How To Start a Clothing Line

If you’re passionate about the fashion industry and want to try your hand at selling your own clothes, a clothing line can be a great way to express your artistry. But to make money from that art, you’ll need business savvy in addition to your creative passion. Here’s your step-by-step guide on how to start a clothing line from scratch.

1. Identify and research your target market

The first step to starting a clothing brand is zeroing in on your target market, or your ideal customer for your clothing line. Start by taking some time to think about your vision for your future brand. Ask yourself questions like:

Then, once you have that settled, do some research into your target market and their clothing preferences. At this point, you should be gathering information like:

If you’re unsure of any of these answers, start by checking out your competition. Visit their clothing stores or websites to figure out how they are positioning their products and who their target demographic seems to be. 

Once you have a firm idea of who fits in your target market, consider interviewing a few people who fit the profile of your target consumer. Be sure to listen carefully to what they have to say, especially any pain points, and don’t be afraid to pivot your business idea as necessary to suit their needs.

2. Choose a business model

Your business model details how your clothing will be manufactured and how your orders will be processed. Keep in mind that many businesses will change how they operate as they grow. You may want to start with a lower-cost option like print on demand or dropshipping and scale up to hiring a manufacturer, or manufacturing your own clothing, as your revenue increases.

Here’s an overview of the four most common business models in the apparel space:

Print on demand

Print on demand (POD) is a low-cost way to start a clothing line. With this model, products are printed on an individual basis as orders come in, meaning you don’t have to worry about covering upfront costs or dealing with leftover inventory.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping allows a third party to handle the inventory and shipping processes. It makes these components of running a clothing company much easier to manage, but can often lead to increased competition since multiple sellers can carry the same products.

Bulk manufacturing

As the name suggests, bulk manufacturing involves using a third-party manufacturer, usually a wholesaler, to make the items in your clothing line. 

Keeping operations in-house

With this model, you handle the entire process of manufacturing the clothing and processing your orders, from production to shipping. 

3. Create a business plan

At its core, a business plan is meant to serve as a roadmap for your business. When completed, it will provide an explanation of how you intend to move forward with each of the core aspects of your business, from marketing to finance. 

A comprehensive business plan has a number of components, including:

Executive summary

Often written last, the executive summary is a crucial part of any business plan. It summarizes your business plan as a whole and highlights what it will include. It also outlines why you’re starting the business, the products you’ll offer and your mission statement.

Business description

This section goes into more detail about your business and your goals for its growth. Be sure to describe your products and target market. Outline what makes your unique brand positioning, or what helps your clothing line stand out from the competition.

Market analysis and strategy

This section talks more about your target market, including their demographics, pain points and needs, and where to find them. It should also include details on how your business will soothe those pain points and meet their needs.

Management and organization

Use this section to introduce your company’s leadership team. It should highlight their relevant experience, as well as detail their roles and responsibilities.

Products and services

As you might expect, this section goes into detail about the different products that your clothing line will offer. It should include how you plan to manufacture them, their cost to make and information on how they meet your potential consumers’ needs.

Competitive analysis

This analysis should clearly outline a comparison between your clothing line and your competitors. Take the time to name your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own. Be sure to include information about how your company plans to fill any gaps in the market and the steps you will take to mitigate any weaknesses.

Marketing plan

Your marketing plan should describe how you plan to get your clothing designs in front of your ideal customer, as well as your pricing plans. Be clear about the specific marketing channels and strategies you intend to use and the reasons why those strategies will incentivize your target audience to buy from you rather than the competition.

Operating plan

The operating plan details how you will run your business, including where and how you will manufacture your clothing and where it will sell. Remember to mention if you plan to hire any staff to help you.

Financial analysis and need

This section will outline how you anticipate bringing in revenue, as well as providing information for any business financing that you plan to ask for from lenders or investors. 

While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to finding the right funding solution, there are some methods that are more commonly used by newer businesses:

4. Build your brand identity

Next, it’s time to focus on your brand and all the components that come along with it. Start by thinking about your brand personality. What do you want your brand to convey to your target consumer? How do you want them to view you?

