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It’s all well and good to send out promotional items and appear at fashion shows, but if you really want to draw attention to what you’re doing with your fashion design business, you’re going to need to run your own events. These can be held for your business launch, when you bring out a new apparel collection, or in celebration of notable successes. They’re an opportunity for you to distribute promotional products and make an impression on the people who really matter.

Of course, the worst thing you can do is to invest a lot of time and resources in an event to which hardly anybody turns up, so it’s important to plan carefully and to advertise effectively. You can use the fashion press for this, but it’s also a good idea to advertise your event at trade shows and by sending promotional items to buyers, retailers and modelling agencies. When you’re more established it can be advantageous to make your events seem more exclusive, but as a new company you should invite people at all levels of the industry. Personal invitations are generally the most successful, and you should be sure to invite everybody whom you’ve directly done business with.

Putting on an Event

The first thing you need to get right when planning an event is the venue. Avoid the temptation to use your own premises, where there’s too much chance of valuable equipment and fabrics getting damaged, or to use your own home, which - unless it’s huge and spectacular - looks unprofessional. If possible, choose a venue with a bar, as most people in the fashion industry like to drink. By arranging a tab with the bar you can offer free drinks to the first few people there, always a good way to get the party started. Of course, as people get drunk they’re more amenable to persuasion, so this is a great opportunity to talk to them about your fashion designs. Needless to say, make sure you don’t get drunk yourself.

Make sure that some of the people at your event are wearing your designer apparel, whether they’re professional models or just good looking friends. It’s important to keep everybody’s minds focused on what the events is about, even whilst they relax and enjoy themselves. This also helps to create a bit of glamour. You can add to the effect by decorating the venue with large pictures of your work. Promotional products like catalogues should be easily available. Make sure there’s a photographer present so that you have some pictures of your event available for future use, especially if well-known people from the fashion industry attend.

You will usually be able to buy materials for your events, such as invitations, decorations and catering supplies, at wholesale prices provided that you identify yourself as a business customer. It’s normal to provide some food at promotional events, but a couple of plates of sandwiches will suffice, and you can always save money by making these yourself. Some venues will offer them for free.

Informal Events

Formal events are not the only way to draw attention to your fashion design business. Sometimes it’s beneficial to break the rules and use an informal venue to gain extra attention. Make sure you have permission to do this, especially if it’s in a public place, and tip off the press before it happens, but let it surprise the public.

Informal events are sometimes held in partnership with stores stocking a particular designer’s apparel, as they’re a great way to boost sales for everybody. They need to be glamorous, so get models involved. Impromptu fashion shows in unusual places are a great way to capture the imagination of the press and the public alike. Distributing free promotional products to the public will help them to remember what the event was about and will make them feel extra good about having been there, encouraging them to spread good word of mouth about your work.

Whatever type of event you go for, make sure that it looks good and that it feels fun to be a part of. For your own part, you’ll probably find it exhausting, but it can be a very effective way to put your new fashion design business on the map.

In this day and age it’s impossible to make it as a fashion designer without a website. Not only is your website essential for online marketing, it can also be a venue for selling clothing direct to the public. But how should you go about setting it up?

The first thing you need to do is to register a domain. This is the online address at which your website will live. Ideally it will feature the name of your business, and you should keep it as simple as possible. You’ll need to pay a monthly fee for this address, but it doesn’t have to be very expensive. You’ll also need to rent server space - the physical space where the data for your site will be kept.

If this already seems too complicated, you can hire a professional web design consultant to help. A professionally constructed website is guaranteed to look good (or you should ask for your money back), but it can be expensive, and in the early stages of building your business it may not be practical. If you would prefer to have a go at constructing you own website, you can find good html and CSS courses online for free. Learning what you need to know to make a simple site is fairly easy. You can always call in a consultant for help with extra features like Flash or Java applets.

The most important thing about your website is that it should be accessible for as many customers as possible. Check that it runs on different operating systems with different browsers. You can then start to tailor it to the needs of your fashion business.

What Should Your Fashion Website Feature?

When people visit a fashion website the first thing they want to know about is the designer. This doesn’t mean you need to write your autobiography - what’s important is your designer brand identity. This should include your logo, a consistent colour scheme, a consistent style and one or two high quality images featuring your most impressive work. You should write a friendly but professional introduction welcoming visitors to the site. This should include lots of words which people looking for a site like yours might enter in search engines. Changing this introduction every week or two will help to keep search engines interested.

