFW”14

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David Korma LFW”14

The novel trends seen on the ramp were from different categories of fashion, some inspired by the trends of yesteryear while others renovated those things that were earlier not even considered to be of any use in fashion. Maybe that’s what it’s called invention. What do you think about the ‘innovation’ on the London Fashion Week? Also stay tuned for the next part in which I will discuss about the dresses that failed to impress the crowd.

London Fashion Week’14: Overview – style and trends – Part 1

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apparels, blog, Bora Aksu, Daks, fashion blog, fashion designers, freelance fashion designer, garments, John Rocha, LFW, London Fashion Week, Maria Grachvogel, Product design, Supriya Ghurye

The expectations were very high from the designers of London Fashion Week to create unique and epitome designs of fashion. I think it’s justifiable to say that they have lived up to the expectations and have mesmerized people. There were some marvel moments when designers like Maria Grachvogel created sparks with the lovely idea of dropping ink and letting it flow freely on the dresses. Remarkable entities were like the vintage handicrafts and prints and floral prints coming back to spot light alike the floral embroideries.  Apart from that the luxurious textures and men’s- wear-turned-upside-down-for-female has also taken its place in the ramp.  This year there was lot experimentation on the designer’s part and lots of Satin and slouch was used to walk past the ‘safe’ zone. Classic wow moments were when Christopher Kane, a Scottish designer used lead-free crystal to trim his sustainable dress for the World Global Firm.

Paul Smith LFW’14
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House of Holland LFW’14

Day one started with the collection of Paul Costelloe which reflected theme of Paris in the 70s. Vibrant and multi-colored, these dresses tweaked in fresh mustard and fuscia tartans and also in flashy floral prints.

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 Paul Costelloe’s dolls!  LFW’14

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Preen Spring LFW’14

Emilia Wickstead LFW”SS 14 Collection
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However in this pretty crowd of colors and dresses nobody made more dramatic entry than Vivienne Westwood Red Label’s Collection. It was not just the dresses that stole our eyes but also the tacky make-up.

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Vivienne Westwood Red Label SS14

The next hour dished straight into Maria Grachvogel’s collection at The Savoy. The theme looked like Grimm’s fairytale which featured her signature draping and prints mixed together to form a very dramatic effect. The dresses fit harmoniously in the right curves in the women’s body.

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Maria Grachvogel LFW’ 14- Gothelic hair bun

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Maria Grachvogel LFW’14-Celebrating Colors!

This blue flared jumpsuit was among the ones that stirred strong response from the audiences, mainly due to the sleek cut and monochromatic use of colors of the hair and cherry red lipstick.  With a sedated palette and basic embellishments, most of the collection worked on silhouette as a print and the color palate was muted.

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Title: Bold animal prints-Burberry LFW’ 14

Bora Aksu LFW’14
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Mirror work-East inspired- Bulberry LFW” 14

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Mulberry LFW’14

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Matthew Williamson-All grown-up LFW’14

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Peter Pilloto LFW”14

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Bora Aksu LFW”14

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Daks Spring Summer LFW”14

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John Rocha’s beautiful summer romance LFW’14

Spark of innovation could be seen on the ramp with beautiful mismatching layers to the point that it became a key trend of the London Fashion Week 2014.  Brands like Burberry, Temperley, and Peter Pilotto used altered versions of the prints and made this print everyone’s favorite.

Among all these intense looks there were also some LOL moments when One Directioners pushed through the crowd to get a glimpse of Harry Styles and his amazing hair.

To read more about the trends on LFW keep tuned to read the next post. In the meantime tell me the best element that you like?

Indian fashion industry – Part 1

Tags

apparels, fashion blog, fashion designers, fashion industry, freelance fashion designer, India, pattern, Product design, product development, Ritu Kumar, surface embroideries, tech pack

India has always been the paradise for fabrics and woven cloths. Even the primitive Indus valley civilization in the 5^th millennium knew how to spun, woven fabrics. But with the awakening of fashion sense, the industry began as an exclusives enterprise of independent designers. In this era there have been modifications to the printing techniques and designers started including traditional prints like block printing and tie dye in a very traditional ways which suited only the local audiences then.

Traditional tie and die painting
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India’s fashion industry hits it’s all time high in 2012 with designers like Suneet Verma, Tarun Tahiliani, and Ritu Kumar becoming the interest center of the world. The National Institute of Fashion Technology celebrated its silver jubilee in 2011 and celebrated a time when it has produced its first batch of designers.

