Young British designers

[zamb]

In reality, to get good manufacturers, you need to place consistent orders in a decent volume which a young designer cannot. For these designers it might be most dangerous to get production factories without promised orders and also, they are not able to get good manufacturers in small volume.

this is a very wrong concept, and is borne out of a lack of understanding and unwillingness on the part of many designers.......
No one unless the are doing their own retail, should produce items without an order.............designers ought to think about "Pull manufacturing" as it is the safest and most feasible way of doing things...........

Also, why depend on a manufacturer to produce for you, why not become your own manufacturer, at least while your orders are small and then transition into working with a small to mid-size factory when your orders exceed your own small capacity to produce?

The risk lies here. Either way when one deals with retailers for its sake, he cannot not make any money. You end up only having to play the PR game to get enough publicity to invite more investors or more sponsorships. We've seen enough of this in the last decade in London and know it never works. Even the most successful British designers(McQueen, Galliano, Chalayan) didn't make any money here and had to go to Paris to work for companies. .

this again is nonsense and it depends on what kind of pressure a designer is going to put him/herself under.................the main reason why many of these businesses collapse is not because there is a shortage of good fabrics at a reasonable rate, not because they cannot be profitable with a respectable price point..............it is in large part because of wastefulness and because many of these designers put themselves under pressure to compete with brands that has resources that makes it impossible for them to compete........If there is no money for a fashion show, dont do it.........plain and simple, Dont buy $150/ yd fabric just to say you are working with 40 ply Cashmere, concentrate on making the best product within your capacity to afford.......

[municeps]

this is a very wrong concept, and is borne out of a lack of understanding and unwillingness on the part of many designers.......
No one unless the are doing their own retail, should produce items without an order.............designers ought to think about "Pull manufacturing" as it is the safest and most feasible way of doing things...........

Also, why depend on a manufacturer to produce for you, why not become your own manufacturer, at least while your orders are small and then transition into working with a small to mid-size factory when your orders exceed your own small capacity to produce?

I'd like to ask you whether you really have an understanding about manufacturing in real life. Take menswear for example because it is more quality based. Do you think it is possible to be a manufacturer by yourself? Production is highly related with machineries and technology. For making one jacket for instance, some companies use 5 different machines only for ironing. That make it almost impossible to compete the quality with established brands.

Also the good manufacturers are usually shared by big companies or through some connections in some cases. There aren't much good manufacturers in the world because many of them are closed down or merged into bigger organisations. For example Staff International was bought by Diesel and they merged small facotries and that are now shared by big names like Margiela, Viktor and Rolf and Vivienne Westwood. I was addressing the difficulties to compete in fashion market as a young designer. I said "to get good manufacturer".

And in some cases there are things you cannot do only with knowledge and talent because it is again about facilities and accumulated experience. To get your production in random factories without orders is really dangerous. I also suggested to produce themselves and selling on thier website if you don't have the right buyers.

this again is nonsense and it depends on what kind of pressure a designer is going to put him/herself under.................the main reason why many of these businesses collapse is not because there is a shortage of good fabrics at a reasonable rate, not because they cannot be profitable with a respectable price point..............it is in large part because of wastefulness and because many of these designers put themselves under pressure to compete with brands that has resources that makes it impossible for them to compete........If there is no money for a fashion show, dont do it.........plain and simple, Dont buy $150/ yd fabric just to say you are working with 40 ply Cashmere, concentrate on making the best product within your capacity to afford.......

Yes this is a very good point so I don't understand you said what I've said is nonsense.
Here we are talking about British young designers so you need to understand a little bit about the British fashion system for young designers now. My opinion is also also based on impression from comversations with many designers in London who actually have the sponsorships or are in the league. Most of them criticise what the support system is actually about. The organisations and system are busuness themselves so they are based on intensive PR activities. They have to create some stories and generate interest. That's why we see new british fashion stars (especially from Central St. Martins) from every year. Designers complain they don't have the real support like connecting manufacturers and mentoring for real business. Because they don't seem to care much.

We first need to understand the reality that British young designers faces. In Britain everything is super expensive. From materials and labour even in small in house production, the costs are much higher than manufacturing abroad. I remember a friend of mine who is a jewellery maker who complained to me that it costs 500 GBP to make one bracelet which he could make with 25 quid in Singapore.

I totally agree with your opinion that wastefulness is the main problems and that we all know about it. Then what creates the wastefulness in britain for these young desingers?

Running a brand depending on PR without much substance or understanding about real business is the main risk. In Britain we don't have actual market (buyers) but we have thousands of fresh talents every year. Being part of the league you need to get publicity otherwise you are going to be excluded and you need to find your own way, which is normally harder and is a long process. . That's what happened in the last decades. There are specific limitation for british young designers. You need understand if you want to talk about it. It is time to think about different or altenatives ways now. That's why I brought up this question.

[taylor]

This thread is very interesting (and slightly disheartening!) as I have just applied for university next year...

I think the problem could be down to a basic lack of business knowledge/skills. Fashion courses are very intensive, and tend to focus on fashion as an art form rather than fashion as a business, and will probably contain one module on 'working with industry' or something similar. The Universities and Colleges are therefore producing talented designers, but the backing/sponsorship they need is not purely financial, because if you gave one of them a heap of money to get started, they wouldn't know what to do with it.

I feel this comes back to the design process and how it should be approached. Should the concept and design come first, then figure how to make it, how much it will cost, then add a % for retail? Or should cost be a factor throughout the design process? The latter certainly makes more business sense, but does it come at the cost of creativity?

[MASUGNEN]

Great success for Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen!

[michael_kard]

Yan, I'd love to check out your work.