Once you have an idea of how you would like to come across to your audience, start brainstorming the following elements:

5. Tackle the legal paperwork

This step involves doing all the legal legwork necessary to get your clothing business off the ground. There are a couple of different steps to this process, including:

6. Design and produce your clothing

If you’re dropshipping clothes, you won’t be designing them yourself, but you’ll likely still want to spend time choosing clothes and ordering samples. But if you’re planning on designing your own clothes, this can be one of the most critical steps for defining your brand.

The process behind creating clothing usually starts with sketching, then designing patterns and finally planning production — though each brand has its own unique process for how each step works.

Start sketching

Odds are that by now you have a firm idea of the type of clothing designs you would like to produce. However, if not, it’s time to start sketching out your ideas. As you work, consider factors like current fashion trends, seasonality, silhouette, color and fabric selection. Do your best to keep workshopping an idea until you feel like you have a cohesive plan for the design. 

You’ll also need to factor in any constraints you’ll have in manufacturing. For example, if you’re working with a POD supplier, you may be limited to certain colors of clothing, or you may only be able to put your designs on preexisting patterns. If you’re working with a wholesale manufacturer or manufacturing your own clothes, you’ll want to factor in production costs when designing.

Create your patterns

After your designs feel finished, the next step is to create a pattern that can be used as a roadmap for turning your ideas into wearable garments. There are two ways you can go about doing this: flat or draping. Creating a flat pattern involves using measurements to create a two-dimensional version of your design on paper. Draping involves creating a 3D version of the design on a dress form.  

Again, how you plan to manufacture your clothes will affect what patterns you can create — and at what scale.

Order samples of your designs

It’s a good idea to order samples of the clothing you design before you start selling them to a larger market. Taking this step can give you a better idea of the look of the design and material quality. It will also give you the opportunity to make edits to the clothes if needed.

Plus, you’ll have a chance to get a sense of the logistics involved in the production process, including delivery speed, packaging quality and customer service experience.

7. Price your products

Pricing in the clothing industry typically comes down to two key factors: 

You can get a sense of how much your target market will pay by looking at your competition’s pricing. At the same time, you can figure out your production and distribution costs by adding up the following:

Ideally, the numbers you come up with after researching these two factors will be around the same. However, if your costs for production and distribution are much higher than your target consumer’s price point, it’s likely worth looking into ways to bring those costs down before you start selling.

8. Distribute your collection

There are two main ways you can go about distributing your clothing:

1. Connect with retailers

Once you have your collection in place, consider finding a few boutique stores within your target market and asking them if they would like to carry your clothes on consignment. 

Consignment arrangements are less risky for the retailer because you only get paid for items that sell. Then, once you have a few sales under your belt, think about attending a few clothing industry trade shows and trying to network with larger retailers.

2. Set up an online shop

If you choose to sell clothing online, you can do so either by selling clothes directly through your website or by joining an online marketplace, like Etsy or Amazon. Often, you’ll need high-end photos of your product, accurate listing descriptions and an understanding of the platform’s SEO basics in order to get started with this method.

Here, it’s important to match the channel to your target audience and your brand. Research how your ideal consumer is doing their shopping and how they want to buy from you. However, also be sure to consider your current budget and plan to scale.

9. Market your brand

As soon as you’ve distributed your products, your focus should turn to marketing your brand so you can start selling. Marketing can happen in a multitude of ways — in fact, it’s usually best to use multiple strategies in order to have a better chance of reaching your target customers. 

However, to avoid biting off more than you can chew, stick to one or two marketing efforts at a time and perfect them before adding more channels. Here are a few suggestions on where you may want to start:

10. Analyze and grow your business

Launching your clothing line is just the beginning. Truly successful businesses will learn from what works and what doesn’t to grow their businesses accordingly. Here’s how to make it work:

Analyze your business metrics

Monitor data like the following:

Get feedback

Encourage your customers to leave reviews and give you feedback on their purchases. Make note of any complaints that you keep hearing and try to solve any pain points that they say occur during the production process.

Scale your clothing line over time

Scaling your business won’t happen overnight. It’s best to start small and grow over time as your sales numbers show that expanding makes sense.

Here are a few small ways you can test out the waters: