Posts filed under 'Production'
I figure a good place to start talking about planning the Fall ’11 collection is to just start listing some of the things that I need to start getting together NOW and the things that I need to make sure stay on my radar the whole time.
Get it together
Literally – I want a collection that goes together. No matter how many styles I settle on for the final collection, they must be cohesive. Cohesiveness matters to more than just the look and feel of my collection- it matters to my overall brand building and my bottom line. If you are a small, just-starting-out business, then you are going to want to maximize your buying ability. You will want to use the same fabric in more than one style – this will help ensure you can ‘make the cut’ (meet the minimum yardage required by the supplier).
To get it together, I’m starting with a theme. I feel incredibly lucky to have been struck by a theme idea when I was doodling the other night. Right now, there is nothing solid behind my theme idea – but it gives me ideas for discovery. I’m starting with a combination of two keywords – those keywords are already inspiring me to look at fashions, cinema, movie posters, etc. from certain eras. They are basically a great starting point for exploring. Just an idea to kick-start your theme hunt – try random keywords together, jot down words that strike your fancy.
Plan, plan, plan
Right now – I’m gathering some discovery tools (sketchbooks, color books, reference books) and hashing out a broad time line for the production of my collection. From there, I can layer my marketing and sales plans on top of the production plan. To start your production plan, work backwards from your launch date (selling season for Fall collections is late Jan/early February through May; shipping starts end of July; of course, nothing is ever set in stone) and set at least the following milestone dates:
- Salesman’s samples complete
- Trade show booth (and/or marketing materials) complete
- Website/wholesale ordering information complete
- Sample (production or technical kits) dropped for assembly
- Sample fabrics ordered (I have a lot to share about sourcing in the next couple of weeks)
- Final patterns approved
- At least two cycles of: pattern design, test sample for fit, fit meetings, pattern edits, test sample for fit….etc.
- Technical Sketches complete
- Styles approved for pattern-making
- Final style meeting
- Fabrics sourced
- Logo, website, and stationary design underway
- Collection theme finalized
Keeping on my radar
So much goes into just developing a collection, that it’s easy for me to let a lot of the “launching a business” activities get pushed to the side. I will keep bookkeeping activities on my radar daily. Stay on top of your bookkeeping from the very beginning, if you can manage. In addition, I have to constantly and consistently work on your branding, pr, and marketing –>both the plans and implementation. We just wrapped up a new logo design today – I’ll need it on my hang tags and care labels, website and marketing materials, email signatures, social media site avatars, website, and on and on. This time around, I promise to keep the trade show booth design and trade show schedule on my radar from the beginning too. Also – supporting my sales rep by providing them with pre-launch information and sneak peeks at the collection.
Ok – enough to do right now and more than enough to keep on my radar, I think I just made myself dizzy!!
May 20th, 2010
Up, down, round ‘n round; wee heee loooptees on my daily roller coaster. Every day in this business there are fires (rush order for big important client is running late) and there are flowers (someone you know mentioning they saw your product featured in a national magazine).
Yesterday, I got final confirmation from this fantastic woman that she definitely wants to rep our baby line. This was particularly thrilling because I really feel right her, and right about bringing her on board; lord knows I’ve been praying for help in the sales department. And more importantly, I feel we are good for her too, we have so much room for growth. That was in the morning. That was a whole bouquet of blooming flowers.
The day was busy.
Late afternoon, I had an appointment with the blanket sewing contractor. They want to raise the prices on every single little aspect of the manufacturing process – to such exhorbant rates -, that I spent most of the appointment with either my jaw on the floor, or giggles of disbelief escaping my mouth. But I kept my cool, shared my perspective, and left saying I would look it over, price it out, and see what the helllllllllll we are going to do now. That’s was a three-alarm fire.
Did you know that there are some flowers that only bloom after a fire has heated their seed pods to a temperature high enough to makes them pop out their seeds? Maybe it’s plants, but flowers works better here…
So, that fire blew over me and honestly, I went from thinking it could be the death of a product line to discovering options I didn’t even know existed. Thank you crazy contractor for having such an extreme moment that it pushed me to look for a new way. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Things are going to get so much better…
Have fun on your roller coaster today (it’s a thrill ride we are on by choice), remember to stop and smell the flowers (sometimes we don’t pat ourselves enough on the back for how far we’ve come), and most importantly, keep a fire extinguisher buckled in the seat next to you!
February 10th, 2010
I feel like I’ve been taken to the cleaners by a used car mechanic, only it was a pattern grader. The fit for the original sample size is great, it’s as the pattern gets bigger that it has problems. Mainly in the sleeve length. Everything else seems to be graded ok, but by the time the pattern gets up to a size 6x, the sleeves are almost 5 inches short.
This guy has since gone out of business, and thank goodness I only tried him out with one pattern. But it’s still a waste of money and time. It might have been a waste of money and time anyways because of course I want to change the pattern. Just call me never satisfied.
So why didn’t I notice the grading issue sooner? Mainly because we only produced two small sizes for the first production run. At that point, the original size was a good fit and the sleeve issue on the one size up was, I guess, imperceptible. Now I want to produce another run w/ the larger sizes too and just happened to make a sample in my daughter’s size. It was as if the sleeves had shrunk, and I was shocked. I’m happy we didn’t have them made, especially considering I pretty much just assumed the grading was right on.
This really drove home for me how important it is to double-check everything and also how important it is to gain enough knowledge to know what you are double-checking. If anyone knows any tricks for verifying that a pattern has been graded correctly, can you share??
February 4th, 2009
Sometimes after you’ve gone through something and left it far behind, you forget what it was like to go through that experience for the first time. Enter our first contractor experience.
It was going to be our first season – I had all the pieces in place, the sample fabrics I needed and the patterns I needed. One tiny little issue was that I was running late in the season – but, not a big deal, starting small, only need a couple of salesman’s samples to make it to market.
Well, the Big Deal was that being late in the season ensured all the *good* sewing contractors were good ‘n busy. Including the ones who were recommended by my pattern maker. I thought, ok – I’ll find someone by calling around, just like I found the pattern maker. So I started calling and finally got the number of a lady who had some experience with children’s apparel.
Called her and she was available. YES!
So, I went and met with her, showed her my patterns and she said she could do it. I was so clueless at this point that I took her the whole rolls of fabric. Expecting her to do the cutting. She didn’t say anything except “OK”. Here’s the mistakes I made, which, by the way, are mistakes that any respectable contractor wouldn’t even have let me make:
- Dropping off the rolls, instead of the cut pieces – why in the world she was ok with this, I have no idea. My current sewing contractor wouldn’t even consider the idea of doing the cutting. He does the sample making and handles the production.
- Not providing prototypes. I expected her to make the samples from the pattern and fabric swatches alone. Everything that you hand over, to any contractor along the stage, has to be VERY CLEAR and VERY ORGANIZED. I had patterns, with fabric swatches attached to the spec sheet, in the order they were supposed to go in (from left to right, staple the fabrics that are used in the item – self, contrast, trim – to the top right corner of your spec sheet). By the time I’m ready for salesman’s samples, I should have a few prototypes to hand over to my sample maker. Basically, give your contractors as many tools as possible to make the job as easy as possible.
- Did I mention I was late in the fashion season cycle? It should have been a red flag to me that she was even available. (I say this because she was a small shop – I’m sure there are large job shops that can handle rush orders). So, with her doing the cutting on top of the sample making, on top of whatever the heck else she had going on, ended up being a disaster.
Now that I’ve owned up to my part, I get to say that she was the worse contractor I’ve worked with yet. Not only did my stuff come back 6 weeks late (yes you read that right), but about 50% of them came back basically re-designed. Different trim on items, even self and contrast backwords. I can attribute some of this to not providing the sample, but why in the world wouldn’t you call and say “you need to come down and show me what you want”?
Needless to say by now, that season didn’t happen – at all. I still have some of those damn samples like a big gray cloud over my head and the kicker is, now that I’m doing a few cash ‘n carry shows, I’m actually selling them off (the few that were made correctly). So, in the end, those things have given me confidence in my designing ability again. That something I designed a few years ago is selling well today. The colors are even still “hot”…which is pretty amazing to me.
I remember being so nervous making those first calls to pattern makers and sewing contractors. I think I was nervous enough that I let it hold me back from asking a million questions. At that point, I was still worried about being new, so I’d work it up in my head to more than it was. Remember this through the entire process – asking questions is a sign of strength, the more you know about something, the more you’ll ask about it.
My current contractor is brilliant, was recommended by my pattern maker, and is patient enough with all my newbie mistakes to help me learn as I go along. I’d love to hear some other experiences, as I’m sure we could all learn from each other’s contracting dramas.
I forgot to mention my poor husband had to go down to the contractor’s when the samples were finally “complete”, so he didn’t even know what was right or wrong (I didn’t provide him with prototypes either). He counted the number of items, handed over the money, scooped up our daughter and the extra fabric, and away he went. And her parting words were “don’t forget about the little people”.
It’s definitely an experience I’m happy to have behind me. But I learned a zillion things about manufacturing, working with people, project management, and setting expectations. And not being late in the season!!!
June 1st, 2007
I’m about to do something you are not supposed to do – I’m about to go through a production run before taking a ton of orders. I’m only doing this because I have a good basis for knowing that this item will sell & because I’ve already opened my big mouth and sold a few, and I don’t want to make them myself. Here’s the reasons I’m doing this:
- This item generates interest everytime someone sees it; this item has already sold and has sold to people who are willing to wait a few weeks for it.
- I have orders for it – not enough orders for a full-production run, but enough to know it’s a hot item.
- I want to be able to offer this on our website without having to make any of them just because I’m waiting for enough wholesale orders to place a production run.
- The fabrics are limited-edition and I already have the fabric in-stock, and people love it.
- The sewing contractor has made the salesman samples, so I have the production quote and we can afford to do this.
- It would be a good experience to go through a production run.
