New Ideas for a New Business

I recently took a continuing education course at F.I.T. called How to Plan, Style, and Merchandise Your Apparel Line. It was a 2 day course that covered everything I wanted to know about how to get samples made, manufactured, and sold into stores. I'm so glad I took this course because I finally have all the answers to all the questions I had. I've been trying to get these questions answered by people working in the industry, but the people I've met have limited experiences and were not able to answer my questions. The process of creating a product and taking it to market seems less daunting, since I now have an idea of what it takes.

The course also included a guest speaker who teaches the Global Sourcing class at FIT. It was a great lecture that provided us with lots of resources to help us find sample making and manufacturing capabilities overseas.

Lately, I've been getting some ideas on potential products I can create. I know I will be going into fashion and will eventually create my own fashion line, but until then, I am hoping to create a simpler product that can take me from where I am right now to owning a sustainable business that will provide quality eco-friendly products for people, but also will bring in enough revenue to help fund my fashion design line.

What I discovered is that you should not expect to make a profit in fashion for the first few years. Imagine not knowing this and going into it expecting your new line to support you and pay for your living expenses. That would not be good. At least now I understand that quite a bit of capital is needed to start a line and I will need to find additional ways to support myself financially until the business starts to bring in profits.

I plan on starting with selling hand-made items until I have some more cash, or a business loan, to start my bigger ventures. Meanwhile, I'll have to juggle classes and currently my internship. We'll see how it all pans out. I'm enjoying myself learning how to make new things and learning a lot through my classes! I just recently learned how to draw and render fashion sketches. You can check out my design blog of all my design and craft related work. I will be posting things once I have photos of everything.