Where Do Quality Brands Get Their Patterns?

 

Welcome Message

Want to start a fashion brand, but don’t like the idea of losing your shirt? Man and Sewing Machine will show you the safe way!

Post by post, I will show you the steps I took building my brand, so that you can follow, in your own inimitable fashion.  

 

Today’s Post

Where do clothing brands get their patterns?

It’s a bit of trick question, because quality brands don’t “get” them, as such. They make them, or have them made. It's the main reason that everything a quality brand sells, is consistent in size.

The temptation is great though, to grab patterns in an expedient way. Brands that do it, invite discrepencies between garments and size charts, and erode consumer confidence. Brands that build trust, do so by procuring their patterns in the ways this post will describe.

 

Pattern Piracy

Have you ever made two online purchases, from the same brand, only to find the second thing you bought from them was bigger or smaller, although both were supposed to be the same size? One of the reasons this happens, is that instead of making all their own patterns, with the same basic measurements as their starting point, a lot of brands get into the practice of scraping together patterns from any old source. Pirated, mostly, these patterns circulate throughout the fashion industry, with little regard for intellectual property rights, and no regard for consistency, when it comes to their sizing.

It is too pervasive a practice for me to think I can stop you from having any part in it. What I will do, is warn you of the long-term brand damage you will be causing yourself, even if your piracy is never exposed. The problem, as I’ve said, concerns sizing. There are processes designers and brands have available to them, that ensure repeat customers have no nasty surprises, like buying something in a size that fit them the first time they bought something from you, only to find that something else they have bought from you is too big or too small. 

I’m not saying you should be concerned about patterns for scrunchies, neck-ties, or little things like those, for which there are public realm patterns and no consequences if sizes aren’t perfect. I have never heard of anyone condemning a brand, because their pony tail slipped from a scrunchie!

I am referring to patterns for your primary offerings, the things you hope to be known for. It is all-too tempting, to take shortcuts when procuring these patterns.  

 

How Patterns Get Pirated

It can be tempting, for instance, to buy items on clearance, in sizes XS, S, M, L and XL, and meticulously pick them apart. You would just have to glue the fabric pieces to cardboard, and voila: you would have a full range of pirated patterns, ready to start cutting and sewing.

Rather than doing the pirating yourself, you might buy stock from a pirate, and pretend you didn’t know how they came to possess such an enormous collection of patterns. Take the overseas factory, or local agent for an overseas factory, with a vast catalogue of patterns to choose from. They will tell you they are all free to use, so long as you’re purchasing from them. But where do you think each of those patterns originated? Typically, a client of that factory, before you, will have invested hundreds, if not thousands, in having that pattern developed. The factory only had the pattern on loan, for the sole purpose of fulfilling that client’s particular order. They were not at liberty to make copies, so that their next client, you, could bypass the cost of design work. But that is precisely the liberty factory owners will take, when they’re in a country where there is not any recourse.

If they have been pirated in digital form, patterns sell like pirated software, on every variety of digital platform. I heard from a friend in the business, that just months after having her specially designed `infants’ pants manufactured in China, her pattern was selling for a few bucks, on a website hosted in China.

Stealing or receiving patterns belonging to others, might seem harmless enough before you’re making products to sell, but it will come back to bite you, long term. The threat of being sued for millions of dollars, while grave, is so slight I know no one would care. The real cost, is that of not taking the opportunity that exists to do everything properly, using methods I'm about to outline.  

 

Pattern Blocks

If you or an employee knows how to use them, and you plan on creating many designs, a set of pattern blocks will ensure customers get garments that fit them, as you add dozens, if not hundreds of styles, to your brand’s range.  

Image Source:

 https://www.lafashionsource.com/single-post/2018/06/28/patternmakers-how-to-choose-and-work-with-the-best 

Blocks can seem like expensive pieces of cardboard, when they are not even patterns that are ready to use. They don’t have seam allowances or notches, and without lots of manipulation, only give you the most basic styles. What you get for your money, are templates from which you can draft an infinite variety of patterns, across a complete size range, and in any imaginable style. Every garment you sell, that has its genesis with your block set, whether that garment is pleated, darted, flared, gathered, baggy or close fitting, will be true to your brand’s size.

I say “your” brand’s size, because there is no such thing as a universal, or even a national standard. There are no platinum mannequins in museums in Paris, like there are for the metric one-meter! This is something I find myself having to explain to my customers, when, for example, ones asks if my size 10, is a “real” size 10. The truth, is no “real” 10 exists. In your case, if you invest in and keep using one set of blocks, your 10 will be the 10 of those blocks. At least you will be able to say, that unlike the brand that grabs pirated patterns, your 10 is your 10, across all of your styles.

Size Charts

If you only ever work from one set of blocks, you will be able to provide your customers with a true size chart. A size chart will come with your blocks, from which you will able to take information, and make a size chart for your webstore and/or catalogues. Any customer capable of measuring themselves, will be able to refer to it, and know exactly what size they should buy from your brand, regardless of the item they want.

My Own Dependable, True, Honest, Not Faked, Size Chart: https://prideswim.com.au/pages/size-chart

Brands that take whatever patterns they’re able to get their hands on, have no idea what measurements any of their pieces are made for. It probably wouldn’t matter if all they were selling were baggy sarongs, but good luck to them if they ever try to sell something that’s fitted!

The stakes are higher again when you’re making compression garments from elastic stretch fabric. In my case, that has meant the next step up the quality ladder from blocks.

 

Digital Pattern Making

There are pattern blocks you can buy for stretch fabric, but since no two stretch fabrics perform the same way, they’re useless for the shape-control swimsuits I specialise in with my business. Standard swimwear fabric has more give, and stretches further, than the heavy-duty shape control fabric I use. If I had used standard stretch blocks for my swimsuits, customers would have found them impossibly small, a problem that would only have been compounded by the fact that I use the same heavy fabric for front and back lining. Matters are complicated even more by the up-and-down (warp) stretch of my fabric, which is especially limited compared to cheap fabric. And if that’s not enough, I like bagged out (some would say “seamless”) front seams. These a kind of trapeze act, with lining and outer self-fabric, balanced on a high wire of rubber inside.

Customers who try my suits on, invariably buy them. For older women especially, it comes as a revelation to see that a swimsuit could have such even compression and such a smooth look. That comes about because each pattern I use, was made to correspond to the particular stretch of the fabric I’ve chosen.

It is a job I have done by a specialist with many years serving premium swim brands, and expertise in computer aided (Lectra) pattern making. Patterns I commission from her are among my largest expenses, but save me spending on advertising. No advertisement can tell people what word-of-mouth can, that a Pride swimsuit will fit them, and thus provide even compression.

To save myself haemorrhaging money on patterns, I have worked with my designer to develop a modular system, that lets me mix and match bottoms, top fronts and top backs. When I expanded my range with stretch woven swimsuits, I sourced fabric with the same maximum stretch as the fabric I was using already.

Another way I have kept a reign of this expense, is by not aiming to please the whole world, by offering every imaginable style. I offer my vision of beauty, for customers who happen to share it. It’s a happy coincidence, that only making styles I personally love, means I haven’t had to commission more of these highly specialised patterns than I have been able to afford.

 

Particular Body Types

A unique feature of Lectra pattern making, is it can start with the measurements of a particular body. So, for example, if I were making swimsuits for elite swimmers, I could engage an actual elite swimmer, with her developed shoulder and lateral muscles, and make her body the starting point for my whole range.

When I eventually get around to making bike racing clothing, I will find an elite cyclist, with his skinny arms and huge thighs, and make patterns for him. When I have patterns graded across my whole size range, the biggest and smallest garments I offer, will all still have his proportions.

Image Source: https://totalwomenscycling.com/fitness/will-cycling-make-your-thighs-bigger 

I don’t believe this capacity of computer aided pattern making is being harnessed, as much as it could be, to win loyal fans to niche brands. Here’s a funny story from when I was a fan of a niche brand, targeting avid cyclists, like me. I had already been won over by the quality and fit of their race gear, when I saw they were now offering jeans. Assuming their jeans would be cut like their race nicks, with extra allowance in the bum and the thighs, I ordered the right size for my waist. But when they arrived, I found they were cut no differently to any jeans I could have purchased elsewhere. They fit perfectly around my waist, but were so tight around my big bum and fat thighs, that when I followed my son up a tree, the arse seam exploded. Well, I don’t wear boxers, you see. The only way I could get home, without being arrested, was to take off my shirt, tuck it into the waist, and wear it like a cape, hiding my shame.

All I will say, is they gave me a refund, and in fairness, we all make mistakes. I’m just writing this blog, so that you might make fewer of them, and that when you make them, they’re small.

While I am being so helpful, here’s a suggestion. Think of a rare, or unique body type, and one type of garment you might like to make for such people. I have already pointed to a possible gap in the urban bikewear market, for jeans. I studied fashion with a woman whose son had dwarfism, who was imagining a brand selling clothing for children like him. I have also mentored a brand, CinnamonCove, that have enjoyed continuing free press for their hip but modest swimwear, design by and for tweens.

What combination of rare body type and garment do you imagine? In this age of online communities and internet searching, it has a strong chance of succeeding!  

You Know What to Do!

Thank you for reading my latest blog post! Everything I have had to learn the hard way, since starting my swim brand, is pouring onto the page like checkerboard paint. 

Image source: https://www.change.org/p/sherwin-williams-make-checkered-paint-real

If it has helped you, you know what to do! Click on the following links, leave comments and share. My only rationale for sharing this knowledge, is it might drive traffic to my webstore, which, who knows, might lead to some sales!

• Webstore: Prideswim 

• on Instragram

• on TikTok

• on YouTube

• on 500px 

 

Don't Complete Courses, Just Start Them

 

A quick summary of how my swim brand came to be, can be found at my website: https://prideswim.com.au/pages/about

Welcome Message

I'm living my dream as a fashion designer, all without losing my shirt. My secret: simply making my products myself!

It’s hard to believe, even for me, that I started this venture with no knowledge of sewing or the rag trade, and without even knowing much about business. It was not without blunders, but the pieces of a puzzle fell into place. My business is working! I'm at a point now, where I can start sharing what I have learned. 

If you dream of owning your own clothing label, I want to help you do it the sustainable and ethical way. Follow this blog, and be part of the locally-made revolution in fashion.

 

A Plug For My Swimbrand

Today’s Post

How do you equip yourself with garment manufacturing skills, when you don’t even know how to sew? The first answer that might come to mind, if your mind was conditioned like mine was, is education. I don’t mean “education” in the simple sense, of learning something you needed to know. I mean capital-E Educational, with its certificates, diplomas and degrees.

Speaking as someone with three degrees (a PhD included), and fifteen years in executive and academic positions at institutions established to confer these awards, I can tell you without bias, that no paper qualification can ever qualify you as a manufacturer, at least not of clothing, and probably not anything else. I mean, show me a factory, with frames on the walls, displaying degrees!

