How to Start a Clothing Line For Your Own Boutique

Do you often feel like it’s hard to find clothes you like to wear? Or that you see a dress or even a men’s suit and think of how you would have designed it better?

Then you may be the right type of person to design your own clothing line. You don’t have to work for a fashion house to become a designer. There’s never been a better time than right now to throw yourself into the fashion world and design your own clothes.

You can either keep it online or open a small boutique that features your very own clothing line.

If this interests you then read on to learn more about how you can be your own boss while doing something you love.

Have a consistent vision

Before getting into the ins and outs of how to set up shop, it needs to be stated that you should be focused. Have a very specific look that is your own. Pick out colours that are consistent throughout your clothing line. There’s a huge variety of Pantone colour charts so pick a few that work together and highlight those colours often.

If you decide to design for men, have a specific target market and stay on point with your marketing towards that group.

Financing

Believe it or not, you can start your own clothing line without needing to spend a lot upfront.

With a Shopify store, you can keep it online and not have the overhead of a brick and mortar boutique. You can always expand to a physical presence once you are making consistent money if you want.

You’ll at least need the money for materials to make the clothing. Then, some cash for a photographer and model if you don’t plan to do that part yourself.

Set aside money for your marketing to get the word out. That’s about all you need to get started. You can do this while you work your day job so you still have income while you build your brand.

Hire or outsource

You might think you’ll be better off saving money as a one-man or woman team but to grow you need help.

Either outsource some of the work, like marketing or hire somebody to work by your side. That person could simply be the one manning the phones or play an integral part in running the business side of things.

You can save money in the beginning by hiring somebody right out of school. Or, you could even try a paid internship.

Marketing is key

With the rise of social media, there is a lot of noise that people are subjected to on a daily basis. To carve out a niche in the market, you have to successfully cut through that noise.

Make sure you understand who your target market is and what platform they use. Instagram is probably going to factor highly in your strategy, but there are other options as well.

Do some research and see what other platforms people are using and then focus there. Youtube is a prime area to be exploited as people move away from watching TV.