It’s essential that your website is easy to navigate. Providing a menu bar at the side or at the top and bottom of each page is the easiest way to do this. This should offer links to each of your other pages. Keep your categories simple. You might want to list clothes by type (eg: ‘jackets’, ’shirts’ etc.), or you might prefer to list them by season (eg: ‘Spring collection’). It’s a good idea to have a ‘new’ page so that returning visitors can check out your latest creations.

Each category page should feature a full size image of one of your designs along with thumbnail images of the others available - visitors can click on these to see larger images. Using thumbnails cuts download times and makes it easier for potential customers to access your site.

Once they’ve seen your designs, visitors will want to know how to buy them. You should either provide an online order and payment system (most online banks can help you set this up for free) or full contact details for your business and advice on how to find your retail outlets.

Online Marketing for your Website

There’s no point in having an impressive fashion website if nobody knows it’s out there. As soon as you’ve launched your website you should start your online marketing campaign. Here are some simple tips to get you started:-

• Make sure you’re listed by as many search engines as possible.
• Arrange to be listed in online fashion directories.
• Arrange to be listed in online business directories.
• Talk about your site in business and social networking communities. Blog about it.
• Participate in link exchange schemes.

All of these options are open to you for free or for very little money, so you should make full use of them before you worry about paying for more traditional online advertising.

Setting up a website for your fashion design business may seem complicated, but provided you take it in simple stages you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.

If you’re working with conventional fabric-based designs, the most important piece of equipment you’ll need for your fashion business is your sewing machine. But modern sewing machines vary enormously, and there are all sorts of different ones on the market, from general models to special buttonholers to embroidery machines. Some require manual setting at every stage and some incorporate computers which can enable you to pre-set them from your patterns. How can you choose the right one for your fashion designs?

The first rule of choosing sewing machines is that you shouldn’t rely on just one. If your machine breaks (even the best ones need repairs from time to time when managing a heavy load) you can experience expensive delays if you don’t have back-up. A simple, older machine will usually suffice to let you get on with basic operations whilst your main machine is being repaired. Of course, depending on the size of your business, you may need several machines anyway.

Sewing Machine Tasks

In most fashion design businesses, sewing machines are not used just for sewing. It’s important to think about the specialist tasks which you may need your machine to handle.

• Buttonholing - Making neat buttonholes by hand is a time consuming task and puts a lot of stress on your fingers, which is something you need to avoid in the fashion design business (many seamstresses end up with damaged hands). Specialist buttonholing machines are cheap and easy to use, but a good general machine should be able to perform this function adequately.
• Embroidery - Whilst most general machines now feature some embroidery options, specialist embroidery machines are the best choice if you want to use your own designs. Much more adaptable, most now make it easy for you to program in your own patterns so that you don’t have to keep making adjustments as you work.
• Zip fitting - Fitting a zip so that it doesn’t pull loose after being used a few times is trickier than it might seem. Look for a machine with a specialist zip option which will also make sure you don’t get any fraying at the bottom of the zip.
• Leatherworking - If you’re working with leather or other heavyweight materials, your sewing machine will need to be strong enough to handle them. Many domestic machines break after doing just a little of this kind of work. Even with the right machine, you’ll need to remember to switch to a heavier grade of needle.
• Working with plastics - Modern clothing often incorporates materials like PVC which cannot be stitched in the ordinary way because the stitches would just tear through and pull out. There are specialist stitches, usually based on a chain pattern, designed to get around this. Specialist machines are available at reasonable prices, but you may be able to find them on a good general machine.

Industrial Sewing Machines

When you’re running a fashion design business and using your machine for several hours every working day, an ordinary domestic sewing machine won’t do. Most of these are simply not designed to handle that sort of strain. You’ll need an industrial quality sewing machine backed by a good guarantee and repairs policy. Be warned - this can add as much as £400 to the price, though if you keep your eyes open for discounts you should be able to get a good machine for about £300 in total. Second hand machines are often in good enough condition to be acceptable as back-up, but are an unwise choice for your primary machine, as you cannot afford the risk of things going wrong all the time.

Although it’s now possible to buy high quality industrial sewing machines online, you should generally aim to have a good look at the machines which interest you before you make your choice. Singer centres are an excellent place to buy sewing machines as they do carry industrial models (though they may not always have them on display) and they offer a very good, low cost guarantee system with repairs usually taking just three to four days. However, they will not collect your machine when it needs to be repaired, so you’ll need to be able to transport it to them yourself. Industrial machines can be very heavy, so make sure you have plans in place for dealing with this eventuality.