But what if educational institutions, have skills and knowledge you’re wanting to learn? Is there any way of extracting that knowledge, without paying extra for some useless award? As a former insider, and cunning student, I’m going to answer that question right now.

Robin Hood Claim

Coming from someone who said in his introduction, that I'm encouraging ethics in fashion, advice in this post may come across as hypocrisy. I have two answers to that. One, I am hypocritical, often, and would be a fool to deny it. Two, I object to government backed educational institutions, being allowed to charge fees. Our grandparents, through their taxes and laws, allowed those institutions to flourish, so we all might benefit from a motivated and skilled workforce. Our ancestors didn't build them so governments could disguise jobless figures and use colleges for revenue raising. If that is how they are going to run things, it is fitting, I think, that those of us using these institutions in the manner our ancestor intended, exploit every loophole, to avoid fees.

Courses are front-loaded with teaching

The first thing to know about most courses, is that their first one or two thirds (e.g., the first 4 to 8 weeks of a 12-week program of teaching) contains all their best lectures, tutorials and demonstrations. Toward the end, teachers—like their students—begin to fatigue. But even teachers whose energy is boundless, switch focus near the end of a course, from teaching their students, to assessing what their students have learned.

If you’re doing a course to gain skills, in order to run your own business, you should ask yourself if you have any interest in being assessed. You’re not going to go into business, telling your customers they’re lucky to be buying from you, because you're someone who scored excellent grades. In fact, unless you’re studying fashion at the Institut Français de la Mode, or some school like that in Paris, you’re unlikely to have cause to tell customers, that you graduated at all.

So why graduate? Honestly: why even finish a course? Why not take the learning component, then flee?

The way I see it, mature-age students, scooping up skills to start their own businesses, rather than chasing degrees, have more important things to be doing with their time, than seeing courses through to the end. The end is the bit with no teaching, just judgement from irrelevant judges. Perhaps even more importantly, for those saving their pennies to get start-ups through those first vulnerable years, is that the last few weeks of most courses, are the weeks that cost the most to attend.

Courses are back-loaded with fees.

This brings me to the second thing to know about courses, which is that enrolment prices can more than double, per session, beyond certain cut-off dates. Students who are there for pieces of paper, never look at those dates. Students with no interest in paper, who are there purely to learn, should have those dates blazoned all over their homes.

I’ll start with the example of New South Wales technical colleges. Their students are billed half the cost of their courses at the beginning of Week-1, and the remaining half at the beginning of Week-13. (Though I haven't looked beyong my own state, I would not be surprised if this billing sequence were common). 

From the institution’s point of view, waiting until week 13 would make sense, if courses went for 26 weeks. They don’t though. Courses are 18 weeks in duration. That means students pay just as much to attend in the final 6 weeks (when class time is mostly assessment), as they pay for Weeks-1 to 12 (when class time is devoted to learning). The student who remembers to withdraw at the end of Week-12, enjoys nearly all of the learning contained in a course, for half that course’s advertised price.

As for Australian universities, they’re even easier to wrangle. Students who play their cards right, can take the best, leave the worst, and not pay a cent for the privilege. The trick is to always withdraw, at the end of Week 4.

Bills for university courses only get issued to students who are enrolled on the first day of Week 5. Students who withdraw on or after that day, are liable for the full course fee. Students who withdraw at the end of Week-4, are liable for no fee at all. 

If four weeks doesn't seem like a enough, keep in mind, lectures in most courses only run for 12 weeks. 4 weeks is one third! When you consider that all the best lectures come at the start, 4 weeks starts looking like a half or two thirds.  

If there is a university in your city with vocational courses, that you believe will help you with your business, you should enrol in as many as you possibly can. Greedily devour every lecture and tutorial, and schedule face-to-face meetings with teachers. Just remember, to “withdraw without penalty”, at the end of Week 4.

There is every likelihood you will be able to keep in there, as a high maintenance student—putting your hand up during lectures with personal questions, and knocking on lecturers’ doors—right up until the end of semester. That is because staff aren’t on the lookout for people like you. Their usual concern are students who just want a degree, but who would skip every class if they could. Someone whose priority is learning, who wouldn’t want the degree even for wrapping their chips in, would be such an enigma, that some universities might never wise up to their continuing participation in courses from which they have withdrawn.

That said, you might not want to hang around after Week-4, when you realise you have heard the best lectures. The first 4 lectures are usually the ones that got prepared in advance, before courses got started. The remaining 8 lecturers, are often prepared on the fly.   

 

What I Did, and Could Still Do.

I did the first 12 weeks of a fashion certificate, and pulled out before paying the remaining half of the course fee. I wasn’t going to pay double, for the honour of being assessed, or hang about for another 6 weeks, when the first 12 weeks were the weeks that had all the instruction.

The last 6 weeks looked like they were going to be torture. The first 12 were everything I could have possibly hoped for. I got 36 days of incredible instruction, from expert teachers, in a room kitted with all manner of industrial sewing machines.

As someone who had never touched any kind of sewing machine before this, I can’t imagine achieving what I have in these years, without the learning I acquired during the first two-thirds of that course. As well as learning many of the basics of sewing, cutting, design-drawing, pattern making, and industry standards, I learned how to speak with suppliers, with the right jargon, so they would not see me as someone who they could rip off.

I would like to do another such course, in a technical college, but next time would like to manipulate the welfare system, to get the course totally free. Whatever tasks I was set, I would complicate or bend them, knowing that tinkering with fabric and sewing machines, can often result in new products. I would expect, too, that new skills and techniques that I would otherwise not even try to acquire, could be brought to the design of new swimsuits. As well as being open to design innovation, I would be open to what relationships with classmates or teachers might bring me. You never know when you might be talking to your next business partner!

Something else I would like to do, if ever I were living in Melbourne, is enrol in courses in fashion, at RMIT. No doubt I would be left yawning at a lot of the ideological madness. Amidst that though, I expect there could be some real food for thought, for someone who likes thinking, like I do. As long as I kept my promise to myself, to withdraw by the end of Week-4, I could get a lot from the first four weeks of a few dozen RMIT fashion courses.

My ever-popular boy-leg swimming costume

The Wrap

Feel free to dismiss that last paragraph, as a swipe at universities, by a disgruntled former academic. What you shouldn’t dismiss, is your opportunity to infiltrate universities, for knowledge, networks, connections, or simply cheap drinks on Wednesday evenings in town (those student I.D. cards are issued before you become liable to pay fees).

Technical colleges have more useful instruction, that you will need to pay for, but if you follow my advice, you can get it half price.

What no educational institution will teach you, is how to manufacture garments for sale. As a for-instance, they will have you sewing with pins, something you will later only do when prototyping or making bespoke pieces, but would rarely do when repeatedly making garments, or mass-producing garments, for sale.

Neither are they able to teach you highly specialised or recent techniques, that may be expected in the niche you are planning to enter. The technical college where I studied, could not have taught me how to tape seams in rainwear, make sportswear or intimates with welded seams, meter rubber in swimwear, or even do flat locking, a technique that is ubiquitous in the activewear market.  

I didn’t get the skills I required to make quality swimwear, without a lot of smooth talking, a lot of tips from suppliers, a year of trial and error, and touch of industrial espionage. If you are reading Man and Sewing Machine, because you want to start a fashion venture, and be your own manufacturing partner, my tricks that worked, and that failed, will be the subjects of following blog posts.

Also find me:

• Online at Prideswim 
• on Instragram
• on TikTok
• on YouTube
• on 500px 

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It's Never Too Early to Invest in Machines

 

Welcome Message

Thank you for visiting Man and Sewing Machine, a blog by a man sewing swimwear.

From not even knowing how to handle a bobbin, I have built a made-in-house swim brand, that is showing no signs of going broke yet!

 

Today’s Post

I suspect today's topic, machinery, will be of little interest to the average reader, but of great interest to anyone reading because they too, dream of starting a clothes brand. For that reason, I will address it to those of you in that second group. 

I am going to tell you how to ascertain what machinery you are going to need, to manufacture the particular garment you are planning to launch with. Based on my own experience, I will point you toward the people who will be most willing to help you.

In the process, I will mention one of the most important supplier relationships a clothes brand, that manufacturers for itself, will ever develop, and that is the one they will have with their mechanic. Not only will a friendly mechanic help when them when they bust a machine. Mechanics get brands connected. No one knows more members of a city's rag trade than that city's mechanic. Befriend a mechanic and boom: any brand will be an instant insider of their city's garment manufacturing cluster.

 

Don’t Buy Domestic Equipment

So, you dream of starting a fashion brand and know (thanks to my first post) that it’s better to manufacture yourself, than it is to go broke. But you’re probably like me when I started, and know nothing about industrial sewing.

My first big mistake, one I hope you will learn from, was confusing industrial and domestic sewing. I purchased a domestic overlocker and domestic cover stitch machine, from a retailer who failed to inform me that the warranties on both would be voidied, if I used them for the purpose I stated, and that is, making garments for sale.

Domestic sewing machines are designed to be carried back to the cupboard when not in use. To make them light enough for that, they have tiny motors, yes, that burn out. Worse, they have external bodies that are lighter than the moving parts inside them. The way they vibrate is not healthy or normal. It is the sound of them falling apart!

Even if you could accept the fact that they are throwaway items, you would likely find them incapable of giving your products certain specialised finishes that your competitors will be providing. 

They also make very hard work of certain processes that industrials eat for their breakfast. Compare the way you will sew hems, using the proper machine, fitted with the proper attatchment, with ways home-sewing tutorials would have you attempt to sew hems, if you were using a toy:

You might want to make garments that would be best made, with something like a waist band attacher, but discover there are no used ones for sale in your region, or that they are outside of your budget.

Don't worry in that case. With your sewing machine mechanic, and growing network of contacts, you will find out what multi-purpose machine can provide the same finished results, albeit with some fiddly manoeuvres.  

Just don't believe the commercials, claiming domestic machines can make clothes like you find in the stores.

You would have as much luck running a construction business with a swiss army knife, as you would selling clothing you had made with equipment sold for home crafting.

In the case of swimwear, I can tell you, domestic machines are a hindrance, not a help, when you are prototyping. They will have you falsely believing that you cannot sew. But in truth, it is physically impossible to make one quality swimming costume, without the right industrial gear. 

Only something called a top metering device, coupled to an industrial overlocker, can meter rubber to seams, in accordance with design specifications. Here is a photo of mine:

My overlocker with rubber meter above

And here is a video, with a little more explanation:

There are also junctions in quality swimsuits that require stitching through twelve layers of fabric and three layers of rubber, at the same time. Good luck doing that with a toy!   

When purchased brand new, industrial sewing machines are many times more expensive than machines that are made for home use. Keep in mind though, that industrial machines are made to run hot, 24/7, basically indefinitely. Because of their endurance, there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying them second hand. 

