fashion
How does it all work before the clothing gets out for sale
and in other words, what is the science behind opening
your own clothing line?
You can either be a custom designer and do designs for the
individual when needed or, you can be the designer who goes
into production and tries to get your clothing into the stores. It
takes lots and lots of money or investors. Investors won’t invest
unless you have capital and you can’t get capital unless you
have sold. It is a hard, hard career to get into. If you decide to
go into production you can either use the production houses in
the United States or internationally. They are both equally hard
and filled with challenges. That is such a loaded question that I
tell all designers that are starting out, if you do not understand
how a business works you won’t make it. This is a business first
and foremost and you will make a lot of costly mistakes that can
bury you. It is hard to know unless you know the individual and
their creations. It all comes back to knowing your clients and
what market you want to get into. One of the biggest mistakes a
young designer makes is getting investors and not realizing that
they sold their name along with taking the money. Talk with all
types of designers and you will see this mistake plays out all over
the place in every country. It doesn’t matter. No investor will
invest their money without the name.
Is there a smart way to make money or save money with
being a designer?
The best answer I can give to this question is; know your market.
YOU MUST know who you are selling your clothing to and
what they will pay for clothing. If you don’t, you will lose a lot of
money very quickly.
Your designs won our Début’s cover and especially our
hearts. Tell us a little bit about shooting this spread.
In terms of shooting the spread, I turned it over to the
professionals. Everyone on the team knew I wanted to see Paris
in the photos and that was their only requirement. When I put
this together, I had to let a lot of the control go as I would not
be able to be there. So I put my trust in the team to do the best
job they could and I believe they did with all that I gave them to
work with. They are an awesome group of people and I plan on
using them always for my shoots if I can. It is important when
you put your trust in people you pick the right ones. I did!