Blog
St. Louis native Jessica Donovan enjoys 3 things: tacos, cute animals, and creating content that informs, inspires, and connects people to a democratized & transparent fashion manufacturing experience.
A Cyber Winter Wonderland: Online Holiday Sales Outperform Shopping for amazing deals is even more appealing when you can do it from your couch. At least that’s what shoppers appear to buy into. Year after year, more shoppers skip Black Friday’s 5AM ‘round the block lines in favor of shop early online-only deals and Cyber Monday sweeps.
Creating a Quality Shirt to Sell Italian-made shirts have come down the runways of Gucci, Versace, and other luxury clothing lines since they began. The Made in Italy reputation for quality makes these shirts beautiful works of craftsmanship, as well as design genius.
When you start a fashion brand, you have a lot of options on how to sell your clothes to customers. Fashion entrepreneurs wanting to build a successful e-commerce shop have a mind blowing array of resources at their disposal. Two of the most popular are Etsy and Shopify.
Working for yourself sounds great, but entrepreneurship is no easy business. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about 1 in 12 small businesses close every year. While the reasons for most of the closures have shifted from the sales-driven to the personal, beginning your own fashion brand will always pose a certain risk. However, with risk comes reward, and if you’ve always dreamed of designing your own collection and starting a clothing line, you should plan for success by knowing and avoiding the most common mistakes that fashion entrepreneurs make.
Sustainable fashion is a trend that’s here to stay, and the environment is better off for it. Business Insider recently reported that at least 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans annually – so much plastic that a dutch inventor named Boyan Slat has pioneered a 2,000 foot long plastic cleaning device engineered to reduce plastics contamination of the Earth’s seas. Fashion manufacturing has always generated a significant amount of waste, but that’s slowly shifting.
Fashion merchandise buyers work on behalf of retail clothing stores to purchase the fashion products featured in stores. While typical buyers interface directly with wholesalers and clothing manufacturers, the increase in private label fashion and influencer marketing has shown that there is opportunity for independent fashion designers to turn fashion merchandise buyers into a customer niche.
Small batch production is a craft as old as time. For centuries, artisans have cooked up, assembled, and delivered quality handmade clothes and other products from their homes, and in Italy, from the factory floors of family-owned clothing manufacturers. Italy stands out among industrialized nations for excellence in garment and accessories manufacturing and tailoring. It’s unique reputation for craftsmanship has already passed the test of time, and according to recent reporting, it will survive many years longer. Both observations and studies back up the claim of the Ires-Institute of Economic and Social Research of Piedmont stating that, "...Italy, famous for its high quality products and its unparalleled Made in Italy...craftsmanship becomes a great opportunity…[and] a formidable tool for growth and innovation.”