Key
to Starting Your Own Clothing Company
Starting your own private label clothing company
is not as difficult as you may think. I assure
you that the founding members of Volcom, Paul
Frank, Hurley and Von Dutch, are not mad geniuses
of fashion. You can duplicate their rise to
brand stardom provided that you have the following:
1. A decent logo
2. Creative concepts and graphics - Design
Talent
3. A unique, blank apparel supplier
4. A decent screen printer
5. A Line Sheet to show
potential buyers
6. Sales and promotional talent. |
Which do you think is most important? Its
obviously design talent you say? Are you Joking?
You must be joking. Have you stepped out of
the house recently? Have you seen Von Dutch
clothing? Crayon weilding Chimpanzes produce
better designs. Furthermore, I imagine the
monkeys are more sanitary, but I digress.
#6 is clearly the most important element.
You can create an entire line of fashion forward,
beautiful clothing but if you can't pitch
it - no one will ever see it (excluding your
mom of course). So, unless you want a closet
full of your fantastic designs, ask yourself
the following two questions:
Can I sell?
In other words......can I hit the pavement
with my line sheet and walk into every boutique
clothing store I can find? Then will I harass
the hell out of retail clothing store buyers
so that they'll try to squeeze 5 minutes of
time in for me at Magic 06' (Clothing Convention)
?
Will I be able to make a professional presentation
to a Nordstroms buyer?
Can I promote?
Do I have and creative viral or gureilla marketing
ideas to get this label kickstarted?
If the answer to both of these questions is
No - you better get some help. Namely, find
someone passionate for fashion who also happens
to be ridiculously outgoing, great on the
phone and aggressive as hell. Lastly, (and
superficially) it would help if your sales
rep is hot.
I know, how horrible.....so sorry, buy I didn't
say anything about this being an equal opportunity
blog :)
That being said, let me welcome you the shallow
end of the pool..... i.e. the fashion world.
Good luck with your label! |
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