Order only what you need. Don’t be tempted by low price & large quantities if you are not ready.
There are warehouses upon warehouses full of obsolete inventory and rejected goods. Clothier Design Source is working to help clothing companies to receive just-in-time goods that are wearable and sellable – not rejected trash. SEE MORE ABOUT US IN MN BUSINESS MAGAZINE.
Follow these 5 tips to reduce mistakes, increase profit & decrease development time.
What other tips and secrets have you learned?
Simplify in 2013.
Follow these 4 steps for your Apparel or Soft-Goods Business.
1st step -DESIGN- is defining your concept. Your rough idea becomes a concrete sketch that can be made.
2nd step -PROTOTYPE- see your ideas come to life! Test the market, test the fit, test the function until perfected.
3rd step – TECH DESIGN- is all in the details. The type of stitch, zipper, thread etc… makes all the difference to the final quality.
4th step -MANUFACTURE- produce your products in the USA or overseas depending on your market demands and minimum order quantities.
What steps have you been missing? Or what steps are we missing?
The designers of CDS hard at work
Clothier Design Source is a group of garment experts and designers with extensive knowledge of the clothing industry. Please get to know the company by reading the press release below. 
What else have you learned about getting into the fashion industry?
Many people wonder why their products ship out with defects. How does this happen? Why does this happen? And what can you do to prevent it?
How do defects happen?
Simply put, something was overlooked. For example you send a drawing of a base layer shirt to a factory abroad and tell them to make it. You gave them sizing and fabric information but neglected to give them construction information. Now the shirt looks great but all the stitches are breaking and unraveling. This could be prevented with specifying to the factory what type of stitch & stitch count they needed to use for each area of the garment.
Why do defects happen?
We assume too much. We assume the factory knows what we have in our head as the end result and we assume the factory understands our level of quality standards. We assume the factory understands sizing, color, etc… We assume the fabric color won’t bleed and the buttons won’t fall off. If you think of constructing a garment much like building a structure this will help. For instance, a building needs load bearing walls, a foundation and many more things that must meet code to ensure the building holds up. The codes are specified and inspected by a professional each step of the way. A good fitting pattern, appropriate trims, and correct construction methods are required to ensure the integrity of the garment much like building a structure.
How to prevent future defects?
1st providing or proofing the pattern for the garment. The shapes and contours of each size must precisely match what is needed for the garment to fit correctly for its final function.
2nd specifying ALL details required to assemble the pattern or cut pieces in the form of a tech pack or spec sheet. Listing the types of machinery needed to join each component and how is essential to the garment holding up.
3rd Sample, check, then sample and check some more. Not one thing should go into production without being approved of first. This includes labels, label placement, buttons, button placement, trim breakage tests, neck tape, color , packaging and SO much more!
When ordering mass quantities of anything there is bound to be some fallout. The steps can reduce that fallout to 1% or less of your total inventory. This is a massive amount of savings in the short-term and long term for your brand integrity.
Clothier Design Source is very passionate about this issue and is here to help in all ways described above. Please contact us if you need help in any of these areas. www.clothierdesignsource.com
Lay out your expectations and get better quality!
Having a Spec Sheet and/or Tech Pack helps make the quality assurance process smoother and better. This is a document per garment specifying everything from stitches per inch, pantone colors, weight of fabric, points of measure, label placement etc… so the factory knows EXACTLY what you expect. This document eliminates many problems before they exist. Then, using this document to check pre-production samples and production is a clear way to be sure the factory is meeting the requirements. Many times it is not the factory that is poor but could be the quality of information going to the factory that is poor. Fix the informationand fix the quality problems. Learn more about this step at http://www.clothierdesignsource.com/technical-design
It’s arguable that you can’t live in the moment and live the fashion industry. While we are still awaiting the arrival of spring, here we are enjoying the 2012 fall shows. While one can literally spend hours scrutinizing over the possible trends that they find among the collections, we thought we would point out the big color and print trends that we found for this fall.
The two big color trends we found were primary colors – red, blue, yellow – and black; black mixed with white and black mixed with brown.
We’re one step higher on the apparel production chain… Clothier Design Source has gotten its hands on a brand new Apparel Digitizing system!
We now have the capability to turn hand patterns and slopers into digital files, literally at the touch of a mouse.
As a designer, you have spent countless hours scrutinizing over your patterns; the blue print for the exact fit of the garment that you have imagined. The fastest way to manage, alter, and send all the information that the pattern holds is to digitize the hard copies.
Digitizing patterns will allow you to upload your work into any CAD system around the world. The retrieval and reprinting can be done in a matter of minutes, rather than a matter of days with paper copies. Sorting through styles can be a long and messy process with handling multiple hard copies. With keeping an electronic digitized copy, you will be able to refer to your work quickly.
No longer will you have to worry about the changes that accidentally occur with hand copying or the wear and tear of retracing and handling. Revisions and modifications are no longer a messy and dauntingly long hand process.
Digitizing services are cost effective; you only pay for patterns you need to digitize.
All we need from you is your pattern with the desired markings, such as grain lines, piece names, and notches, and a pattern card listing the pieces and the fabric type.
For those of you interested in taking your patterns to the next step, you can have one of our master patternmakers make revisions, modifications, and grade your patterns to make sure your finished garment is exactly what you want.