The machines in my studio are all second hand. They’re between 25 and 50 years old, are in perfect working order, and each cost me less than the domestic machines I foolishly bought to begin with.

 

How to find out what machines you will need.  

If your goal is a fashion label that makes all kinds of garments, you will literally need hundreds of specialised machines. Scroll through the websites of some major suppliers, like Juki and Pegasus. Having the capacity to properly make everything under the sun, will mean owning their entire array. You will have a greater manufacturing capacity than my whole nation, but no business.

You need a very narrow focus to start with. Buy one item of clothing, as a product sample, and set yourself the task of learning what machines were used to make it. I bought a $300 one-piece swimming costume, that my wife wore, and that I took around to show people in the industry, who could tell me its various stitches.

When I say “industry”, I don’t mean people who do alterations or make dancewear or costumes. I mean people with connections to factories. My breakthrough came when I found a Lectra patternmaker who gave me some numbers to call. 

Your own nearest connection to the world of real sewing, may be a wedding dress maker or tailor. So long as the product sample you bought, is not a wedding dress or a suit, it is likely they will be willing to help you. If not, and if it wasn’t due to you having bad manners, you can probably dismiss them as stupid. Anyone with any sense in this business, wants other sewing businesses in their city. The more sewing businesses we all have around us, the more mechanics and spare parts there will be, to support our machines.

There are two reasons for your visit to a dress maker or tailor. You want to ask them what machines were used to make the sample you’re holding, and get the phone number of their mechanic.

I bought all my machines through one mechanic, who had a warehouse full of second-hand machines, belonging to factories, that he sold on consignment. Of course, I did look online to be sure I was not overpaying, and I made inquiries to sellers of new machines, to make sure I wasn’t being sold more machines than I needed, but deep down I knew from the moment I met him, that I was dealing with a salt-of-the-earth type. In this first exchange, I wanted him to make a profit from me, knowing that, in the long term, I would most certainly profit from my association with him. 

If the mechanic you meet isn’t selling machines, pay them to help you buy second hand ones elsewhere. $500 paid to a mechanic, could easily save you $5000.

The following link should show you what second hand industrial sewing machines are currently advertised for sale in Australia.

https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-sewing-machines/industrial+sewing+machine/k0c21001?categoryRedirected=true

Any time I have looked, I have seen prices that vary dramatically, for machines that make the same stitches. For example, industrial overlockers can be advertised for between $2000 and $200. The one for $200 may be perfectly fine, but in a country town where no one from the city would travel. At the same time, the one for $2000 could have all sorts of problems, but be in the possesion of someone is happy to store it. They’re like old pianos, with their values depending on who happens to own them, as much as their working condition.

But you do want to know they work properly! That is why you will pay your mechanic to make pre-purchase inspections. 

How much should you expect to spend, in total, on machines?

Swimwear, as I said in my first blog post, requires a plethora of machines. After buying an overlocker with a rubber metering device, a cylindrical hemming machine, another overlocker converted to make spaghetti straps, a binding machine (with a new binder), a zig zag machine and a bar tacker, and paying to have them transported, my capital investment, purely on machinery used for the sewing, was over ten thousand dollars.

I imagine some people reading this blog, will not be planning on manufacturing swimwear, but refined casual and resort wear, made using linen and hemp. If it is going to be made with French seams and bias binding, it will need no more than a straight stitch machine, for the entirety of the sewing. The price for a good second hand unit, may be as little as a few hundred dollars!

"Only used domestically and very rarely in the last 26 years. Sale due to moving house."

Depending on what you will be making, this may be all that you need!

So what you will spend, really depends.

I also bought a new heat press, for neck labels, that cost me over two thousand. Don’t make the mistake I made first, with a cheap hat press I purchased on ebay; the one I bought in the end, cost over two-thousand. I also bought a new rotary cutter, for one thousand dollars, that I probably don't need, but it looks cool!

 

No Buyer’s Remorse

Once you have bought them, you can no more regret the purchase of second-hand industrial equipment, than the purchase of land. Even if this venture you are starting collapses, the machines you have bought can be sold. Let’s suppose you had taken the wide road, and paid another factory to provide you with the stock. If your fashion dream failed, you could not even give it away!

Once you have your machines, you can get started recreating the sample you purchased. It took me six months to achieve that. With help from this blog, I hope it will take you around three!

Also find me:

• Online at Prideswim 
• on Instragram
• on TikTok
• on YouTube
• on 500px 

Why I haven't sought accreditation, to prove the virtues of products I sell.

Welcome Message

Thank you for visiting Man and Sewing Machine, a blog that takes you behinds the scenes of an Australian swim brand, where everything from manufacturing to photography, is entirely conducted in-house. 

 

Today’s Post

With this post I will deal with a shortcut to gaining credibility, that every new maker of a product considers. We’re all tempted to pay for accreditation, of some sort, as if this will provide instant legitimacy to our brand. 

My opinion, is that honest producers should generally treat these as scams. I would rather build consumer trust in my own logo than sidle up to any accreditation body, whose business does not involve building physical things. What they are building, is a reputation, as something they will eventually sell. 

Accreditation is a racket, if you ask me!

Give me some money, and I will stop anyone breaking your windows. Don't give it to me, and I'll break them myself.

That's a "protection racket". 

Give me some money, and I will say your products are safe. Don't give it to me, and none of the people I have been working to frighten, will ever buy anything from you.

That is what I call an "accreditation racket".

If you have ever looked into green accreditation, professional accreditation, ethical accreditation, organic accreditation, or anything else of that sort, you would already have a sense that accreditation is an industry. In fact, it is booming, and as it keeps on expanding, it is smelling a lot like a racket.

