Start A Clothing Line: 3 Important Steps For Beginner Fashion Designers

As an emerging designer, starting your own clothing line takes a lot of resources. Merely getting started on designing can seem like a huge task to undertake if you aim to start a clothing line. There are so many hoops to jump through. However, if you plan, market, and launch a clothing line by following a few vital steps, you have a better chance at launching your own clothing line. Let’s see the three steps to creating your own clothing line and marketing your product for your intended audience. Here is your guide to starting a clothing line.

1. Create an Outline of Your Design (and All The Planning That Goes With It)

First thing’s first: you need to outline your ideas. For beginner fashion designers, this may be a bit overwhelming, but don’t worry. Your clothing line is still in its infancy; you can always modify the look and feel of your couture designs as you go.

Think hard: what do you want your clothing line to look like? What ideas, emotions, and motifs appear in your work.

For example, using a mood board can significantly help you nail down concrete ideas you want to move forward with. Mood boards are pretty self-explanatory: you use either a physical or digital mood board to find a common theme, idea, or specific feelings in an early fashion design.

These exercises, among others, are fantastic methods to see what’s going on ‘under the hood’ of your burgeoning fashion line.

Another crucial detail of the planning process is setting a realistic budget for your product.

2. Choose a Cohesive Fashion Business Plan

Once you nail the look and feel that customers can expect from your product, it’s time to take the following steps. It’s time to examine who your clothes are for. Who is your target demographic? Knowing the people you want to purchase your clothing is crucial towards executing the final, most crucial step of starting your own clothing line.

A fashion business plan involves doing a deep dive into your budget, how much inventory you’re aiming for, and your overall financial expectations once you launch a clothing line.

So, where to begin? You have your product ideas, a budget in place, and your target demo in mind.

The last logical step? Producing your clothing into unique samples for customers.

There are a few things to know about clothing production before you dive in. Let’s learn more about clothing production to ensure you’re getting the most out of the production process.

3. Next Steps in Starting a Clothing Line: Production

Picture it: you now have an independent clothing line in pre-production. All the details, budget, and target demographic are all settled.

You want to create an extensive clothing line for selling in boutiques, displaying at fashion shows, and serving as art pieces. The problem? Your resources are spread too thin for effective fashion development.

It can be exciting and gratifying to have a great creative business idea, only to realize that you either don’t have the manpower, capital, or fabric to reach a particular goal.

Part of becoming a successful emerging independent fashion designer is putting your ideas out there with ambition, panache, and, most of all, creative freedom.

That’s why beginner fashion designers can benefit from both studio and factory level fashion production.

Clothing Production for Beginner Fashion Designers Starting Clothing Lines

But when considering fashion development and starting a clothing line, you need a pattern manufacturer.

When considering cut and sew manufacturers and fashion pattern makers, textile samples, and fashion development, it’s essential to see how much of your clothing collection a fashion production house can create. Los Angeles clothing manufacturer, The Evans Group (TEG) allows both small and large volume clothing production. Basically, TEG makes things easy.

The way TEG determines what collections fall into studio and factory levels of production is the sample size. If a designer’s collection ranges from 1 to 10 samples, it’s a much smaller production, all completed in-house at the Los Angeles clothing manufacturing headquarters.

How Does TEG Help Emerging Fashion Designers Start a Clothing Line?

It’s difficult enough to break into the fashion world. If you have the ambition, TEG has the resources. Specifically, TEG’s cut and sew manufacturers, seamstresses, and pattern makers bring a creative fashion idea to life. With years of experience between them, the TEG textile team is quick, efficient, and fashion-savvy.

Utilizing the talents of multiple Los Angeles sewing factories, TEG specializes in 0-100, 100-300, and 300-500 pieces per style. Don’t worry; TEG has scoured Downtown LA for the best sewing companies, all thoroughly vetted and approved by Jennifer Evans herself.

TEG offers great scalability opportunities for independent fashion designers. The fashion industry is notorious for producing a lot of waste.

However, TEG can ease any worries about needless waste in the manufacturing process.

Independent fashion designers can also take comfort in knowing that TEG emphasizes sustainable and ethical garment manufacturing.

Who Benefits From Studio Level Production?

Studio level production is perfect for independent designers who want to start a clothing line. It allows fashion designers of all stripes to achieve various, specific design goals. If you’re looking to drum up publicity for a clothing line, or you need samples in a hurry, studio level fashion production perfectly balances quality and detail.

First-time clothing designers and big-name brands like Moncler, Guess, and Cosima can benefit from studio level production.

But do rush orders run the risk of having lower quality clothing than large-scale, factory level production?

Luckily for the independent fashion designers in LA, studio level production has talented textile workers designing and crafting garments with the utmost care and an eye for detail.

With smaller orders, TEG clients know that the production team is focusing solely on the quality of the product. A smaller team of cut and sew manufacturers in Los Angeles pour their time and energy into a studio level fashion production.

How to Start A Clothing Line: Wrapping Things Up

Don’t limit your good idea for a collection just because it may seem too ambitious.

In fact, lean into it and share your best designs with skilled cut and sew manufacturers in Los Angeles like TEG to transform fiction into fact.

Along with creating a tangible clothing line and building brand recognition for a clothing label, TEG wants to forge an invaluable connection with skilled beginner fashion designers.