How to Succeed in the Fashion Business: Expert Tips

Do you have a knack for designing clothing and accessories? Have you been told that you have a natural eye for beauty? Maybe it’s time to start your own fashion business, but what steps should you take to be successful?

To succeed in the fashion business:

Network at fashion shows and conferences as well as online.

Find your unique voice and be different
Identify your audience and build your brand
Invest in yourself

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Following these four basic precepts will propel your fashion business to success.

If you’ve thought about starting your own fashion brand but are afraid you don’t have what it takes to succeed, you’re wrong. Globally, the industry is worth more than $1.9 trillion and is expected to rise to $3 trillion by 2030.

What does that mean for your plans to open a fashion business? It means that demand is rising, and the fashion industry needs your enterprise to satisfy the demands of all those customers.

But just because demand for fashion products is rising exponentially, that doesn’t mean that your business is guaranteed to be successful.

As a successful business owner, I can tell you that you are guaranteed to have a successful fashion business by building these five skills.

Networking

The number one mistake business owners make is not networking enough. After all, you have plenty to do to design and produce your fashions, right? Who has time for anything else?

If you ignore the networking aspect, your business will never achieve optimal results. Business is about building relationships.

Attend Fashion Shows and Conferences

How to Succeed in the Fashion Business: Expert Tips

The best way to get to know people in the fashion industry is by going to industry events, like fashion shows and conferences. At these events, you will meet people that can give you advice and feedback on your fashion line, and you can do the same for them.

They also might help point out opportunities to show your work and break into the tightly knit industry.

And if you’re going to a fashion show or conference, you might as well attend a big one for maximum results. Check out these Top Ten Fashion Shows for an event coming to you.

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Online Networking

You should also take advantage of networking opportunities online. Your social media presence is essential not only for building your brand (more about that later) but also for connecting to other professionals in fashion and related industries.

Most designers have an Instagram presence, and you can even find some on Facebook. But don’t forget LinkedIn because it is on this site that you will be able to truly connect with the professional community, including wholesale suppliers and retail outlet representatives.

Finding Your Unique Voice

The problem with artistic industries like fashion is that people rush in to try and copy it once something works. Maybe not literally, but when people know what works, they mistakenly assume the route to success is creating a similar product.

Be Different

The only way you can succeed in the fashion industry is by finding your voice. Think of every successful fashion brand you’ve ever heard of. Each one you can think about was unique at the time and probably told they were going to fail.

Did anyone make black and brown pebbled leather bags before Louis Vuitton? How about see-through watches before Swatch?

In other words, it’s time to let your freak flag fly. Nobody will buy yourself if it’s just a retread of something else.

Tips for Creative Brainstorming

Now that you know you need to develop your voice, it’s time for some creative brainstorming. Here are the seven rules of brainstorming according to IDEO U:

Defer judgment. On the first draft of anything, let your creativity grow. At the end of the iteration, you can choose to keep and improve that idea or move on.

Encourage wild ideas because no good idea was ever a safe idea. IBM computers excepted. But who even has one of those these days?
Stay focused on the topic. Get off Facebook and turn off Netflix. At least when brainstorming your fashion ideas.
One conversation at a time. Finish doing what you’re doing before bouncing off to something else. If brainstorming with others, don’t suggest a new idea while the team is still hashing another one out.

Be visual. Hopefully, as a fashionista, you don’t have a problem with this one. Don’t brainstorm in your head. Write it down. Preferably on a giant board with colorful markers.
Build on the ideas of others. This is applicable if you are brainstorming with other people. If you are alone, stick to your unique vision.
Go for quantity. Working methodically, see how many ideas you can develop in a set period. You’ll have time to refine your thoughts later.

Getting the creative juices flowing through brainstorming is essential. You’ll never come up with innovative ideas if you don’t set the conditions to encourage inspiration to strike.

Building Your Brand

Remember, you aren’t going to be successful based on one turtleneck. You need to build whole clothing or accessory line. Everything product you come up with should be supported by and reinforce your brand.

Identify Your Audience

Building your brand is its own field of study that we don’t have enough time to get into here, but the first part of building your brand is identifying your audience. Who is going to wear your fashion? Preteen boys, aged 11-13? Or young mothers aged 23-27?

You can even go so far as to give your ideal consumer a name and a description, something along the lines of this:

“Jessica is a 45-year-old working professional from Austin, TX. She likes to take chances but is conscious of not bringing too much attention. She wears conservative business attire in the day, but in the evenings, she likes something just a little sexier.”

Can you see Jessica? Understand the types of clothes she wants to wear?

Once you have a firm grasp of your target demographic, it will be easier to build your brand. And your sales won’t be limited to the target demographic, by the way. Other people will buy them too.

Create Your Logo

Yes, you need a logo. Every business does. The best logos are a simple but meaningful combination of your business name with a graphic element representing your goal.

Think Amazon, Nike, and even the United States Postal Service have great logos.

You can outsource logo design at freelance platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, or you can make your own.

I have Adobe Creative Cloud, so I use their Illustrator app to create my logos. Their five-step process to design your own logo has helped me develop ten logos, and I have been more pleased with how they’ve turned out than I was with efforts to outsource my logo design.

Invest in Yourself

Nothing grows from nothing. Whether it’s reinvesting your profits to increase productivity or investing in your education to get the skills, you need to run a successful fashion business, allocating resources to improve yourself and your business will pay handsome dividends.

Getting a Business Loan

Sometimes the only way to grow your business is by getting a small business loan or grant. Why are loans occasionally necessary? Because you may need to make capital investments to make sure your products are available and you can scale to meet customer demand.

If you are having problems generating consumer interest in your fashion brand, you can use the proceeds of a business loan toward marketing expenses. Here is an article that contains excellent tips on how to get a business loan.

Taking Business Classes

You may know everything there is about fashion, but do you know everything there is about the business of fashion? Do you have a good basic understanding of business fundamentals like marketing, accounting, operations, and taxes?

Taking some business classes can help you rapidly get up to speed. Being completely honest, I don’t think I could have achieved as much success with my businesses if I didn’t have my Master of Business Administration.

If you have a chance to get an MBA, go for it. In addition to learning about business, you will also get some excellent networking and maybe even funding opportunities.

If you don’t have time to go back to school formally, you can also learn a lot from online platforms like Udemy. Coursera also has a tremendous stable of business classes, which, to be honest, are almost as good as an MBA program.

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