Indian Ethnic Block Print Skirt. Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/gDShqV

Batic print Hippie dress in pure cotton. Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/TjXSAe

Ritu Kumar design 1990
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Designers after a while started using mixed concepts to give a retro appeal to their garments. Indian fashion world that we see today have expanded to new horizons with fashion designers using different types of embroideries in a fusion way. The way the traditional prints were incorporated with the modern designs, people became more and more interested in them than ever. While most of the traditional embroidery and prints have not been much favorite of the designers earlier, the Zardozi’s kept the mills running. Beautiful zari work on garments entered mainstream fashion industry but earlier they were considered to be rich and unaffordable. Also traditional dresses became a hit and the embroidery became the U.S.P of the industry.

Indian fashion Industry blooming
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Traditional Bead work. Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/GpGyLQ

Mirror work. Image courtesy : http://goo.gl/FGGzC3

Mirror Work. Image courtesy :http://goo.gl/xYH8N4

Apart from Zardozi, India is also among the top exporter of fashion and its concepts. Big UK fashion houses and Federated Stores have been known to shop from Indian markets. Since India offers cost-effective manufacturing as well as low-cost labor, international fashion houses love to manufacture their fashion products here. A lot of laces, zippers, buttons that are seen sewed on the ‘branded’ garments are actually sourced from India.

Traditional Zardosi work. Image courtesy : goo.gl/IvZhhe

Long Coat with Kashmiri hand embroidery. Image courtesy: goo.gl/hnYpDr

India has always been a warehouse of beautiful prints and skilled workforce. Designers in the 21^st century are utilizing these resources in a more intelligent way to suit their global audiences.

Malini Ramani at Wills India Fashion week. Image Courtesy : http://www.maliniramani.com

To know more about the inclusion of east and west stay tuned for the next post on Indian fashion Industry which is to be followed soon. If you have any questions then sound off in the comments section.

The Product development process

Tags

apparels, buyers, client, cost negotiation, fabric, fashion illustrations, fit sample, freelance fashion designer, garment sourcing, garments, pattern, pre-production samples, Product design, product development, proto, Size sets, Supriya Ghurye, tech pack, vendor

In the previous post while we took you inside the design room and tranquil of thoughts from forecast to mood setting to conceptualization of a range. Now we take a trip to the product development department and sampling room of vendors where the range is given final shape before it moves into bulk production.

Product Development: Once the products are selected for the range, pattern generation and product development is eked out in several stages.

Sample garment development process:
Image courtesy : http://www.future-fashion-design.eu/portals/0/Images/ffd_concept.png

First in line is proto sampling in which proto types are developed and required modifications are incorporated in terms of styling, fabric, trims. Sample garments are developed by apparel manufacturing vendors in sync with development sheets or preliminary tech packs offered by the buyers. Buying here refers to the team which is getting the range developed and co-coordinating with the vendors for its brand for forthcoming season. Henceforth the vendor who manages to develop samples at the most optimum cost and stipulated time frame, thereby meeting all the prerequisites of technical specifications and aesthetics is given the final order.

Style sheet :
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Post a rigorous process of cost negotiations and order placements, final tech packs are designed with crisp information on fabric construction, its properties(GSM, CPI/WPI), fabric body color, trim details with their positioning, measurement specifications, size chart, illustrations with a clear demarcation of each part and point of measurement. This tech pack is developed by product development team in close collaboration with design team. This is handed over to buying team that posts it to the selected vendor.

Sample teck pack :
Image courtesy : http://www.mypracticalskills.com/tech-packs/tab-1-missy-jr/TechPack-Missy-Jr-2.jpg

The vendor refers to tech pack and develops fit sample taking a stringent note of the measurements. It is sent across to the product development team who cross-checks all the technical specifications and provide required comments in case of discrepancies. Also the measurements are re-evaluated and modified if required and sent across to the vendor for redevelopment. This process continues till a perfect sample meeting all the prerequisites is given a full form. Final patterns used for fit samples are replicated in soft copy and hard copy.

Garment fit session on a live model.
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This maps out a route for bulk production with a prior submission of pre –production samples for validating the bulk fabric, trims being employed.