It is sad having to lump all accreditation schemes into one basket, but there are just too many bad actors, plus, structurally, so many of them are conflicted in the same way. They subsist from fees paid to them, by the businesses they’re supposed to accredit. That makes them perversely incentivised to accredit businesses that cheat or scrape through, rather than exemplifying best practice.

My Own Experience

My own experience with accreditation (all of it conflicted, but not all of it bad), began when I was an architect. Coming from a working class background, it took me a while to get my head around professional accreditation, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification, and of course green building accreditation, as each was encountered in the course of my work. 

My experience was not just confined to one country. I was a government architect in Singapore, was registered for a very short time as an architect in Norway, and worked (if you can call it “work”) as an architectural conference presenter all over the world. The systems of accreditation I witnessed, were fundamentally the same, wherever I went. 

When I was an academic, I saw the rise and convolution of accreditation as it is imposed on curricula by universities and professional accrediting bodies. Now that I am involved in the rag trade, I’m seeing the accreditation phenomenon manifesting itself in ways that are out of control.

 

The first thing I realised, was that applicants are able to cheat.

Maybe it is because I am from a lower-than-low, working class background, that the first thing to strike me about accreditation schemes, is that they seem designed as invitations to cheat.

Anyone who has applied for accreditation, unless they were Polly Prissypants and never got in trouble at school (like I was in trouble each week) would have thought, “I could just lie! How would they know?”

Consider a type of accreditation that any first-world manufacturer would likely consider. They would likely investigate some kind of "made in [this country]" accreditation scheme, that would vouch for their made-local claim, for a fee.

The key evidence any such body is likely to seek, would be a photo of the factory where we are making our products.

You or I, because we’re nice people, would do what was required, in good faith. A cheat though, would just ask their contact person at their factory offshore, to send them a few photos from there. So long as they only chose closeups, and not photos of some vast space that would raise questions (if, say, an assessor typed the business’s address into Maps.Google.com and saw it was only a house), the cheat would be fine. It wouldn’t even matter if the photos showed all Balinese workers, since we all know factories, in the first world, are staffed by crews on temporary work visas. White folk know how to froth coffee. They don’t have the skills, for instance, to sew.

A Confession

When I first started, and my sewing machines were in my bedroom, I flirted with the idea of using the above photo on my socials, to give the impression I had a genuine factory. I bought it from a stock photo site, and can honestly say, it's the worst $5 I have ever spent. The moment I gave them my credit card details, it occured to me that anyone who didn't like me, would throw it into tineye, and I would be exposed.

 

There is Zero Policing!

If accreditation bodies had to do likewise, that is, send photos of their workplaces to us, we would know they were struggling, just keeping their lights on. If we didn’t see kitchen tables, it would be offices as shabby as those ones that get leased to tax-time accountants’. Those photos would tell us, there was no way on this earth, that those accreditors would be doing a spot-check.

And why would they? They get their money from those they accredit. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, as you don’t go policing your clients.  

The question to be asking, if you’re starting a business, is if you want to be paying for the use of these bodies’ logos, when cheats could be using them too?

In the case of locally-made accreditation, why would any of us pay anyway, when, for no fee, we can prove the same thing with videos shot on our phones! Post one a week to TikTok and voila: you just became your own accrediting body.

 

Most Accreditation is a Cynical Rort

By starting with the example of “locally made” accreditation, I have picked on a kind of accreditation body, that in my opinion, operates with all best intensions, and that is very well established, which helps. A lot of the newer accrediting organisations, I reckon, are just cynical rorts.

Any of us who have looked to have products accredited as sustainable, ethical, all natural, recycled, etc. etc., would have stumbled upon some real shonkies, working out of car boots—if not Nigerian prisons. They don’t ask for photos, just verbiage on forms. To write that verbiage, all we would need to do is steal a few buzz words, those we'll find on their own websites.   

In what universe do we imagine these accrediting bodies will actively police their own applicants, when those applicants pay them, as clients? It would be the same world where I actually stop hooligans breaking your windows. “Fairy Land”, I believe it is called.

When you see that organisation-X, requires you to be accredited by organisation-Y and Z, to obtain accreditation from X, the horror realisation comes to you, that these buggers are all in cahoots! Organisation-Y will require accreditation from X and from Z. You don't know where Q fits in the scheme, but they've got their hand out as well. Then you learn X, Y, Z, and Q, are part of some guild, which is a signatory to a charter, all of it completely made up by a hand full of schemers, whose kids are all in the same school. 

 

Why Aren’t They Illegal?

Back when I worked in highly regulated, and highly accredited industries (i.e., construction, and later, higher education) I would have looked at the accreditation rackets operating in the industry I'm now a part of, and assumed they would be illegal. However, now that I have been in the fashion industry for some time, I realise they’re a product of a laissez faire landscape.

If gaping holes are left in an architect’s education, and if buildings aren’t approved in relation to codes, users of those buildings can die, from smoke inhalation or falls. Legislation, and at least some accreditation, help reduce deaths.  

By comparison, the fashion industry is super low risk. Faulty protective clothing and children’s sleepwear can be lethal, but most types of garments can be treated as frivolous art. An industry that is allowed to shred jeans and sell cellophane ball gowns, can be forgiven, surely, if it happens to spawns a few rorts.

Conclusion.

These cynical observations have led me to the view, that my brand’s reputation, is my own responsibility to build up. I have told you how I prove to my buyers that my manufacturing has not been offshored (you can watch clips of me sewing on TikTok). 

