Our Fashion Workshops
The Workshops.
(59/53). We are a small group of experienced fashion industry professionals, providing a whole range of specialist services and one-to-one tuition in the form of classes and workshops.
These classes and workshops are available mainly around London, but also around the UK generally. The classes can be either in person, or online.
From fashion design and illustration, to pattern cutting, sewing and grading. From setting up and running a new fashion brand, to marketing and selling your clothing products. If we provide the service, we also provide the tuition.
We provide one-to-one tuition in order to give our undivided attention to our students. Because we offer affordable one-to-one tuition, we can tailor each class or workshop exactly to our clients needs.
How To Start A Fashion Brand.
Our How to start a fashion brand workshop is very popular with our many startup clients. This intensive workshop provides a vital and informative introduction to how to set up and run a fashion business.
The workshop contains vital information and tips for anyone serious about starting a fashion brand. Or re-launching their existing brand.
Absolutely no design or fashion experience is necessary as we provide all the professional guidance and services needed to help kick-start your new fashion business. We are highly experienced fashion professionals with many years experience in assisting fashion startups, small businesses, and individual clients.
EMAIL [email protected]
Top Quality Sampling Facilities.
The workshops runs in parallel with our top quality sampling facility, although we are happy to assist if you are using other services either in the UK, or abroad.
“The best teachers are those who tell you where to look, but not what to see.” ALEXANDRA K. TRENTFOR
Evening Or Weekend Workshops.
Our bespoke, one to one workshops, are flexible as to time and day. If normal weekday times are difficult for you, it is possible to arrange an evening time that suits you better. We can also sometimes arrange for a weekend slot in central London.
About Your Mentor.
The How to start a fashion brand workshop is conducted by Emile. He has over twenty years experience in the fashion business as a designer and fashion business consultant, specialising in helping startups.
Emile is a fully qualified tutor and successful Fashion Designer who has an incredibly in-depth knowledge of the fashion business, and garment construction.
He also runs our sampling unit in Greenwich. So if you need to follow up the workshops with practical assistance like patterns and samples, he can help there too.
” I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that wont work “. THOMAS A. EDISON
The One To One Workshop.
The one-to-one workshops are located in Greenwich, London. Sometimes a weekend workshop can be arranged in Central London. The one to one workshops are preceded by a phone call from Emile, in order to gather as much relevant information about your business as possible.
As this is a bespoke workshop built just for you, Emile needs to fully understand what you need to achieve and to learn. From this information Emile would build your bespoke workshop, gathering information about special suppliers, factories and regulations etc.
This type of information can be extremely difficult to obtain on your own, without experience and knowledge.
The beginner could take months just trying to find fabric suppliers willing to supply small quantities of fabrics, or sample lengths. And even then, they can be way too expensive for a startup on a shoestring budget.
The workshop itself is two hours long. At the end of the workshop the client is given a full list of fabric suppliers (retail and wholesale), contact details for printers, photography, sewing machines and parts, packaging, labels, swing tickets, hangers, etc.
They get a costing sheet template specifically designed for the fashion business. They also get a list of focus group questions to help them get started.
And we allow for a post workshop phone call for anyone who has further queries concerning their business. If the client has any questions during the workshop that we need to research, then we are happy to address these also.
Advantages Of Being Small.
The beauty of the fashion business is that it is remarkably easy for anyone to learn how to start a fashion brand on a limited budget. And with limited, or even, no knowledge of the industry. A small startup business has several big advantages over more established brands.
They can react far quicker to the market, providing styles that the public want to buy right now. They can also source small quantities of quality fabrics at greatly reduced prices. Acquiring cheap fabrics will massively reduce costs, and increase profits.
Subjects Covered In The Workshop.
As this is a bespoke workshop, the areas covered may vary from client to client. Please contact us for details.
Saving Money Effectively.
It is essential for any clothing startup business to spend money wisely. Some startups feel that they must get everything as cheap as possible. This workshop teaches you where it is possible to make great savings wisely, and where you need to spend effectively.
While it is not worth stinting too much on pattern costs for instance, massive savings can be made by strategic fabric sourcing.
