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Garment, from idea to customer?

kappy

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I have a large interest in clothing and I always want to learn more. This is something that I haven't read anywhere and I think that it would be very interesting to see what people here have to say, as I know that you can find alot of people here who works in the industry, and therefore have "real" answers.

As my topic says, I wonder about the process from idea to finished garment in the customers hands, what steps there are, difficulties, how different companies work (everything from huge-quantity brands like H&M compared to top-of-the-line brands like Thom Browne/whatever)

Some things I'm especially interested in knowing is how brands work with pricing and markups. For instance, how do resellers work with markups, do they differ or is there a codex in the branch that says a certain amount is often used etc? How do it differ between different brands?

How do brands (designers) find fabrics and tailors to make the garments the way they want? I guess this is a struggle every new brand have. Differences between high/low-priced brands in production?

Right now im starting to get tired, so I can't come up with any more ideas. I would hope that this thread would grow, with the purpose that we could discuss the industry and share our thoughts.
 

dibadiba

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As someone who's currently in the process of starting a brand, there's a LOT to learn.
One thing you have to take into account how much of each material you're buying.
For example, almost every tannery I talked to overseas in Italy, France, etc requires 500 sq/ft per color, minimum (for leather). For a new designer, this will probably be a lot more than you need so you're forced to find smaller tanneries willing to do smaller minimums.
If you're in an area where you don't have access to mills, tanneries, fabric sources etc locally (such as myself), there's a lot of trial and error sourcing fabrics and materials. It's hard to get a real feel for things until you have them in your hands.

Hope that helps with one aspect, I'm sure a bunch of others can chime in on the other points you brought up.
 

bbhewee

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I'm in the industry myself, as sourcing and production manager for an independent clothing brand. With regards to mark-ups, the rule of thumb for mid-market brands is x2 from cost to wholesale and anything from x2.5 to x2.8 from wholesale to retail.

With regards to production, you can find CMT facilities where you basically bring your own fabric and they manufacture. Other factories are willing to source the fabric or weave/knit fabric according to your specs. There are minimum requirements for dyeing, etc... But there are work-arounds, such as garment dyeing after you've used the same greige across styles, etc...
 

kappy

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Originally Posted by dibadiba
text
How do you find all these smaller tanneries in italy? How do you contact them etc?

Originally Posted by bbhewee
text.

Same question to you, how do one find a CMT facility or bigger factories who know what they are doing? I guess one will have to order samples and try them all out, but do people start out on places like alibaba.com, there should be easier places to find these contacts?
 

adidasfan

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i am also looking at starting my own label.

i think that could be a whole other website just devoted to 'how to make a small/niche clothing label'
 

dibadiba

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Originally Posted by kappy
How do you find all these smaller tanneries in italy? How do you contact them etc?
hours upon hours of research. if you're local to them, hit up the trade shows. if you've got money, fly to one of the trade shows. lineappelle, le cuir a paris, etc
 

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