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How to start a clothing brand

I'm bored so in this entry I'll go through the steps of how to create a brand from scratch. There are many ways to start a brand, this is just what I would recommend for a beginner. I'll update this everytime I think of something to add.

General tips:

  • You're competing with yourself; not anyone else
  • It's most likely already been done before; how can you do it better
  • There's a customer out there for everything

Notes:

  • I heavily recommend that you utilize a newletter feature to build an email customer base and send them regular updates

Things you'll need:

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Bigcartel or Shopify account
  • Your own clothes as a base
  • Polymailers/boxes/packing tape
  • Printer/thermal label printer

Basic steps:

  1. You'll need a brand name. Something inspired and something that speaks to you. Avoid cliches and derivitives of brand names that already exist. Try playing around with the amount of syllables used for a name that sounds nice to say. Around this time you should also begin to draw a basic logo. Your handwriting does not matter. Whatever is created is uniquely you and that's what we're going for.
  2. Once you have a name, head over to bigcartel and make a shop. Bigcartel has free plans that allow you to post a few products and open an online webstore without paying entry fees. If money is no object, get Shopify. Shopify's backend is much more robust and will allow for better brand growth and expression in the longrun. 
  3. Begin to create products by downloading and using some sort of photo manipulating software. I primarily use Adobe Photoshop but Adobe Illustrator is also very capable. I've heard of people using Canva as a free substitute but I'm not sure. I generally use a 10x10 1000ppi canvas as my base in Photoshop for any graphic files and later scale them down for web use. Around this time you should be modifying your logo in Photoshop for web use or begin to create a new one using fonts.
  4. For a brand to excel and I suppose before making products, you'll need a overall tone to express your vision. Think in terms of a mission statement. What is your brand doing? How is it doing it differently?
  5. To begin designing clothes, I recommend taking flat-lay photos of clothes you already own and love and use them as a base. If the clothes have pre-existing graphics, an original tag, holes, stains, or other parts you'd like to omit, you can use different methods of removal in Photoshop like selecting the area and using Content Aware Fill or by using the Spot Healing Brush.
  6. Once you have your front and back flat-lays, you'll want to separate the garment from the background and place them in your large canvas file. There you'll have a PSD that you can save as a PNG for web use and as a JPEG for social media use. There are many ways to separate the background. The easiest and most efficient is the Photoshop Object Selection Tool.
  7. If you're an artist, try using sketches or previous works of art as a base for your clothing designs. Sketches can be turned into a simple graphic easily using Threshold or Filter Gallery in Photoshop. You can also try to get inventive with the way the silhouette of your flat-lay looks using Liquify in Photoshop. Play around with blending modes for your graphic that allow the texture of the fabric and the shadows to shine through. Mockups should look as realistic as possible. I know a lot of people use tech packs. I think realistic mockups achieve the same effect if not better when communicating an idea.
  8. Once you've created your garment, scale down your canvas to 10x10 300ppi, export your PNG's for your site and upload them. Name your product something short but still informative of the overall tone you're trying to set. Create a  product description that is easy to read and states facts. Utilize bullet points for key information and short facts (i.e. 100% cotton, drop shoulder, care information.) Price your items reasonably to engage an entry-level audience. Make sure you still make a profit to pour into future designs and samples. For Instagram posts, change your canvas size to 4x5 300ppi. This will be the most effective sizing for regular posts. For stories, use 9x16 300ppi. You'll always want to export as a JPEG for socials.
  9. Next, you'll send your flat lay images, any reference images or detail photos, artwork files as a PDF, and sizing information that you've gathered from your own garment or online information about your reference garment, and send everything to a supplier you find online. Finding suppliers is not hard; finding a good one is. You'll want someone easy to work with that allows for samples to be made without a bulk order needed and has a bulk lead time of under two months. There are a ton of different websites for finding a supplier. A majority of them will be overseas due to their amount of experience in the industry, lower costs than domestic production, and infrastructure to take on smaller orders. Communication can sometimes be a barrier when it comes to expressing your idea thoroughly. My only advice for this is just to be careful with your wording when communicating your idea and include as much information as possible. Don't be afraid to send a million messages regarding what you want. 