If you make sure to buy the right kind of sewing machine for your fashion design business, and if you treat it well, with regular cleaning, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last you for many long years.

If you want to make serious money with your fashion design business, you’re going to have to sell the clothing you produce to shops. Women’s clothing is the largest sector of the fashion industry and women do most of their shopping in person, even if they look at photos of clothes which interest them in magazines and on the internet first. But how do shops choose what apparel to stock? How do they identify potential suppliers? And how can you persuade them that your fashion designs are worth taking on?

Getting Noticed by Clothing Retailers

Ultimately, the only way you will get your work into shops is by producing strong designs with real sales potential. But even if you have those, how can you bring them to retailers’ attention? There are four major ways to approach this:-

• Attend trade shows: Larger retailers, and some small ones, regularly attend trade shows to look for the next big thing in fashion apparel. They’re interested in well made, distinctive clothes which will fit in with upcoming fashion trends.
• Send out catalogues: Good quality photos of your fashion designs, along with thorough descriptions, may persuade retailers to request sample apparel from you or even to place orders directly. Target your catalogues carefully.
• Visit shops: There’s no point in trying to sell your clothing directly to large fashion stores, where the people who choose suppliers won’t be present, but nothing beats personal contact with smaller shops. Do your research first and show them that you understand their business needs.
• Network: Attend fashion-related events and social gatherings and talk to people there about your fashion design business. Exchange business cards and be sure to follow through promptly with a call. Be friendly and make a good personal impression.

Once retailers have seen your work, you’re halfway there. Provided it’s well made and suitable for their own target markets, they may well consider it. Now’s the time to make sure they do. Be pushy. You don’t need to be rude, but you shouldn’t be too polite either, because the competition won’t be. Make sure retailers don’t have the chance to forget who you are. If they show an interest but don’t take on the first set of your designs that they see, contact them every time you have a new clothing collection available.

Keeping Retailers Happy

It’s an exciting moment when you get that first phone call in which somebody says “yes”. You’ll feel relieved and ready to relax a little, as if the big struggle is over - but in fact it’s just beginning.

Once a retailer agrees to stock your fashion designs, you need to negotiate a suitable contract and make the arrangements for delivery. In most cases you won’t be expected to provide a large amount of stock in the first instance, as the retailer will want to wait and see how they sell, but be realistic about your production capacity - it’s better to set a date slightly later than the retailer’s ideal than to let the retailer down by failing to meet that date. Every retailer deals with suppliers in a slightly different way, so try to establish what delivery arrangements will suit them.

Sometimes new designers provide clothing to small shops on a sale or return basis, meaning that you get paid only when your items sell. This reduces the risks for the retailer and makes them more willing to experiment, but it can be a risky strategy for you and should be used only as a last resort.

Once your clothes are in a shop, keep in touch. If possible, visit from time to time. Ask how sales are going and try to pick up on any customer feedback. If your work is selling well, keep the retailer informed about your future plans. As soon as you have placed one fashion collection you should be thinking about placing the next one.

Finally, never rely on just one retailer. Some retailers will try to establish exclusive deals. Limit them to having, at most, an exclusive option on one particular collection or in one particular locale. If a relationship with one retailer breaks down, you want to have others still selling your work so that your fashion business doesn’t go down too. Keeping up with retailers will keep your busy, but that’s business!

Many people enter the fashion industry brimming with ideas about the things they want to create. Ultimately, however, fashion is a business, and in business it’s not what you want that matters - it’s what your customers want. To be a success you need to match your own abilities as a designer with a section of the public which wants those designs. You need to establish your target audience.

To find your target audience, you first need to think carefully about the type of garments you intend to make. There are several things you should consider:-

• What type of person are they aimed at?
• Is that person male or female?
• How old is that person?
• What size range are they looking for?
• How much do they want to spend on clothes?
• Are they looking for high fashion or a favourite classic style?

The chances are that you’ll find your initial designs are actually targeted at a lot of different people. This isn’t a bad thing in itself - it gives you the potential to expand later - but it’s impractical when you’re just starting out. To develop a customer base you need to produce consistent work which will continue to appeal to returning customers. You need to narrow your range.

