Most brand owners will agree that the thing they get asked about more than anything is how to start a brand. Sometimes people are genuinely seeking guidance and sometimes people want you to drop all the answers in their hands. Recently a mate of mine was interested in learning a few things on starting a fashion brand so he sent me a bunch of questions that were specific enough for me to give a pretty well rounded perspective on what starting a brand takes looks like but also what I've realised it will take me to maintain a brand.
Here are those Questions and Answers;
How did you first come up with ur brand concept, what things did u look to for inspiration?
I always tell people brand was very natural for me, I'm always consuming a lot creatively especially when I was younger. A lot of film, other fashion, music. The more wordly you are in these fields the bigger tool bag you'll have when it comes to branding. Moodboarding is a great tool for this, I suggest pinterest if your not on it already. I can link you mine to see how my mind works. For me I wanted to combine a lot of internationally influences with local australian stuff because I was interested in that blend, I thought it was a unique point of view and gap in the market culturally. In saying that your brand idea doesn't have to be as complicated.
If I was to start, where do I start?
Start in the R&D phase and in the spreadsheets. Decide what your brand will be, this could take months on it's own. Decide what your product is that is unique enough that people would buy it from you and someone else. Think about your price range and how that relates to brand (will a brand targeting teenagers be able to charge $300 for a hoodie?). Think about the longevity of the brand idea you have, will you still care about it in 5 years. Start spreadsheeting by getting rough ideas of costs and hidden fees, try your best to have your profit margin be 4x or 3x if possible ( make something for $10 sell it for $40). Spreadsheeting will give you cold facts about what business will look like. I'd recommend starting with a preorder to gage interest. You can order a sample, do all your marketing for it and tell customers there order will be shipped in 3 months after they're all produced. This will save you risking a lot of capital
In terms of marketing, how effective is social media such as tik tok and instagram, and if u have tried it before how does it work?
Great question, its changed so much in the past 5 years. when tiktok started you could post a tiktok a day and it could change your life. now you could post 3 tiktoks a day and you might have a 10% chance of blowing up. social media is a slow grind. instagram and facebook want to encourage you to use there ad service. it works if you know what your doing, this is something you can look to off hand eventually with an ad agency. I really like instagram as a slow growth model, it's a base place for me to communicate with all my customers.
What are some problems, I may run into?
Ask yourself the question when your making a product "why would someone buy a pair of jeans from me and not levis?". Is it brand, is it the fit, am i providing a better price point? You need to be aware of who your selling to and why they're buying it. another big issue that comes up is awareness of lead times. working with overseas suppliers can be super long term, a lot of my mates that own brands have things planned 8 months in advance. Because it is so long term this can affect cash flow which is a whole other issue.
What are some questions I should ask a clothing manufacturer to ensure I’m picking the right one?
It's good to see first hand other items they have made, at the end of the day it's more proof of concept rather then answers to question. This is where the sampling process comes in. You need to be prepared to spend 3 months working on a sample with a manufacturer and cut them off if it's not good enough. Allow time for this as it might take a few times to find a supplier that can provide what you want.
How did u find ur clothing manufacturer?
Word of mouth locally through some other factories I was using. I'm now looking overseas and I've gone through a local agent
How did u find ur suppliers? What questions should I ask them to ensure the best quality?
Same as above. There are a lot of technical words and languages you can learn but again nothing beats having it in your hand and feeling it. Two different fleece hoodies can be 400gsm but feel completely different. Nothing beats touch and feel/wear testing.
Did u ever do pre orders before u made the product, then sold to those order? If so, is it effective?
Yes, id almost say its been a pillar of my business. I'm lucky I have a very strong relationship with my customers so I've never had any bad responses on delays with preorders but at times they have been delayed pretty long. I've done them a lot, they're great for so many reasons as you can imagine. I'm taking a break from them for the moment as I need to understand and grow trust with new manufacturers so that I know they can provide orders on a short lead time or at least give me a realistic time line that I can then tell the customers.
Do u think modelling and irl photos, videos etc is effective?
