Effective fashion branding creates an experience that makes consumers choose you over your competitors. Read tips from Parsons faculty.

If you’re going to get into the fashion design business, it’s important to completely understand the varying complexities that impact the supply chain. Stick to the parameters of your business plan to get the full picture of its needs—in knowing every detail of your plan, you’ll make the best decisions for your business.

For example, if you’re going to focus on only selling underwear, you might immediately start planning to get your production completed in a hub like Medellin, Colombia. It’s a major manufacturer of underwear and denim apparel, and after locking down plans to source your production there, you may have questions about regular trips to Colombia throughout the year. It’s also worth wondering if fluency in Spanish is required, as you may want to go to the factories and communicate to the team how your product needs to look, wearability concerns, and customer expectations to consider.

Additionally, choosing Medellin as your production hub introduces questions about distributing the final product to America. Currently, Colombia has a free trade agreement with the United States, making it an excellent place to outsource. It also happens to be in the Eastern Time Zone, which is beneficial if you’re based in New York City. A production location that’s based in your time zone will reduce the likelihood of having to take midnight calls—which is often the case for those sourcing products from China, with a 12-hour difference between there and NYC.

The requirements of standardizing production can snowball to involve many small details. It’s crucial to think beyond exclusively sourcing a final piece of clothing. Rather, it’s important to think about so much more: the means of communication with vendors, ease of access to the site location, distribution pipeline quality, as well as current events and political issues.

At the moment in the United States, China is a frequent topic of conversation. We source many consumer goods from Asia, which menas political events can have an impact on your particular business. Understanding the intersection of global politics and economics and how it can affect a small boutique designer in the South reveals how pivotal these decisions can be in the global ecosytem, whether made in Washington, Beijing, Paris, or any other fashion hub.

Modern factories are sophisticated. They used to be in Hong Kong and China, and now they are everywhere. They are available almost 24 hours a day. They take your design, turn it around as quickly as they can, and get it back to you.
Most people don’t understand how the factory economy works. It’s very similar to the airline industry. If an airplane is one-third-full, it loses money. When it’s about half-full, it makes money. At three-quarters-full, it makes a lot of money. And if it’s running at 100%, it’s making a ton of money.
The word factory in the fashion business refers to textile mills and sewing factories. A sewing factory traditionally is a CMT – Cut, Make, and Trim. They take the raw material and put it on the table, cut it to shape, and assemble it. They deliver a finished garment to you.
A textile mill is different. It has three functions. They spin the yarn, weave or knit it to shape, and then add the dye.
You deliver that raw material to the CMT factory. Designers will frequently tell the factory, “You buy the raw material for me.” The process becomes a little easier. But, remember that if you provide better inputs, you get a superior product. So, the designer should go to the textile mill and get the correct material. Because if you use sub-standard material and assemble it into a beautiful garment, no one may buy it.
You take a similar risk in the CMT when cutting the raw material. How well you cut the cloth, and how much utilization you get from the fabric is a significant part of this online fashion education course. How you assemble the garment is also an important part of the course.

One of the most popular fashion parlor games is figuring out who the consumer is. In the past, brands would construct a profile.

Suppose I were interviewing a CEO or a designer as a journalist. I’d say this: “Who are you trying to sell to? Who is your target audience for this?” And they’d say things like, “We imagine our customer to be Sally, a 20-something-year-old woman who has recently relocated to the city and is working her second job in advertising or the creative arts. She also wants to wear something appropriate for the office, go on that date, and then meet up with her friends afterward.”

They would invent this person in their head.

They would spend all this money on targeting. And find it. Then try to design something for that person. Finally, they’d hope that there was a large enough portion of their target audience to communicate with.

From Gen X to millennials to Gen Z, we’ve been following these diverse generations. People are continually trying to figure out who’s out there. The responses we receive when we ask that question and look at the consumer base, I believe, are so often just too simple.

It’s always been too simple.

If a brand had a vision of its ideal consumer 20 years ago, that person might’ve been out there. But how many of them were out there? We have no idea because people are now trying to speak with 10,000 people at the same time. You won’t be able to accomplish that either.

I’ve always disliked the idea of Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. I don’t believe in generations. It’s sort of like a big thing that people talk about, in my opinion. You have a way of making sense of things.

Millennials are people who are between the ages of 25 and 38. That’s a really broad age range. There are many life cycles between those two points—from someone starting their first job to someone having their third child.

Because it’s such a significant change, and I’m personally skeptical, can you draw all of the conclusions that everyone does? The world is a confusing place. There are people from various walks of life. They’re on the go and doing all these things. Brands are attempting to find some way to think about it and who they can sell to.

Manufacturing can be overwhelming.

One of the really important things in choosing a manufacturer is not having all pieces produced in one place.