As for my concern for the planet, that is inherent in all that I do. It's not something I would overstate though. My halo is like any Green Party parliamentarian’s halo: an insult to those living in the third world. 

It will require a whole blog post, but my biggest dilemma is my potential ignorance of human slavery, across all my supply chains. I have provided a brief note on that topic, below.

 

If you think I was an idiot, for buying that photo, I have a funnier confession: I bought this one at the same time! I guess I thought I could dye my hair brown, employ a blonde lady, and focus on felt, and the photo would be as good as any accredition, for customers looking for swimwear that was locally made. 

 

A Note on Slavery in Supply Chains

The single biggest failure of globalisation, is that unknowable quantities of human slavery, now permeate even the most Christianly homes. By latest estimates, 20% of the lithium and cobalt, in all our rechargeable batteries, gets tossed in the mix, from places using children as slaves. 

Large companies (not small ones) are required now by law to submit non-slavery declarations each year. However, with the exception of a few companies with expressed missions to fix this, most companies lodge perfunctory, two-page statements, that basically say, “We don’t know!” 

The best we can do as consumers, is to cut ALL consumption, not only of electronics, but other main culprits, like furniture, clothing, and food we haven’t personally grown.

In short, proponents of globalisation have dragged us into a seething hot mess, that seems impossible to drag ourselves out of. If you have any suggestions at all, please leave them below.

 

 Also find me:

• Online at Prideswim 
• on Instragram
• on TikTok
• on YouTube
• on 500px 

Make it Yourself. (It's the Only Way You'll Survive!)

 

 

I Did it My-y Wa-a-a-y-y-y-y! 

When I think about the unusual way I started my swim brand, and how it is still in existence, then think about the dozens of new swim brands I have seen launch in the meantime, only to disappear in six months, I get so smug that I want to start quoting the Bible: 

For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 

(Matthew 7:13-14)

The narrow road I took, was one of manufacturing my swimsuits, myself. It involved a big investment in skills and machinery, but the alternative (the wide road) would have seen me paying factories who had minimum order quantities of 100 pieces, per colour, per style. 

To launch my brand, the way those factories were suggesting, even if it was only with one bikini top, one bikini bottom, one one-piece swimming costume, and one men's style, all in just two-colour options, I would have needed to have purchased 800 items. Once you count hidden extras, that would have cost me $20,000, and that's just for starters! 

To have any hope of selling 800 pieces, given my brand would, at that stage, have been completely unheard of, I would have had to have spent, at least, another $100,000, on marketing, trade shows, advertising, photographers, models and everything else you might mention. 

Suffice to say, new brands never spend $100,000, on top of their stock. It would mean operating at a loss for ten years, and probable bankruptcy. Once they realise that they are damned if they do, and damned for not spending big on advertising, most of them don't. Better to fail sooner than later, they reason. 

With every such failure, roughly 800 never-worn items are surreptitiously burned. If you want to know the most culpable wasters of clothing, it isn't consumers who buy clothes they only ever wear once. It is those allegedly "sustainable", just-starting-out, brands. You would have met them at "local made" markets, and thought they were the most caring and likeable people. 

Me though, I took "The Road Not Taken", like that Robert Frost poem I start reciting whenever I get to thinking about just how bloody fantastic I am. I did it My-y-y-y Wa-a-a-y-y-y! 

Okay, that's how I feel when I'm up. When I'm down, I think about how little profit I'm clearing, compared to the wage I was earning before this. 

Still, compared to all those brands that burned all their money, and literally burned their dead stock, I have a success story to share. And right now, I have time to share it. I am not so successful that my business doesn't have slow times, like now. It is presently Autumn in Australia, which gives me some time to be blogging.

 

A Blog for Fashion Founders, and All Entrepreneurs.

I'm pitching this blog as a look behind the scenes of a swim brand, as if I've got photos of Naomi Campbell undressed. I'm afraid all the glamour I have, is already all over my web store. What I have to share, that you won't get elsewhere, are the internal working of a very small, but stable and functioning swim brand, of less interest to the purulent, than anyone with visions of starting a clothes brand. More than that, I hope it will be of interest to anyone with an idea for a business that involves a new physical product.

I have met many such people, through business incubators and and accelerator,programs, and without naming names, can categorise them all in this manner: all of them have it in their stupid thick heads, that some coolie will manufacturer their widgets. They don't believe they should have to make stuff themselves, not when they are First World, and there are coolies out there to work for them. 

If I am arrogant, for singing My Way sometimes (usually when I have made a few sales), then most entrepreneurs I have talked to, were certifiable loonies. They have thought venture capitalists were going give them millions of dollars to keep making mistakes. They have thought they would just send a sketch on a napkin to China, and have swimsuits, Teslas, iPhones, or whatever, sent back looking perfect, for them to make millions. But all they have had, was thirty or forty thousand dollars in personal savings (or worse, borrowings) to blow on big batches of rubbish.

The message of this blog, is that fashion entrepreneurs, in fact all entrepreneurs, should manufacture their products themselves. When a business person has what Marx called "the means of production", they can make one item then sell it, then make two more and sell those, and without crashing and burning, inch their way up to big numbers.

 

If I Can Do It, You Can.

As I keep writing this blog, I will flesh out my brand's story in detail. For now, here's what I did in a nutshell. 