Identify your Customers with Market Research

If you’re not sure which designs to develop, finding out more about what potential customers want can help. Although it’s possible to commission market research, this can be expensive, and nothing beats talking to customers yourself. It’s easy to take a notebook and pen and go out at the weekend to your local high street to talk to shoppers about the kinds of clothes you’re interested in making. You may feel shy at first but you’ll soon get the hang of it and you’ll find that, if you’re friendly and take your time with them, ordinary shoppers can make all kinds of useful suggestions.

Once you have some finished work of your own, take every opportunity to gauge other people’s reactions to it. Wear it yourself if possible, and encourage your friends to wear your designs. Remember that you will probably get more positive than negative feedback in this situation (because people will think of it as a personal matter and won’t want to insult you), but you can still use this information to help you work out what sort of person is attracted to your work and what aspects of it they find most appealing. When you sell your clothing, make sure you pay close attention to what your customers are saying about it. You shouldn’t get into arguments but you should always be willing to listen to criticism.

When you’re selecting your target market, it’s important not to let fantasies about the fashion world get in the way. It may be that the people most receptive to your designs are not the people you’d ideally like to see wearing them. Remember that doing good business is the most important thing at this stage.

Consider the Competition

Although customer interest is the most important thing to bear in mind when choosing what audience to aim for, there are still other important factors to consider. Chief among these is the competition. It’s highly unlikely that, as a newcomer, you’ll find yourself able to compete in the most crowded areas of the market. It can be useful to work out if there are customer groups which are currently under-provided for, and start there. You can always branch out later.

Competition is always tough for new fashion businesses, but if you target your work effectively there’s no reason why you shouldn’t find a receptive market waiting for you.

No matter how carefully you go about planning things in your fashion design business, the balance of supply and demand can be hard to get right. Customer demand alone is a difficult factor to predict. If you take on too many employees when times are good, you risk finding yourself in trouble when demand decreases and you can’t afford to pay them. But if you have too few, how can you keep up if one of your designs suddenly becomes popular? With too few workers you risk missing out on valuable revenue.

When a fashion business is new, it’s not unusual for the designer to be doing all the manufacturing work themselves, or sharing it with business partners or co-directors. You may be wary of the complicated financial processes involved in taking on employees. Fortunately, there’s a way to work around this.

Hiring Contract Workers

When you take on contract workers you are not hiring employees as such - rather, you are entering into business relationships with independent professionals who take care of their own taxes. They are selling you a service. You can approach this just as you would any other business deal. Make sure you see samples of their work and, if possible, get references from their previous clients. Discuss your designs with them, make sure you both understand your patterns in the same way, and show them examples of what the finished garments should look like. Never commission the first version of a new garment from a contract worker.

When your work is doing well, it may be necessary to take on several contract workers to produce the same type of garment. When you do this, it’s very important to check that they are all making the garment in the same way. Customers expect consistency.

Some contract workers offer rates by the hour, but you should always try to negotiate a rate per garment. Your local business support service should be able to advise you of the industry average. When you’re paying by the hour, you have no legal recourse if a particular contractor works really slowly, and it’s potentially difficult for you to balance your costs against your output.

Try to build up a regular stable of contractors whom you can trust. When you need to look for more, ask them for recommendations. If you are working on a large scale, you can consider outsourcing work to contract agencies. These can take away a lot of the hassle of the contracting process, supervising individual workers themselves and offering you greater recourse if something goes wrong. However, they also take a cut, making the job more expensive.

Contracting Abroad

If you’re keen to reduce your costs, you can consider contracting abroad. This doesn’t have to be exploitative. Because the cost of living is lower in developing countries, smaller payments can actually go a lot further. Some contracting agencies specialise in contracting abroad, and can take care of the tax issues for you. It’s always better to make this kind of arrangement via an agency or similar organisation, as it will be infeasible for you to supervise the work process yourself.

Unfortunately, contracting abroad can lead to delays. Aside from basic the time taken to ship your finished garments to you, those garments can get stuck in customs, sometimes for weeks. Obviously, this is a serious problem if you have tight deadlines to meet. This is more of a problem in arrangements with some countries than with others. Ask the agency how they will be able to compensate you if this happens.

There can also be ethical issues with contracting abroad. Even if you travel to visit workers in person, which may cost more than you can afford, it’s difficult fore you to guarantee that they’re working under good conditions and being properly paid by the agency. Furthermore, you will be exporting jobs which you could give to workers in the UK. This may lead to you losing some of the government support services you would otherwise be entitled to.

Contracting can be a thorny business so it’s best to keep it as simple as possible, choosing the option which best suits your needs. When it works it can make keeping up with supply and demand much, much easier.