It’s preferable for you to price and source your own garment and all of the pieces for it. For instance, you might have a client who says, “Maybe I should just send this pair of trousers to the manufacturer, or you say, “Can you just match this?”

That’s not going to be an exact match. You didn’t choose the fabric on your own. The manufacturer will go out and get it for who knows how much, and then they’ll just charge you for it. Also, transparency isn’t always guaranteed, and building partnerships with manufacturers take time. So, what you want to do is gather all of those materials on your own. You want to have as much control over your manufacturing process as possible.

Touch and feel each piece. Make sure you know how much it will cost. Negotiate the price of each component on your own. Then, send it all to your manufacturer, who will put it all together for you.

You’ll be curious as to who else they make items for. Sometimes it’s a matter of confidentiality, but a manufacturer will often inform you that they produce for a specific company.

It’s ideal if you can identify a manufacturer who has a track record of producing high-quality products for other well-known companies. It will assist you with quality control.

Another important element to remember is that while you’re sourcing all of those different pieces, you want to make sure that they all make it to the factory and know what to do with the pieces.

To summarize, it is recommended that you price each of those items separately for yourself. Take a look at what the company has already created. Check out who else they’re manufacturing garments for.

Also, while everyone is an expert in some areas, only a few people are experts in all areas. Don’t be afraid to defer to the experts. There’s an expert that creates clothes tags. There’s an expert that makes unique tissue paper for the package. There’s an expert that can finish the trim on your garment. Find your expert. And remember, not everything has to be done in one location.

Most brands do a monthly floor set, usually at the beginning of the month. If it’s a traditional store, the store is broken up into different areas. The beginning of a store is the most recent product, the middle of a store is product that’s been around for about a month, and the back of the store is usually product that’s on sale. It could also be more destination and you’re willing to go back there, but it’s usually the older product.

Visual merchandisers usually set their visual calendar 12 months in advance. Nothing in the fashion industry is an accident whatsoever. Everything is coordinated with the design team to get that original vision of what that product is. Then the visual team buys props for the floor set. For example, if it’s a summer delivery and the theme is Barcelona, the visual merchandisers would buy different props for the window and throughout the store to tell the story of the aesthetic and bring it to life.

This is the key driver to get a customer into the store. It’s also the key driver when shopping online. The new and exciting product is the first thing usually seen on the landing page. It always has a theme.

Classic stores, like Louis Vuitton, always have their great basics, but a couple times a year, they promote their hot, new items. Those are the items that visual merchandisers will always highlight in the windows and highlight throughout the store as must-have items.

The other thing with visual merchandising is that it’s very personal. Visual merchandisers need a sharp eye and to be able to pay attention to detail. It’s about bringing the brand promise to life. Whether it’s fixing a mannequin, how a mannequin’s arm is positioned, how a garment might be tucked in, or how a hand might be propped. They might be small details, but it’s really this keen eye of a visual merchandiser that brings everything to life.

It’s been studied that the customer walks from the right, counterclockwise around the store. It’s the goal of the visual merchandiser to bring a customer in and continue that story all the way around. The story needs to continue to be interesting as the customer makes their way around the store.

If you’re a classification business like a denim business, you may have one fit of jeans. However, you need to have that in different colors and washers and probably different fabric weights. That’s planning a range with the same items made with various components, different stretch levels, and for different end-users.
One may be white denim, another black denim. While you may have the same item or product, you’ve created it in different ways, ensuring that the client doesn’t pick between them. Essentially, a client might say, “Today, I want a pair of white jeans because it’s July and it’s summer, and that’s what I wanna wear.” They’ll buy the white jean, wear them, and probably say, “Wow, the fit is fantastic. I’ll go back, get the black jean, raw denim, and the stretch because I love them.” You’ve had successful range planning with this approach because you’ve enabled the consumer to get into your product. The client has also seen the opportunity to buy more of that product to complete their wardrobe.
We all have a pyramid in our closets. At the pyramid’s bottom, we have most of our basic stuff. T-shirts, jeans, or a ton of sneakers. Mostly, these are things that you use every day. The next layer has things that are a little nicer, preferably clothes for work. Or probably when you go on a date or dinner with your loved one. At the top of the line, you’ll probably have suits or tuxedos or high fashion items that you don’t wear often. In that sense, you should develop your line similarly.
What are the basic things you want to sell? Well, you want to sell a great tee. How many colors do you need? You probably need four or five colors in a great tee to have some assortment of it. Then, you probably need a polo rugby shirt with some embroidery on it. That’s a little bit of fashion, so you might need three different colors.
While building your product line, focus first on the price points. The more expensive things are, the less of it you should do. If you find a beautiful jacket that’ll cost a lot of money, you probably only need one of these. Because you won’t sell a lot of them. But in essence, you still need somewhat of a collection because no buyer will buy everything you do.