to start-up or not to start-up? – the question is now…
I want to launch my own fashion line…
… I have a vision for my fashion brand…
… I want to market products that I would like to wear and that can’t be bought in stores…
… I want my clothing collection that I will be selling on Instagram…
These are some of the most common reasons people outside of the fashion world turn to me, to help them start their own fashion start-ups trough our know-how services.
I’ve heard them so many times over the last ten years, that if someone had only given me € 100 for every such an instance, I should be a millionaire by now. But I am not.
Nor many of the clients who have started their fashion businesses. Not even close to that. They stopped halfway, tired, disappointed and financially drained. And most of them are not in this business anymore.
Why is that so?
Let me try to explain this phenomenon on the example of 6 areas that everyone should have to (at least) understand before starting their own fashion business:
• Vol.1 Fashion Business – First and foremost comes business, and only then fashion
• Vol.2 Your Avatar – Without a defined customer, there is no business
• Vol.3 Your Brand – Strategy, Sales, Marketing – the heart of your business
• Vol.4 Hire a Fashion Designer – If you’re not a clothing designer, don’t pretend to be one
• Vol.5 Product Development – An absolute must for every fashion brand
• Vol.6 Manufacturing and Technology – Form connections with clothing manufacturers
In today’s blog we will cover the first topic, and the other 5 will follow in the above order. I hope they will be interesting to read and provide insight into the fascinating, yet complex and interdisciplinary field of the fashion business.
The true start-up of a business is what happens before you start-up
michael e. gerber
vol.1 fashion business: first of all a business, only then comes fashion
Initially, we used to approach each client inquiry, such as those exemplified in the intro, as an elaborate, planned project, which had to be, of course, sustainable on the market.
We would make an offer regarding product development services, negotiating deals and strategies, dynamics, plans.
Usually after being about one quarter into the process, we would realise that our clients had a vision themselves.
A vague idea deep in their mind, which only had to be brought to the surface and shaped into a concept.
Still, we have to be honest and say that this is just a beginning, a raw business idea that has to be developed over a number of stages, including: framing the brand strategy, profiling customers, defining your niche, choosing key sales channels, coming up with marketing strategies, determining the range of products, defining a design concept that will be recognisable in the seasons and years ahead…
And then all this still needs to be honed, put in business frameworks, elaborated in business plans and prepared for realisation with many more formal, financial, administrative and organisational elements…
In brief, what I want to point out is that the whole business part of the fashion business would be missing among our clients.
Once the business aspect of your fashion business is set, you are ready to approach clothing design and development, which means getting to the fashion part of the fashion business!
Here we also have to say that the fashion business world is populated by whole teams of serious experts working on it.
For the most part, our aspiring visionaries don’t know much about these things.
This is why we have equipped our team with experts in brand strategy, marketing and design, who step in depending on the client’s needs and gaps in their vision.
As our basic packages did not include additional services, the extra work would present a financial challenge for some clients. As a result, we would sometimes lose them even before signing them up, which was an extremely frustrating experience.
Then one day, I realised that most people have a very simplistic notion of the fashion business – almost as if it was children playing with clothes. This meant that their approach would often also be childish.
They would say: “What can be complicated about that? You just take some styles off the Internet, someone makes cuts for you, you buy materials and find a garment maker who sews it all for you…”
But that couldn’t be further from the truth!
In reality, the fashion business is first and foremost a business, written with a big B!
“Business is tough, but fashion industry is particularly tough”
Ali hewson
This is an extremely complex business area, a time-consuming, layered and demanding undertaking on the ever so volatile market. The competition is huge and the “fight” for your customers is relentless!
The line between success and failure is fine as a hair even if everything’s done right.
This is why I want to stress that sometimes we and our clients would find ourselves at totally different starting points, with our perceptions miles away from each other.
Sometimes we would be able to reduce the distance, if clients decided on 15-20 hours of our training covering everything from the basics of the fashion business and its stages, and thereby understood what awaited them in the running of their brands.
This has turned out to be the safest way to go. By the completion of their training, our clients would have enough knowledge to be able to make an informed decision: to go or not to go into starting their own fashion business?
Even then, things don’t always go smoothly, but they’re still moving in the right direction.
So, let’s repeat: by definition, a fashion business is first and foremost a business, albeit in the field of fashion.
Fullstop!
In a number of situations, we had to give up on working with someone, or potential clients would be offered a “simpler and cheaper” path to the realisation of their vision, which, almost as a rule, would abruptly end up in losses and tears.
Once again, a fashion business is a business in the field of fashion. Fullstop!
To summarize: if you are already good at business, you will find this part self-explanatory and straightforward, especially if you later follow the stages 3, 4 and 5 (I’ll elaborate on them in the forthcoming blogs).
However, if you are only starting out in business, the most important thing you need to take from this blog is that fashion business is a business with fashion.
Just follow this simple rule – and go for the realisation of your fashion business vision!