Definitely essential. All components of marketing fashion have different intention. Video probably specialises more in brand awareness. Think of a big nike ad, you don't like it because of the product but the message or idea it's expressing. these types of ads get people in the door and aware of your brand. Then simple stuff like showing your product clearly and how it fits on a range of models will convert those people into a sale.
Did u ever do any research such as focus groups, or ask around as to what people wanted to wear and wanted from clothes?
No, I'm always designing for myself. If your gonna do that it's important to heavily market in a way the explains why you like a product and show it in it's best light. There are times where I've made stuff for the consumer but that is from just getting natural feedback through the instagram. You tend to have a finger on the pulse of trends and what people like if you surround yourself in the industry and you are looking at the right resources. In saying that trends are so quick now I would encourage you to come from a personal unique point of view. You'll never be able to keep up with trends like the biggest fashion brands as a small business.
What does it truly look like to run things behind the scenes?
Depends on what stage you are in the business. Briefly any given day would look like a mix of the following.
- Research and Development
- Creating Tech Packs (design documents)
- Replying to emails from suppliers
- Producing Content/Marketing
- Organising Shoots
- Being on Shoots
- Doing all of the above at the same time (Creating tech packs for a drop for winter while doing research and development for a drop in november)
Obviously I have a passion for clothes and fashion I’ve just always been worried about how saturated it is, how did u manage to separate yourself from the rest?
Your right it is very saturated. It's always about having a unique selling point USP. as I mentioned before this can be; price point, brand, fit. My USP has always been either fit or brand, I think fit alone is sometimes a hard selling point. only people that really care about fashion will care about the decisions you make with millimeters so most of the time I think my branding gets people over the line when converting them to a sale. My brand is unique, culturally when I started no one respected AFL or australian culture the way I did. This was my unique selling point. Another unique selling point at the start was that I handmade all the items myself, great for the time but obviously not scalable.
I’m interested in doing women’s clothing as well, do u have much knowledge in that field? Is it too risky?
Mate, cool to hear. I'm actually on this journey at the moment and it's crazy where it has taken me you probably won't even believe it. It's been in the back of my mind for a while. Short answer is it is risky but I'll take you through what I'm doing at the moment to prepare for it. What I noticed in my early attempts of modelling my clothing on woman is just a total lack of understanding. As men we want woman to look a certain way, that is great and useful but it is also important to work out, how does a woman want herself to look which is a completely different story. It's literally like studying for an essay, you need to get into the mind of them as a consumer and work out how that differs from how you would want your girlfriend to dress for example because they're different things. For me, I speak with a lot of girls about it, I recently had a female stylist on a shoot to style a female model, literally watching season of sex and the city to understand woman and the relationship with what they wear and how they want to present themself. Yes it is risky but can be done, I wouldn't suggest jumping into it straight away though. Start with what you know which is yourself and what you want.
What are the startup costs like for someone like me who wouldn’t be making his own clothes? In other words, how much money did u need to kick things off?
- Shopify $50 a month
- Sample $100-200 (could take multiple)
- 50x production of a middle cost item ($45x50= $2250)
- Try keep marketing costs as low as possible you can do a lot for free
- ABN start up costs (from memory a couple hundred bucks)
- Adobe Suite roughly $1000 a year (this is where you make all your content and design mockups)
Could be a few more but these are the pillars off the top of my head.
Is it possible to do everything myself?
Yes at the start. when you can afford to you offhand stuff. you'll eventually come to a point where you can afford to not like certain tasks and contract or employ people to fulfill those roles.
Is there a way to know early if I’m going to be profitable?
Spreadsheeting with low ball estimations. Doing a preorder first drop so you don't risk capital straight away. over all you gotta love it man, it'll take years and you gotta be ready to put everything in it to someday make money off it. it's a massive time investment, you should do all the things you can to ensure it'll be profitable but overall it's important to have the mindset that you'll do whatever it takes for however long to make it work.
How did u come up with ur name? And do u think the name is something that must be spot on?
It's Australian, it's nostalgic and it's the idea of locality. Names important but not the be all end all. Nike is just a word until you put all the work behind it, nike probably sounded like shit when they first said it. Only advice I'd give is choose something that can be mature or playful at the same time (overall cover a lot of basis of where you want to take the brand). You want a brand that doesn't have too many associations already so you can take it where you like or add to it.