  10. Your samples could cost anywhere between $50 and $300 depending on the intricacy of development and the materials selected for the garment. Samples take roughly 3-4 weeks to produce but can take longer. Plan your drops accordingly to get engagement going on the release event early. 
    • If you want to save even more money, try using Printify, Printful or other print-on-demand companies that you can work with for simplistic shirts and other limited clothing items. This method could get your foot in the door creatively and reduces risk by lowering the cost of samples, no preorders, and direct-to-consumer shipping allowing you to sit back. This method is very limited and has a lot of creative restrictions.
  11. By now you should have at least 2-3 products you can post on social media to garner interest. As samples come in over the coming weeks, you can utilize your friends as models and take photos of them wearing the garments to gather more interest.
  12. After all your samples have come in, your site is up and running, you have a social media account or accounts sharing your items and vision, you might be ready to do a drop of preorder items. For a starter brand, preorder drops should be five items or under to limit decision making for the customer. Prices should be reasonable as an entry point. The fact that it's a preorder should be expressed heavily to avoid customer confusion. 
  13. Even without a following of customers on socials or a large email subscriber list, you can still share your products through marketing. I highly recommend using Metas ad program and running your ads on pre-existing Instagram posts via your web browser as some methods of ad boosting will take a cut (i.e. Instagram for iOS.) I recommend boosting your post for 30 days or without an end date. You should be spending roughly $5 to $25 a day per ad. Try to think about how many of a product you'd have to sell within a timeframe to make your money back. Other marketing streams I'd recommend include Pinterest and Facebook. It really depends on your audience and who you're trying to appeal to. 
  14. Once you're satisfied with the amount of preorders you have, submit a bulk order for about double of what you sold. Keep in mind it's important to have inventory available for customers in between the submission of the bulk order and the receipt of the bulk order. In this way, you can continue selling items while you wait for the items to come in. For an entry level brand, I recommend closing your preorder within one to two weeks. This should give you enough time to sell to whoever is readily interested. If your preorder bombs, there's no worry. Just order what you can to meet minimums and really push those products hard. Minimums, in my experience, are generally between 50 and 100 pieces. There's a customer out there for everything, it's just finding that customer or convincing them they want your product.
    • If you're doing print-on-demand, a lot of this you can ignore as a majority of the work in that is simply the graphic design, the choice of garment blank, and customer service to handle any issues you might face not being able to QC your products.
  15. Once you've received your bulk order, you can begin shipping items out chronologically to make sure orders placed earlier have priority when it comes to fulfillment. You'll need polymailers and/or boxes, packing tape, and a printer or thermal label printer.
  16. Receiving your bulk order is a crucial point when it comes to continuing to work with a supplier. If it took too long or they had bad communication or the bulk came out different than the sample, definitely try to find someone new. In this case, sometimes you will have to find out these things on your own as part of your journey.
  17. After packing all your pending orders, you can begin to push out the current inventory (assuming you haven't sold out) and use any remaining funds to purchase new samples. And the process repeats.
  18. After solidifying your brand, doing a few drops, developing an audience, developing a supplier relationship, getting a feel for the backend of your website, and having an idea of marketing, you should be ready to currate your customer experience even further. This may be switching to Shopify, investing in a new theme for your website, designing custom packaging, hangtags, woven labels, etc. for your products, and/or increasing the quality of materials for your garments. Quality can be increased by assessing different fabrics available to your supplier and requesting swatches of what's available. Around this time you should have a solidified logo although it is definitely okay to change it in the future. Having a solid logo will create a more immersive experience by providing thorough branding on tags, labels, your website, your socials, etc.

In terms of preorders, they do lose a bit of hype that a normal in-stock, sell-out-able drop would have. I prefer preorders because I can truly never guess how an item is going to do. It gives me flexability in terms of inventory control versus ordering a bunch of inventory and it not selling out and then being stuck with inventory for months on end; it happens. I'd say in terms of doing in-stock drops, if you have a solid amount of funds available for your brand and have developed a strong understanding of your audience and how items will do, go for it.