Starting a clothing line sounds great on paper but when you consider all the elements involved it can be a huge
undertaking. Unfortunately, most clothing lines fail. Why? Because there's a chronological order a clothing line needs
to follow in order to be successful. Most people don't know what this order is, or choose not to follow it. In the next few
paragraphs I'll show you exactly what you need to know about starting a clothing line and how to make money doing it.

Let's start breaking down the steps on How to Start a Clothing Line.


The Budget… You Should Really Have One.

Having a budget is the first thing you need when starting a clothing line. You have to decide how much money you can
comfortably part ways with. Once you have a set amount you then have to break that up into two categories, marketing
and production. Marketing is the adverting and promotion of your clothing line and production is the physical production
of garments and other products you'll be selling. I’ll break down each of these later.

Now that you know how much money you want to work with, put most of that money into production at first. Its better
to have more inventory to sell or giveaway at the beginning to establish your brand then to spend all your money on ads.
Once you start to see some sales, then you can consider starting your advertising campaign.



Picking The Right Designs.

Having cool designs will directly affect your sales. If people don’t like what they see, they wont buy your stuff. Also,
don’t use designs with crazy patterns or twenty five colors. The maximum amount of colors I would recommend is four
per design. Anymore and the t-shirt gets too busy. You also need to do some market research. Make a survey and show
friends and family six to eight designs. If everyone likes your stuff, narrow it down to the top four favorites. These top four
designs will be the foundation of your clothing line. After you sell out of your top four you can expand your clothing line
with different designs. One thing to always remember, consistency will produce results.



Marketing: Social Networks & Blogs

Marketing is my favorite part of business. You can be as creative as you want. But before you get your creative juices
flowing you have to do a little homework. Having a large advertising budget and using mainstream media doesn’t always
guarantee success. The way to really get some exposure is to use social networks and blogs. Social networks are free,
and free is always good, because the money you would be spending on advertising you can now go towards buying more
t-shirts which will make you more money. The only draw back to social networking is that it's very time intensive. You
have to put in a lot of time to really see results, but then again it's free. Bloging, like social networking, is a great way to
promote your clothing line. All it takes is a little time to write down all the interesting things about you, your company and
your clothing line. Again, it's free and it starts a dialog with people who you can sell to. When selling on blogs and social
networks don't sound desperate or pushy because you'll aggravate people and generate bad word of mouth which is
counterproductive.



Production: T-Shirts, Hats, Bags, Jackets...

Production is the physical production of garments. Production also includes printing, and thats the area I want to focus on.
I'm going to talk about inks and t-shirts. The industry standard for almost all screen printers is plastisol ink. When picking
your ink colors try not to ask for specialty inks. Here's why; specialty inks cost more money than plastisol and they will
automatically drive up your production costs. Another thing to avoid is printing all over the t-shirt. This is a new style that
popped up a few years ago. The only way to really get printing all over the t-shirt is to print the fabric first, then sew the
t-shirt together. This is typically done in china in mass quantities and requires a lot of resources, and by resources I mean
money.



Pricing: You Can't Charge $50 a T-Shirt. Well, Not Yet.

Many people price incorrectly. Either they charge too much for their t-shirts or not enough. When you first start out, you
have to price accordingly. Your clothing line is a new line and many people are not willing to pay a lot of money for a t-shirt
they've never heard of. I once had a customer complaining that he could not sell any of his t-shirts. I asked him how much
he was selling his t-shirts for and he said $65 each. I thought he was joking but he wasn't. That customer went out of
business really fast. On the other hand, you still want to make money selling your stuff. Don't just add a few dollars to each
item you sell. See what the going rates are for other clothing lines of your size and price accordingly.



The Break Down of a Successful Clothing Line.

1. Have a budget and use most of your money for production to build a foundation.
2. Start with core designs and expand from there.
3. Use social networks & blogs in your marketing campaign, they're free.
4. Find out which inks and t-shirts are the most cost effective.
5. Know your limits on print size and placement.
6. Price accordingly and you will sell like crazy.
7. And finally, don't lose your focus, have fun, and make smart choices.




If you have any questions about the topics discussed, feel free to send me an email at info@curlyandspike.com.


Good luck!


Patrick Chakmakchian
Curly & Spike
www.curlyandspike.com