What’s ur marketing budget? And what is ur best type of marketing?
I've had crazy budgets for the amount of capital I have. The highest I've ever gone is probably just under 2k for a drop. My latest roll out was free, just using mates to help me out. Already had photography equipment and lights and just did a shoot at home and still came out professional. Marketing costs can add up pretty quickly, a photo studio for a day can be 1k then a photographer can be $600 for a full day, then a model $600, then a stylist $300+. Having connections can cut a lot of these costs out. Then there's also how your gonna distribute the content, are you gonna post it for free on social media or are you gonna pay a certain amount for facebook ads. In terms of what works for me, I love the videos but there not always necessary. A simple well styled photoshoot can do really well, also my flatlays do really well cause I'm very specific about how I do them. Overall all though it's the opposite of what I like people really seem to like very raw content at the moment, people are more then happy with you filming on your phone you talking about the garment, why it's special, how it fits, what you style it with. This is why the right influencers can be super beneficial.
How did u create things like ur website, did u hire someone?
Nah Shopify is pretty easy to use I think you'd be able to create something decent once you look into it. Web design minimum project usually is 10k so I forgot about hiring someone pretty quickly
How big was ur first collection?
my first drop was 2 hand sewn T-shirts on preorder. My first collection was 5 pieces my first footy collection.
How much do I need to do behind the scenes, before I even think about making the clothes?
I always say a year is good before launching. Allows you to think about what your brand is, look at other brands and see how you can be different. Allows you to sample really well without pressure on deadlines. You might get your first sample back and realise you gave directions on what to make really poorly and then you need to learn how to make tech packs better. it's always good to just leave time for all these factors. overall in terms of even the early phase before you start designing, it's important to just overall have strong taste. Think about what that means to have strong taste. Not just in clothes but all facets, how do you tastefully greet someone, how would you host people at your house, how do you take a girl on a date and how's that different to other blokes you know. What music do you listen to, is it the same or different to what everyone else is listening to? What movies do you watch, do you watch movies your mates have never heard of? If your consuming the same things everyone else is you'll never have a unique brand. Growing up I was doing drinking, getting into fights, playing footy but I was also watching movies from the 70's, listening to old soul music or jazz, getting really invested in artists and how they think. The fact that I was doing those things that are so different is what I think makes me such a unique individual to own a brand. You have to think how are you different and how can you actually enhance those differences in your favour.
Do I need to have experience in the fashion industry to be successful?
Absolutely not. Youtube is your best friend. I always say "the internet exists', you can learn anything you want.
Are there any websites, books, videos, mentors or even things u may use already that can help with anything?
Good question. I seek out content when I need it, example your trying to design something on illustrator and you watch a youtube video on it. thats basically the way your gonna learn how to do everything. seeking out mentors is great, it'll teach you what to do an what not to do which is super valuable.
If there’s anything u could’ve done different, what would u have done?
Been in the spreadsheets earlier, being aware of profits and loses. all the boring business numbers you need to be on top of, the numbers never lie and they'll tell you if you need to change what you're doing.
Design wise, how does that process work? Obviously im no mock up expert, is that something I would have to learn, or are there manufactures or people that can take my idea and do it for me?
There are people that can make tech packs for you at an added cost. It's not overly complicated but will take time to learn. Most commonly adobe illustrator is used to draw your garment and specify measurements of every aspect of it, while also adding images of references (fit, fabric, colour, tags). This is known as a tech pack.
How do u feel about using AI to help with designs, photos, brand identity?
Great if used right, I often use AI to make specific inspiration images. example: what would an afl collection look like in the 1950s if giorgio armani designed it. Try not to lean on it too hard it is only used best when people take something from it and polish it up. It's never something I would use to take directly to the consumer.
Where do u get inspiration from in terms of design?
a lot of movies. even a lot of my favourite brands are inspired by movies if you think of aime leon dore, vintage giorgio armani or ralph lauren. they're all looking at old movies and designing the garments the characters wear. I find myself doing that a lot which is where watching unique and old films is really important to my process.
