Best way to Start a Clothing Brand

Low Cost, Easy Steps to Start a Clothing Brand from Home- With Little to No Money

Hey!  I’ve been a designer in the fashion industry for more than 15 years, and I’ve worked for some large fashion brands making millions per year, and I’ve also been on the other foot- of starting your own fashion label- with absolutely nothing to my name.

I’ve done the hard yards of trying to get started without a rich parent or sugar daddy funding me (jokes aside), and I’ve learnt many ways to be resourceful and get the most ‘bang for your buck’.

My Top 10 Easy steps on Best Way to Start a Clothing Brand…. (Successfully, with little to no money….)

10 Easy Steps- Best Way to Start a Clothing Brand….Successfully

Lets Go Into  More Detail Below:

Step 1- Identify a Profitable Niche or Target Market and Create a Range Plan

Before you even put pen to paper ad start designing for your clothing brand, it’s important to know who you will be selling clothes to, how much that group of people are willing to spend, and what they want.   Knowing what people want to wear/ or what motivates them to buy, is the secret sauce to starting your clothing brand.  A range plan is like a ‘shopping list’ of items you want to include in your range, and the price points you want to target.  For example- you might identify you target market mostly wears dresses, and occasionally likes matching sets.  So, you might include in your range plan 6 dresses, 2 tops, 2 skirts, 1 pant, 1 jacket- all that interchange with one another.  A range plan can be changed as you design, but it’s the starting point to help guide you in what needs to be created or designed for your target market that will buy your brand.

Top Tip:  Facebook groups can be very useful for depicting a gap in the market or getting feedback on what a particular group of people like to wear/ want to wear. Join some groups relevant to your target market and start asking some questions.   Making a ‘Client Avatar’ can be useful to laser pinpoint who your ideal customer is.

Step 2- Conduct Trend Research. Create a Story Board or Mood Board. 

A mood board includes inspirational pictures that depict your trend direction, and include your Colour Palette, silhouettes, and fabric inspiration.

Professional Tip:  Our top tip for creating a professional mood board is using www.canva.com  a free online graphic design website- that has several drags and drop features.  Simply upload your pictures you have downloaded from Pinterest or fashion sites and drag and drop into the template.

Step 3: Design Your Collection- Concept Illustrations. 

Illustrate your design ideas using croquis or fashion illustration templates.   A template is a body form that you can trace, then draw your designs on top.  It helps you get the proportions right, and if you aren’t great a drawing, it’s a god send.  At this stage you are just getting your design ideas out on paper. We have free female, male and kids croquis templates available here.

Step 4- Present Your Collection Professionally Using Adobe Illustrator.

Use Adobe Illustrator to put your individual design ideas into a collection.   In this step you are taking your best ideas from your concept drawings and finalizing the pieces that you will have in your collection.  From here you are drawing your designs more professionally.  The professionals in the industry use ‘Adobe Illustrator’ to draw what they call ‘trade drawings’ of each piece of clothing.  These trade drawings are used in the ‘tech packs’ to send to manufacturers to make the clothing.

Tip:  Using a program like ‘Adobe Illustrator’ can be tricky at first.  We have e-classes on how to use it to create fashion drawings and have 100+ trade drawing files in Adobe illustrator you can download, then simply modify to your own design. This saves you from having to draw the design from scratch.   See our program here:

Step 5- Select Fabrics. 

Next step is to select fabrics for each of your designs.  It can be tricky knowing the names of each fabric, so going to a local fabric store can be a great way to start to build a fabric library.  Ask for 10cm of each fabric, (very low cost) and build a swatch collection at home.   You can also request ‘fabric swatch’ cards from your manufacturer for free.  But first things first- you need to learn the names of fabrics to know what to ask for.  Looking at the tags at fabric stores, and the composition is a great way to start.   Website to order fabric samples is:

 

Step 6- Preparing Your Designs for Sampling- Create a Tech Pack. 

A Tech pack is basically construction details about the fit and construction of your design.  Each design needs its own ‘tech’ pack that includes details like fabric, interior tags, and labelling, sewing details- like type of hem, and notions and trim details like type of zipper, button, or collar.

 Tip:  If you get stuck here, we cover tech packs in our ‘Start Your Own Fashion Line’ Program and include tech pack downloadable templates- to help you easily fill in the required information.

 

Step 7- Find a Manufacturer. 

Finding the right manufacturer to make your designs is crucial to your success.  Not every manufacturer will specialize in every type of fashion, so it’s important to find a manufacturer that makes similar clothing to your designs and works with similar fabrics.   You may need to find a few different suppliers for different products.  One for knitwear, one for denim, one for stretch fabrics, and one for woven fabric for example.    Having a few different suppliers is also a great idea in case one disappoints, you have back up suppliers to carry you through.

We include a list of 50 good quality and trustworthy clothing suppliers in our ‘Start Your Own Fashion Line’ program here.

