Design Your Own Clothing In 5 Easy Steps

Fashion has been in a state of disrepair. Perhaps a little unsurprising considering the pandemic and how 2020 affected everyone. Regardless, it’s time to start creative planning to design your own clothing.

Whether it’s your first time trying to develop a clothing brand or simply creating something for yourself, it’s essential to follow some easy yet vital steps to design a clothing line to be proud of.

Design Your Own Clothing: Setting The Stage

First thing’s first: do you have a creative idea you’ve been inspired to manifest into reality?

It could be an ambitious line of dresses to rival those found on the runways of New York Fashion Week. Or it could be a minimal clothing line of one to five pieces. Regardless of your ideas, it’s crucial to get that initial spark of an idea down for the steps to create your own clothing.

But even if you don’t have a watertight plan to turn heads in Milan and Paris, you still have some creative options to help come up with a unique idea.

Step 1: What’s Your Idea?

Think about your clothing design idea. Are you planning to make it for yourself or others? How extensive will the clothing line be? Will you need to use the talents of a small batch clothing manufacturer to meet your goals?

Does your idea need to be the ‘next big thing’ in the industry? Not at all.

In fact, that’s setting sights a bit too high. Don’t heap too much expectation upon yourself and your future brand! Monitor some current design trends, see what people respond to, and see how your custom clothing can fit into that world.

Your ideas could run the gamut from a line of retro-inspired T-shirts to a Y2 K-inspired line of hoodies. Whatever you focus on, make sure it has your identity infused with it.

If you’re an emerging independent designer, it’s best to start small, get familiar with the manufacturing process, and go from there.

Step 2: It’s All About The Audience

When creating custom designs, it’s all about the audience, even if it’s an audience of one (you!).

Knowing your audience in any field is a secret to success. Sure, you can launch an ambitious line of avant-garde designs that defy the latest trends.

But does that serve your specific audience?

Consider certain aspects of your audience, more specifically, the buyer persona. This exercise includes you developing a fictional persona of your ideal buyer. Consider the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Occupation
• Business
• Lifestyle
• Attitudes
• Hobbies
• Fears
• Goals

When you develop a detailed buyer persona, you may learn other things you didn’t initially consider when starting your design journey.

Step 3: Find A Clothing Manufacturer

Finding a clothing manufacturer is perhaps the most crucial piece of the puzzle. A good clothing manufacturer can help you take a seed of an idea and help it find roots. Regardless of the creative space you’re looking to inhabit.

There are a few things to consider when looking for the perfect clothing manufacturer.

What’s Their MOQ?

Wait, what’s an MOQ? MOQ stands for minimum order quantity. It allows manufacturers everywhere (not just in the garment industry) to cover their costs for starting potentially costly clothing orders.

Certain clothing manufacturers don’t have any MOQ in place. These businesses are ‘small batch’ clothing manufacturers, and they help independent designers launch clothing lines.

At The Evans Group, founder Jennifer Evans developed a philosophy to help designers. She wanted to ensure that independent designers looking to make their mark on the fashion industry wouldn’t lose precious resources.

At The Evans Group, there are no minimums whatsoever so that an emerging fashion designer can experiment and monitor progress to their heart’s content.

No need to fret over lost resources from ordering a massive clothing line. Especially when you don’t have the capital to back it up.

Are They Experienced?

When creating custom clothing, you want the staff to be the best you can find.

At The Evans Group, we not only employ some of the most talented textile workers in Los Angeles but also some of the best pattern makers in the country.

Since 2005, TEG has stood as a beacon for independent designers everywhere. TEG helps designers shed the fear and trepidation they may feel when pursuing a new design.

We enforce that aim by employing talented seamstresses, tailors, cutters, and product managers.

Step 4: Create Your Own Clothing Through Custom Designs

Now that you’ve settled on a garment manufacturer, you need to sit down and create your custom designs.

This is where the design process really starts to take off. And, in our opinion, the most fun part. Aside from the final launch, of course!

It’s essential to categorize, organize, and prioritize creative design ideas using a mood board. A mood board serves as a collage to note down anything and everything.

Here are a few things you can find on a mood board:

• Colors
• Words
• Ideas
• Fabric
• Logos
• Prints

In short, a mood board serves as a great tool to harness your creative muscles to design custom styles.

We like to include our team members to help brainstorm ideas and bounce them off one another. The Evans Group team is here to help you succeed in achieving your design goals first and foremost.

Step 5: Production Time

Now that the creative planning is out of the way (don’t lose that mood board just yet!), it’s the production team’s opportunity to shine.

Taking your custom designs, the pattern maker, sample makers, seamstresses, and cutters all get to work making a custom 2-D design come alive.

Since you’ve chosen a domestic garment manufacturer in Los Angeles, you’ll have greater control over your design during the process.

Design Your Own Clothing: Custom Clothes, Manufactured With Care

At The Evans Group, designers are encouraged to let inspiration drive the project. Along with talented project and design managers, everyone throws themselves into the design process to ensure you’re seeing your styles come to life.

Have more questions about the custom style design process? Drop us a line and start to design your own clothing with The Evans Group today.