How to Design a Clothing Line (Even With No Fashion Background!)
If you’re dreaming of launching your slow fashion brand and you have a solid concept already, don’t let not having a fashion background stop you. Starting a sustainable fashion brand is more than just having a formal background in fashion — it involves a lot of skills. If you’re truly passionate about it, you can start from scratch!
When designing your clothing line, you have to keep in mind that you have to do it consciously and cost-effectively. Here are some of my tips and secret strategies to achieve this:
TIP #1 - Be Strategic With Your Products
If it’s your first collection, I’d recommend that you start with 1-2 product(s) first. You must focus on these products so you would be able to knock them out of the park. Having high-quality and thoughtful products would help you build your brand and reputation.
Even if this isn’t your first collection, I’d recommend avoiding launching 10+ pieces at a time. This is not ideal from a funding perspective especially when your resources are limited and you don’t have a huge team. Again, focus on a few key pieces that will complement your existing product line.
You have to pick out your ideal customers and be very intentional when it comes to designing your products. To give you a recap, here are the steps in making a customer-first approach:
Identify your customer
Understand the problem
Brainstorm solution(s)
Co-create the solution
Make the solution
It is extremely important that you basically CO-CREATE and VALIDATE your products beforehand. You don’t want to be in a situation where you assume you know what’s best for your ideal customer without checking with them. We want to avoid the situation where you’d end up with crickets during your launch and nobody wants to buy anything and you’ll be stuck with inventory that you don’t know how to get rid of. This is a super stressful situation to be in and I don’t want that to happen to you.
Go out and do surveys and interviews to get statistically significant data and then make business decisions based on that. Get sketches, mood boards, etc. Find a way to get those ideas onto paper so that you can make them a reality!
TIP #2 - Be Smart About When You Pay For These Things
Once you have an idea of the 1-2 products that you’ll be focusing on, it’s time to start working on the actual design. If you do not have a fashion background, or even if you do and you’re not confident in your technical abilities, do not DIY this. Hire experts so that your garments turn out exactly the way you want them. Doing so would ensure that it’ll be high-quality as well.
We have stellar designers that we refer to clients but in your case, you will need to spend time and do your due diligence. There are no shortcuts to this.
You must spend time to ensure that you’re hiring the right people to help you turn your product ideas into viable product(s). Another thing is that you have to be able to give clear instructions to your manufacturing team.
You can start by finding a good patternmaker. They can usually help refer you to grades, tech pack people, etc. but if they don’t do that, you can leverage referrals and look online (e.g. Google, Facebook groups, freelance sites, etc.)
When doing your due diligence, you have to make sure to ask these questions:
What brands have they worked with?
What are their design philosophies (e.g. sustainability, timelessness, quality, etc.)?
What do they specialize in? (e.g. womenswear, menswear, accessories, etc.)
Make sure to get their portfolio and some samples of their work as well. Ask about their pricing and how their charge. Keep in mind to be wary of predatory pricing!
Ask questions and trust your gut. If someone gets annoyed with all of your questions, it’s probably not a good fit to work with them anyway.
TIP #3 - Trust And Collaborate With Your Design Team
You are hiring them for a reason so it’s important to trust them. A good patternmaker and design team know what they’re doing. Here are some strategic advantages if you follow our method and find a great designer:
Limiting the designs you have - they’ll be able to help you limit the amounts of fabrics/materials that you need. Zero-waste patternmakers are great!
Cutting down manufacturing costs and time - they’ll be able to know how to make production as efficient as possible
Making future iterations - spending money on a really good base pattern would ensure that you can continue reusing it in future collections. Even big brands do this to save costs.
Collaboration is the key when working with a design team. Make sure that you’d be able to explain to them who your ideal customer is and what problem you’re solving. Give time for brainstorming solutions and ask about their feedback on commercial viability.
TIP #4 - Follow The Design Process
Going from an idea to a finalized product can be overwhelming when you think about it. The process is not linear but for ease of explanation, I’ll explain it more linearly. These are the steps that the amazing designers we work with generally follow, but it might be slightly different given the preferences of the design team you’d be working with:
Customer First Approach
Sketch and mood board
Meet with the designer to discuss fabrics - at this point, you can start sourcing and ask for swatches.
Patternmaking - they will take your sketch and start conceptualizing it. 2D paper is used to show the shape of the fabric as it fits around your body with seams. Base patterns are important and my tip is to make it in the middle of your size range (e.g. Medium) For more size-inclusive brands, this step is extremely important.
Digitizing - they will turn your flat paper patterns into digital forms so you can easily share them. They usually have a remote tool attached to the computer which will be digitally drawn on CAD software. Most manufacturers require this and with digital files, it’ll be easier for you to share it with other members of your team.
Sample making and fittings - you’ll be seeing what it looks like when worn and make tweaks about it. Do not be shy and ask for tweaks if you do not love the fit.
Grading - this is the process of creating a new size from an existing pattern. Instead of creating new patterns for each size, grading allows you to create formulas to apply to your base pattern based on how the body changes with different sizes. You must grade only when the pattern is complete and finalized. Any problems will be exacerbated by grading.
Markers - these are large sheets of paper with your pattern printed on them and they are used in production to cut over garments over many layers of fabric. It’ll help you save fabric by collating your pattern pieces in Tetris-like ways so you can stack them and not waste fabric.
Finalize material - these will be placed in the final technical package which is an instruction manual containing all the necessary information for manufacturers so they can make your garment. You must make it as detailed as possible to prevent errors. It is a summary of your work with your design team. Tech packs also include the bill of materials (overview of all materials you’re using), points of measure (page detailing measurements for every size), technical flats (technical illustrations of your product), artwork etc.
TIPS: Always document every product change or adjustment. Communication is SO important so you want to make sure you have written proof - especially with manufacturers.
Again, this is the general process the amazing designers we work with for our clients follow but some designers may not follow this to the T. But you just want to ensure that at some point, all of these items are covered by your team.
TIP #5 - Ask Questions
There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Do not shy away from clarifying things and asking for more information. As I previously mentioned, if you’re working with a team that’s hesitant to answer questions, they’re most likely not a great fit.
If you want to take your learning to the next level, check out our Launch Your Brand Program which supports aspiring sustainable fashion founders from idea to profitable brand that makes $20,000+ at launch.