When you’re running a fashion design business, the number one thing you need to be sure of it your source of fabric. Whilst it’s possible to buy fabric from the same shops as everybody else, this tends to be a very expensive way of doing things and it’s simply not practical when you’re producing lots of copies of the same design. Before you open for business, you should ensure that you have good access to fabric wholesalers.

Local vs Online Wholesalers
These days the internet makes it easier than ever to locate wholesalers. Because it keeps overheads low, many wholesalers now operate their businesses entirely online. These companies are often able to offer lower prices, but you should take into account any delivery charges when you’re working out how much you could save. You should also make sure that you have a good contract which allows for the easy return and swift replacement of any damaged fabric you receive, as you may be handling very heavy bales which it’s impractical for you to dispatch by conventional means.

Ordering online means you don’t get the chance to examine fabric closely before you make choices. Most online wholesalers can send out samples to get around this problem. It’s obviously impractical to wait for samples when you need a new fabric quickly or when you want to take advantage of a limited time sale, but building up a good relationship with a particular wholesaler can give you more confidence in the quality of their products and a better idea of what they mean by their descriptions.

Getting your fabric from a local wholesaler means that you can examine every item personally before you buy. It makes it easier to meet tight deadlines and it often means that you can buy smaller quantities. Your local small business support centre should be able to give you a list of fabric wholesalers in your area; alternately you can look them up in the business section of your local library.

If you purchase supplies locally, you may be expected to provide your own transport, or doing so may make the process much cheaper. Fabric bales can be very large and unwieldy, so a van is usually more practical than a car. Bear in mind that it’s possible to rent vans on a short term basis. Newspaper small ads for vans plus drivers often offer a cheap way of doing this.

When you visit a wholesaler, you will often be required to provide proof that you represent a business (this is rarely requested during online transactions). Bringing along a business bank statement or a utility bill addressed to your business is usually sufficient.

What to Look For in a Wholesaler

There are several things to consider when choosing a wholesaler:-

• Reliability - Can you always expect the same basic items to be in stock? Can you get access to the same members of staff if you need assistance? Can you be sure of good communication?
• Quantity - Does the wholesaler supply fabric in large enough quantities to meet the needs of your business? Remember that you may be able to make special arrangements.
• Variety - Sometimes you’ll only want to order one particular fabric from a wholesaler, but usually it’s most practical to have the option of getting most of your basic fabrics from the same source.
• Support Services - How efficient is the wholesaler at delivering supplies and/or helping you to transport what you buy?
• Pricing - How does the wholesaler compare to others when it comes to price? Remember that the cheapest deal is not always the best, and be careful to check the quality of what you buy.

In order to provide a reliable service to your clients, you should make sure that you have more than one wholesale source available for the basic fabrics you need. Even the most reliable companies sometimes unexpectedly cease trading, and the fashion supply market can be volatile.

Dealing with wholesalers can be intimidating at first, as you’ll be plunged into an environment where everybody else already knows what they’re doing and you’ve still to learn how to spot a bargain. But with patience and a positive attitude, you’ll soon get the hang of things. Well established relationships with wholesalers means you’ll rarely have to worry about your supply, so you can concentrate on your designs.

How many fashion designers and design companies can you name? If you read a lot of fashion magazines, you might be able to make quite an impressive list, but most people can’t think of more than twenty. Now, how many new fashion businesses do you think launch in the UK each year? The figure is considerably higher. The public never hear about most of them. How can you make sure that yours is different?

Launching a fashion business requires a double-pronged strategy. You need to get yourself noticed by both the public and the existing industry, especially retailers who might be interested in stocking your work. Don’t try to use the same marketing for both audiences. Business news organisations might appreciate a well-worded press release but they’ll have little interest in media stunts. If you want to get their attention you’ll need to demonstrate that you have a product which deserves it, and a good head for business besides.

Business Marketing
One of the good things about internal industry promotion is that it can begin even before you start trading, giving you something useful to get on with whilst you’re waiting to hear about funding etc. Much of this sort of marketing is done through networks, so find out which networks you can usefully join - your local business support centre will be able to provide you with lists. Online organisations like Linked In (www.linkedin.com) can also be useful, and Fashion United (www.fashionunited.co.uk) provides a networking service specific to the industry. Networking makes it easy to keep up to date with business news and to meet useful contacts in a relatively informal setting.