Step 8- Get Samples Made   

You will send your tech packs off to a sampling house or manufacturer to make your designs.   From here you will receive your first ‘prototype’ of your design, to test the pattern and the fit.    Don’t get discouraged in this step, as many ‘prototypes’ aren’t perfect and need adjusting. A designer’s work is about working with the manufacturer and communication on how to fix the prototypes for bulk production.

Note:  Making fit changes to prototypes or samples can be the hardest step in the process, as many new designs get very disheartened when their samples come in looking different to how they had in their heads.  To be honest, there is so many times samples have come in looking like a dog’s breakfast.  It’s just part of the design process.  Starting your own clothing brand will mean you might have to -re sample your designs 2- 3 times before getting it right and moving to bulk production.  Keep this in mind for your lead times and timing.   In my ‘Start your own clothing line’ program I cover the most common fit mistakes in sampling, and how to communicate what needs to be changed with your manufacturer.

 

Step 9- Proceed to Bulk Production

Once you are happy with your sample, proceed to Bulk Production Orders.  You will need to include details of labelling and packaging and make sure you meet the manufacturers MOQ or minimum order qty.

 

Tip:  when corresponding with manufacturers and getting quotes- make sure you ask about MOQ’s.  As a small clothing brand starting out you want to look for suppliers that can do small MOQ’s.

 

Step 10: Get Pre- Sales to Help Fund Production Costs 

While you are manufacturing bulk production- start getting pre-sales of your designs.  This can help fund and pay for your production cost.  Take photos of your samples, pop them up online – with pre-order details- for a ‘Pre-launch’. 

 

Conclusion

There are many other steps involved, and some of the best ways to start your own clothing brand involves knowing the steps and helpful insider tips.

Our Start Your Own Fashion Line Program is designed for beginners to help them start with minimum startup costs.

Get a Free Course Brochure Here:

Some of the topics we include in the ‘Start Your Own Clothing Brand’ course include:

 

45 ‘Mini’ E-classes and Topics (include downloadable resources in each to help you!)

Eclass 1- Getting Started- Identify a Profitable Niche, Putting a Range Plan Together

Eclass 2- Designing Your Collection Professionally: (Story Board, Colour Palette, Illustrating your designs with croquis.)

Eclass 3- Preparing Your Designs for Bulk Production- Including How to Do a Trade Drawing

Eclass 4- Presenting Your Collection Professionally- Using Illustrator To draw Your Designs

Eclass 5- Where to Source the best Fabric for Your Designs

Eclass 6- Printing Your Own Fabric and Making Your Designs Stand Out from the Crowd

Eclass 7- Preparing for Manufacturing Your Designs

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 8: Manufacturing Tips- 4 Steps to Getting Beautiful Garments made in Bulk!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 9: Labelling

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 10: Funding

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 11: Register a Business Name

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 12: Manufacturers Contact List

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 13: Importing

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 14: Patternmaking

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 15: How to setup an Online store through Facebook

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 16: Promotion Ideas for your Online store through Facebook

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 17: How to Get More Sales!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 18: How to find Fashion Buyers!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 19: How to Edit Photos of Your Design

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 20: How to Create a Fashion Brochure

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 21: Avoiding Manufacturing Disasters!

(Supplier quality checklist template)

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 22: How to Get Your Garments Made in the Right Fit!

(Spec sheet measurements)

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 23: How to Market Your Fashion Label!

(Marketing strategies)

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 24: How to get Free Publicity!

(Press release templates)

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 25: How to Triple Your Profits!

(Video PowerPoint)

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 26: Packaging!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 27: Packaging For Online Sales!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 28: How to Present Your Designs to a Fashion Buyer!

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 29: Range Showings

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 30:  Purchase Orders and Trading Terms

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 31:  Buyers Terminology and Retail Talk: Impress the Buyer with your knowledge of retail terms

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 32: Retail Formulas

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 33: Top Tips for Creating an Impressive Logo for Your Fashion Line

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 34: Marketing Your Fashion Label for Free- Using Pinterest

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 35: Instagram Marketing for Your Fashion Label

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 36:  Quick and Easy Pattern Grading

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 37: Online Store Mastery- Part 1- Registering a Domain Name, getting hosting, and choosing an online- platform to build your site

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 38:  Online Store Mastery- Part 2- Building Your Online Store

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 39:   Online Store Mastery- Part 3- Setting Up Your Online Store

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 40:  Online Store Mastery- Part 4- Designing Your Graphics and Banners

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 41:   Online Store Mastery- Part 5- Designing Killer Product Pages

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 42:  Online Store Mastery- Part 6- Sizing Charts and Product Descriptions

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 43:  Online Store Mastery- Part 7- Adding Product to Your Online Store

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 44:   Online Store Mastery- Part 8- Adding Payment Methods

Fashion Mentoring Eclass 45:  Online Store Mastery- Part 9 Launching Your Store!