Thinking Of Starting Your Own Fashion Label?

We are frequently approached by people with creative flair who are looking to start their own fashion label. It is always encouraging to see young people taking the initiative to start a business, but many have unrealistic expectations and get put off when they find out the true costs and level of energy determination involved to get an idea like this off the ground. We urge anybody considering starting a label to do plenty of research into the business before approaching t-shirt printing companies looking for a quote. We are more than happy to work with designers who are knowledgeable about the industry and are aware that there are costs involved in setting up a business. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. It’s very important to make yourself aware of the different t-shirt printing methods that are available. These include vinyl, screen printing, laser printed transfers, sublimation, and direct-to-garment (DTG). Each method has its own advantages but they also all have limitations and restrictions so it’s best to familiarise yourself with each before you put a lot of energy into creating your designs, otherwise it could be a wasted effort and a big disappointment for yourself when you find out that the cost involved in printing your artwork is way beyond your budget. Take the time to do thorough research.
2. How are you going to sell your t-shirts? Will clothing retailers stock your goods? Are you aware of the prices retailers are willing to pay for stock? Will you have a website? How much will this cost or will you build it yourself? How will you get people onto your website? Have you tested the market?
3. Look at people who have gone before you. How did they achieve success? What obstacles did they overcome? Did success come quickly or did it takes years before the real rewards appeared, after making mistakes and learning from them? How many have tried before you and failed? What did they do wrong? Make sure you learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and you’ll have a massive head start.
4. Lots of things in life are free but printing t-shirts definitely isn’t. If you are looking for a supplier to print your t-shirt for you, bear in mind that they all have costs which have to be covered. Rent, rates, tax, staff, equipment, consumables, phone, electricity, internet, web hosting etc all have to be covered and that’s before the t-shirt and print materials. If you’re expecting that you can get t-shirts printed for a couple of quid each, you might want to look to suppliers in the Far East rather than in the UK.