While sampling activities proceed on order confirmation on one hand, there are series of activities that go simultaneously to enable smooth bulk production. Revisit our blog post to know all that goes on till the final garment is crafted and made available at your nearest retail outlet.

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion, the freelance fashion design studio for apparels that caters to new and upcoming fashion design labels with a diverse portfolio of design services. She is a member of the Cherie Blair Foundation’s Women Entrepreneurship Program and has over a decade of fashion industry experience with international labels and start-ups.

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The Fashion Design Process

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#fashionstartup, apparel manufacturing vendors, blog, brandconsultant, fabric, fashion, fashion designers, fashion illustrations, fashionbiz, fashionbrand, Fashionbusiness, fashionconsultant, fit sample, freelance fashion designer, mood board, pattern, pre-production samples, Product design, product development, proto, Size sets, Supriya Ghurye, tech pack, technical specifications

“To me, fashion is like a mirror. It’s a reflection of the times. And if it doesn’t reflect the times, it’s not fashion. Because people aren’t gonna be wearing it.”  – Anna Sui

Sometimes, it feels like quite the uphill task to design based on themes, preferences and moods, and do the whole thing over and over again every few months. For any process to succeed, the key determinant is empathy.

Consumers look at fashion as wearable art. For most people, a style is a form of expression. Even those who claim not to pay much attention to clothing are still making a statement- with the clothes that they do wear.

The Design Process

Let’s look at the fashion design process from scratch. Integral to success of the process is also how an understanding of your audience can set you up for superior results.

Step by Step explanation of Fuel4Fashion’s Fashion Design Process we religiously follow to ensure quality deliverance to our clients.

1. The Brief: Failing to plan is planning to fail, they say, and so it goes for the brief. The fashion brief includes everything from identifying the target customer, understanding their needs, the season of launch, the price points and size ranges.

2. Trend Forecasting: This is the part where you give consumers what they didn’t know they wanted! This is how new trends are born, and sustained. Understand data from prominent fashion houses and forecast reports from all around the world. Adapt to suit your needs.

3. The Basis: Once you have a list of trends for the upcoming season, you need to drill down to the trends that you do want to focus on. For example, it may not make sense for a bohemian brand to suddenly morph into vibrant athleisure. However, this doesn’t mean that they should entirely stay away from active wear either. Trends need to be adapted to suit your business’s promise.

4. Collection Planning: This is the step where you decide the number of silhouettes and the number of designs you want to showcase per silhouette. As a business, this is the step where budgets come into the picture. Too wide a collection can increase sales but eat into your budgets, while too few options can put people off.

5. Mood Boards: Your designs are almost ready to come to life. This is the phase where sketches become fabric interpretations. Observe the play of light on each garment.

Moodboard created by Fuel4Fashion, inspired from Disruptive theme for SS’19 Activewear category.

6. Inspiration Board: Now, you have all the material you need to be inspired from! The Inspiration Board serves as a style guide of sorts to help everyone on the team refer to when in doubt, and draw from at other times.

7. Garment Flats, and Customization: The book of illustrations with every piece in your collection will serve as a reference point for manufacturers and team members alike. Make it comprehensive. If your products have print and embroidered details on them, now is the time to get started.

Fuel4fashion’s creative design process from idea to sketch explaining the fashion design process.

8. The Tech Pack: This is the blueprint for every piece of clothing that you will design in the collection. It has details ranging from the style description, trims and fabric details, size range to the placement of prints.

9. Feasibility: Once the samples are ready, evaluate the pros and cons of taking this collection into production. Don’t be afraid to drop the pieces that aren’t up to your standards.

Fuel4fashion’s Range Plan for SS’19 Activewear segment for the fashion design process.

The Human Element

Oftentimes, in sales, it is easy to forget that all products are being created for a very specific consumer with very specific tastes. As a business person, you must understand your end consumer very well. Use personas, mock interviews and even real interviews to understand what they do expect, and also that which they want but don’t know of yet.

After all, some of the most stunning trends in fashion have come from a house that knew what its consumers weren’t saying- think miniskirts, punk rock and even power suits!

What new trend are you gearing up to start? Are you following due process?

Don’t forget to sign-up for our newsletter that brings all that’s fashion design and more, right to you!

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Supriya Ghurye is the founder and owner of Fuel4Fashion. She is a Freelance Fashion Designer and Brand Consultant helping fashion brands to create great products from idea to launch. Fuel4Fashion social links: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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