The wide road, advertised to wannabe founders of new fashion labels, would have seen me spend $20,000 dollars on 800 items and hidden costs, only to have ended up burning or dumping most of that stock. I would have been "taken care of" by an agent, whose job it would have been to have made everything easy - parting with my money, especially. My agent's other job, would have been to have hidden things from me, like waste, substitution, and the exploitation of indentured home sewers in poor, "manufacturing", nations. 

What I did instead, was spend half that amount on second-hand sewing machines, and the remainder on fasteners, patterns and fabric. Rather than buying a fish, I taught myself to fish, you could say. 

I now own the machinery and raw materials to make prototypes that I photograph and put on my website. When a customer places an order, I make one for them, in their size. When early sales tell me I have hit on a winning design, I go ahead and pre-make a small batch, but never so many that I might later be left with dead-stock.

You might be wondering how you, personally, could ever do that, when you are not a trained sewing machinist. News flash: nobody is. Those skills largely disappeared from developed nations way back in the nineties. I had to train myself, not only in the dark arts of applying rubber to "bagged out" neck seams, and sewing darts in four layers of Lycra, but repairing and servicing six different kinds of machines. That is how many machines (not including ones for cutting fabric and heat-pressing labels) are required to make quality swimwear. 

It took me six months, toiling on my own with no pay, but what I got for my efforts was the independence of being able to make my own products. All my previous training had ever won for me, was the privilege of begging for jobs. 

From 2000 to 2015 I was an academic, with a PhD and two undergraduate degrees. That may sound prestigious, but believe me, there is no prestige in being entirely dependent on universities for your employment. There is always somebody much younger, and cheaper, who will do anything to snatch that job from you, meaning universities have a never ending supply of budding academics to choose from. 

Customers who are attracted to my designs, and the idea of having me make a swimsuit especially for them, have no one to turn to but me! I have to leave them feeling fantastic, of course. I'm not expendable though, like I was with my fancy degrees. 

In the history of industrialisation, there are stories much more inspiring than mine. Take the story of the British engineer Andrew Ritchie, who invented the Brompton folding bicycle. 

He could have chosen to spend the nineteen eighties earning a professional's wage. Instead, he spent the whole decade, teaching himself to make his own unique folding bicycle frames. Not only that, but he made all his bike's special components as well. There is even a story of him having to recall hundreds of frames that weren't perfect, and re-welding every last one with no help. His reward? Brompton is an untouchable brand, worth a million times more than an engineering degree or CV. 

 

Why You Should Subscribe and Start Sharing This Blog 

What Andrew Ritchie doesn't have for you, is a blog of special interest to clothing brand founders, that is current and fairly divulging. I plan to share all I can about building my swim brand. I have some ulterior motives, of course, but none I'm not happy to air. 

It is my understanding that Google will drive more traffic to my webstore, if people are reading, and enjoying my blog. While I have time to write, that's cheap advertising, especially given that writing is a skill I have fostered. I'm not just a past author of boring scholarly papers. I have published books that have sold in the thousands and that have earned me speaking invitations all over the world. On top of those books, was my popular blog, that attracted thousands of page views per day. I have a way with words, that is likely to drive traffic across to my webstore. 

I addition to increased traffic, I have a nebulous vision of a coaching service that I might offer. One day, a few readers trying to start their own clothing brands, might want to pay me for holding their hands and sharing trade secrets. If ever I decide to toss it all in with the sewing, and go back to a life I knew briefly, that of a net-nomad, I could have YouTube, Patreon, eBooks and coaching to live on... but not if I don't start writing this blog.

However, my main reason for blogging, is that I like helping. Stop coughing. This is a genuine weakness of mine. By helping entrepreneurs make their own products, I imagine myself helping nations become great again, with greater manufacturing capacity. I imagine nations achieving diversity in their economies, i.e., not putting all of their eggs in one basket, and all thanks to me baby, me! I imagine myself saving the planet, no less, by providing start-ups with alternatives to bulk orders, which, as I keep saying, end up being burned in most cases. I am one of those people, who without some grand sense of purpose, would go crazy contemplating my death, an event that will stop me ever feeling like a hero again! A swim brand, let's be honest, is a hedonist pursuit. However, that does not make me immune from the human impulse to be helpful. 

 

Topics to Look Forward To.

I have so much to cover, that I know I will keep coming back and updating this list, making it longer and longer. Topics to look forward to include:

• The IP investments you should not avoid, like trademarks and your own unique patterns.
• Saying no to accreditation rackets
• Investing in Industrial Sewing Machines
• Getting what you want from fashion courses.
• Going from zero to hero with industrial sewing. 
• Using government-funded business courses and advice centres. 
• Procurement of branded hardware and packaging.
• Building interest around your first product. 
• The pros, cons and more cons of wholesaling
• The pros, cons and more cons of manufacturing for other brands.
• How to make profits when first-world labour costs are so high
• Becoming your own fashion photographer.
• Fashion photography as a sideline. 
• Hiring models, with and without agencies
• Reaching your "buy-local" market
• Reaching global niche markets 
• The pros and pros of e-commerce
• How Buy-Now-Pay-Later rips everyone off
• When and where to advertise, and is it even worth doing?
• Getting free press!
• Developing genuine community bonds
• The love between a brand and its buyers!

If there is a topic on this list, that you would like me to write about next, please lodge your request as a comment. Leave a comment too, if there is a topic you would like to see added. 

And if you have enjoyed reading this blog post, please share with your friends, and check out the swimsuits I'm making at Pride. The collage below, shows one of my women's styles, that I make with metallic stretch-woven fabric. 

 

Also find me:

• Online at Prideswim 
• on Instragram
• on TikTok
• on YouTube
• on 500px