What You Need To Bring With You
Feel free to bring anything you feel relevant along with you, including any design ideas and sketches you may have. Dont worry if you feel you cant sketch. We are used to it and we can reinterpret your designs for you if necessary.
You can bring any relevant garments or fabrics along with you. While we will give you lots of useful tips and information to take away with you, you may also want to bring a notebook and pen.
Fashion Business Experts.
If the client subsequently chooses to work with us to bring their designs to life, we can provide a comprehensive and affordable service from design through to production and beyond. Along with guidance and support. We only use highly professional and experienced fashion professionals.
Skype Workshops
for those who would like to do the startup workshop, but cant make it to London, we can also provide an alternative Skype version. This video workshop contains all the same information as the face to face option, but takes place from the comfort of your own home.
EMAIL [email protected]
Sportswear Startup Workshop
As many of our clients are sportswear startups, and we have specialist knowledge and machinery in this area, we offer a special How to start a sportswear brand workshop.
There is a massive market for unique and innovative sportswear in the UK. It is a very popular area for fashion startup brands, especially with the increasing popularity of athleisure. The UK sportswear market accounts for around £2.5 billion.
Sportswear requires specialist pattern makers, machinists, fabrics and machinery. It is very important to have a basic understanding of what this entails before starting a new sportswear business.
Unlike general fashion, sportswear can lend itself to offshore production, leading to massive savings. But if you dont know what you are doing, offshore production can be disastrous. We help you source the sportswear specialist fabric suppliers and services. And provide invaluable advice on production.
Streetwear Startup Workshop
Streetwear is a very competitive area of fashion that can be immensely profitable with the right designs and insight. It is becoming increasingly influential within mainstream and luxury fashion. While it is hard to define, it is itself influenced by other genres such as sportswear, surf and skate wear.
Most streetwear brands are started by people who have absolutely no formal training in fashion and no experience in the fashion world. While they lack formal training, they know what looks good and understand who their customer is and what they want to buy.
More often than not the new streetwear fashion entrepreneur is working on a restricted budget. Having fresh ideas is essential for adding value to their product because they cannot compete on price alone.
Their customer is not necessarily looking for high quality, but the look is essential. This makes it even more important to be able to source inexpensive materials that look good.
Swimwear Startup Workshop
Related to our How to start a sportswear brand workshop, our How to start a swimwear brand workshop has proven very popular in recent years. It provides a great introduction to any budding entrepreneurs considering starting their own swimwear business.
We help sourcing swimwear fabrics and suppliers. And again, we have the specialist swimwear knowledge and machinery required to bring your designs to life.
T shirt Startup Workshop
Our How to start a T shirt brand workshop is aimed at the new fashion entrepreneur on a limited budget. In many ways it is easier to set up a T shirt business than a standard fashion business.
There is far less stuff to know, fewer styles to manage, and less startup costs. But it is also a fiercely competitive area of fashion that requires specialist knowledge of fabrics, T shirt construction and printing.
EMAIL – [email protected]
It would take many hundreds of hours of research in order to gain enough information to start a T shirt business with any confidence. Even then , there is a massive learning curve of expensive trial and error in the early stages of the business.
Finding reliable and affordable suppliers, printers and manufacturers is crucial just to survive in the T shirt business. Knowing where to cut spend and where to cut costs without effecting quality is equally vital.
Massive savings can be made by just knowing where to source good quality, cheap fabric. Equally, massive losses can be incurred by sourcing the wrong fabrics.
In the end there is no substitute for practical experience, and we always suggest obtaining the basic knowledge that you need to start up, then just getting on with it, with the knowledge that you have professionals at hand to consult with. If you start slowly and carefully you can expand your knowledge as you progress.
If you decide to opt for custom made T shirts, then we can provide a complete service from design to production, or any of the individual services in between.
- Buying blank T shirts
- Custom made T shirts
- Marketing
- Branding
- Costing
- Pricing
- Designing
- Sourcing T shirts
- Sourcing fabrics
- Sourcing factories
- Printing methods
- Quality control
- Different fabrics and their properties
- Sizing
- Labelling and tagging
- Range planning
- Design validation
- Returns
- Compiling a business plan
EMAIL [email protected]