I think that if I didn’t already have the fabric, then it wouldn’t even be a consideration. But, since I already committed no-no number one and bought the fabric before I got the orders, and I now definitely know people love it and will pay the price for it, and I DO already have some orders for it – so I’m going to go for it.
May 15th, 2007
I actually took two days off and enjoyed a weekend. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I had down-time like that, but I really needed it. Really, really, really needed it. And it was just enough time that I’m not freaking out about stuff piling up too much. I feel I can get focused and figure out what I need to do next.
We need to tackle a project schedule for Baby Celebration ASAP. That’s two months out, so we have a chance to make the schedule a little more realistic, especially if we stick with it.
There are blankets that need to go into production from last week’s tradeshow. We’re spreading out around the country; and we’re in some great luxury locations like Steamboat, CO and Scottsdale, AZ.
The fashion line is fun and my cutie pants sets sold really well. But they wanted them now! (here’s a huge lesson I learned at the tradeshow – the buying trends are changing drastically, so we need to talk about this. It also makes sense to me why fabrics are sold out by the time you place an order for production. Changing consumer trends in turn changes the manufacturers buying trends. It’s much more of a “want it now; get it now” mentality.)
So, since I was following good manufacturing processes and selling based on samples, I still have to get the cutie pants pattern graded and the pant sets out to these boutiques in three weeks. But I wasn’t about to miss the sale. The bummer for me is that my ex-pattern grader went out of business. So, I have to call my industry friends and locate a pattern grader who will work a small order on the fly. Then we have to get the fabrics cut, to the sewing contractor, and get them shipped in three weeks.
At least I already have the fabric, that’s some stress off.
I heard some of you did great at KIDShow last week! Congratulations to all of you and thank you for contacting me. I love hearing from you. I’ve also changed commenting settings so that you no longer have to register, which I think wasn’t working at all. So, please jump in and share ideas. There are more than a few of us in the midst of this together, and it’d be great for us all to “chat”.
February 19th, 2007
Woah. The Thanksgiving weekend is behind us. I had grandiose plans of using some of the down time doing some designing. But that didn’t really happen. Some in my head, which is where it all begins anyway. But for Fall 2007, I need to get in touch with my pattern maker today and let her know some stuff is coming. And then I have to figure out what stuff is coming.
Last week was all about rushing a wholesale order for a great boutique in a high traffic area of San Diego. They’ve got a fabulous display blanket hanging in their store and they couldn’t be happier.
I highly recommend the book “The Irresistable Offer”, it’s good. If I wasn’t so lazy right now, I’d look up the author. I feel like I now have an irresistable offer for boutiques when I walk in for the appointment, and an irresistable offer means can’t-turn-it-down. It took me until the end of last week to figure out all the details.
Just go just go just go. I think this needs to be my mantra because that’s really how I learn the most. You have to just go and talk to people to find out what their questions are going to be. You have to just jump into the vendor / supplier phone calls to find out what information they are going to need from you, to even learn what questions you are supposed to ask. But reading and research are still very valuable.
I find that what I read doesn’t make complete sense until I have real life experiences to match. Reading that suppliers and vendors will ask what you’re making – always if they’re good – is different than having the conversations. And it has nothing to do with wanting your designs; it has to do with saving you time and getting you exactly what you need. So they won’t show me silks and unwashable trims when I need jersey. And also, so they can suggest some cool stuff I might not even know about.
Referrals are as valuable as research. If you find a contractor that you love, who consistently performs well and does beautiful work, ask them for a referral to their colleagues. They will not stake their name on someone they don’t believe in, and thus the referral is likely very good. I caution that you should seek referrals from someone after you’ve seen their work, not just based on their reputation. I found my pattern maker by a stroke of luck, called a pattern maker who was listed in the yellow pages. She was going out of business, but had heard of another pattern maker in the area who was good. (This wasn’t a reliable referral yet – I hadn’t seen anyone’s work, but it was a phone number and contact name).
Called the pattern maker, had her make and adjust a few patterns (our cost for children’s patterns runs anywhere from $30 – $75 depending on complexity and number of pieces – adjustments have been around $10). Pattern maker turned out to be excellent. Our sewing contractor is a referral from her, and our cutter is a referral from the sewing contractor. Find one piece and you can find the others is the point here. Just call and call and call. And read Kathleen Fasanella’s posts at www.fashion-incubator.com on recognizing good patterns, because that’s huge too. You need to know that what you are getting is well-done.
One more tip on finding contractors: give them ONE or TWO samples to work up first. Yes, you should expect to pay for this. But don’t dump a bunch of work on someone you haven’t tried out already. We made this mistake with a random sewing contractor and it cost us big time, every sample came back wrong – weeks late. Referrals and testing, referrals and testing.
I’m really going to try to update this blog every day so I can keep on top of the fall schedule. Which means contacting our pattern maker and lining up a meeting with her. And getting the number of pieces ironed out and what they will be. Now the pressure’s on, we’ll see if I have the designing mind I think I do.
November 27th, 2006
