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
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