When meeting in person, the most important thing you’ll need is your business card. Never use a standard design, even if you can save money by doing so. Choose something which reflects what your business is about. Don’t be afraid to be a little bit quirky or unusual. The same applies to business dress, though it is important not to be seen looking as if you don’t care about your choice of outfit. In this business more than most others, you will be judge by your personal appearance.

Working with the Media
Once your designs are out there, you need to let the public know about them. To do this, you need to be able to work with the media - but don’t restrict yourself to the fashion media. A new business is unlikely to get a mention in Cosmopolitan but it may well make the front page of your local paper. The trick is to give the media what they want. Send out your press releases to as many people as possible, but don’t do it carelessly - always address the recipient by name. Include internet links to pictures of your work - ideally both colour and black and white images which show it at its best. Adjust press releases to particular publications. Vogue won’t want to hear about your personal journey but women’s magazines like Bella and Best love that sort of thing. Local papers will want a picture of you, will want to know your age, and will be thrilled if there’s a local connection. This sort of thing may be laborious but it can lead to invaluable publicity.

Fashion and Direct Marketing
When you’re creating a product which is all about public satisfaction, the most important thing for you to do is to connect with the public. Fashion is a visual business, however, so don’t waste your time on promotional materials which don’t actually show what you do. Stick to strategies like postcard marketing, placing exciting pictures of your designs in the sort of venues where you expect your target customers to go.

One of the most important ways to announce your arrival in the fashion world is to get your designs seen. If you have friends who are famous, see if they are willing to wear your designs in public if they get them for free. Even ordinary socially popular friends can be useful in this way, helping to generate a buzz about what you do. Get yourself or your friends on television wearing your designs, even if the programme is about something else (it’s easy to get onto talk shows and game shows). Arrange for small public gatherings of people who look good in your designs at busy times. And never miss an opportunity to tell people about your work. Fashion is all about publicity, and you can make it happen.

No matter how good the other aspects of your fashion business are, you won’t get anywhere without strong design. Doubtless you wouldn’t want to work in fashion in the first place if you didn’t have some strong design ideas, but realising those ideas and turning them into something which looks good on the catwalk can be another matter. Fortunately, these days, there’s computer software available to help you produce templates which are easy to work with.

Fashion software is ideal for turning your vision of a garment into a pattern which you can apply directly to the fabric you’re working with. It can also enable you to create templates which you can then adjust to create a range of similar designs. Software like this is especially useful if you haven’t formally studied fashion and lack the technical skills to develop patterns by yourself.

Choosing the Right Fashion Software

A few years ago there were only a couple of fashion design programs on the market - now there are over a dozen. The important thing to realise is that no one of these is superior to all the others and it’s not a simple question of getting what you pay for. What’s important is to get the right software for you. To do this, there are several things you need to take into account:-

• How good are your fashion skills? Different design software is aimed at users with different levels of ability. Some programs, like Digital Fashion Pro, make things easy for you by providing basic templates to work from, but this can be restrictive for more advanced designers who want to create their own templates from scratch.
• How good are your computer skills? Some fashion design software, like Virtual Fashion, is designed for the casual computer and is easy to work with, whilst other programs, like Fashion Toolbox, are a bit trickier to use but give you more flexibility as a designer. Remember, there’s no point in getting a more complex program unless you can use it properly.
• What type of computer are you using? Some programs, like Assyst, will work on the full range of modern operating systems, whilst others will work only with one, like CM32 Professional for Windows. Different programs require different amounts of space and different degrees of power - to use the latest Fashion CAD software, for instance, you’ll need a fast machine.
• What type of clothing are you working on? As well as general fashion programs like those mentioned above, there are a variety of specialist programs available for things like embroidery, patterned fabric design and even handbag design.

No matter how perfect a particular piece of software might seem for your needs, you should be aware that you may find it difficult to use in practice. Make sure you have access to good technical support facilities so that you can phone up for help when necessary.

What Fashion Software Can’t Do

No matter how good the fashion design software you’re using is, there are some things which it won’t be able to do for you. At present, even the best software available can’t tell you how a garment will hang when it’s on a real person. Different types of fabrics behave in different ways and this is something which you, as a designer, will have to visualise for yourself. Similarly, though it may be able to simulate natural movement, your software won’t be able to tell you how a garment will behave when it’s under strain. This isn’t a problem on the catwalk but if your designs are going to be practical in the real world you’ll need to make sure that tight angles and narrow seams don’t make them too vulnerable to pulling and tearing.

Above all, it’s important to remember that your fashion design software is a tool. It won’t do everything for you but you can work with it to achieve spectacular results.