Wholesale for a "Continuous" Line

When Pixyworld hired our first sales rep at Lace and Denim, Terrie asked me whether our line was "seasonal" or "continuous." It was a surprise (and a comfort) to me that a showroom would have a name for what we do. Rather than making $20,000 worth of samples a season ahead, then taking orders, and then manufacturing the product, we just make each collection once. We sell what we have, both retail and wholesale, and when it's gone, it's gone. Meanwhile, we are always working on new collections, to replace those that sell out.

The advantages of this are overwhelming from a manufacturing point of view. The fabrics we use are mainly non-reorderable: either we have them printed ourselves, or we buy yardage that is in very limited supply. And, as far as making samples a season ahead... adding an extra $20,000 to a season's bill does tend to drive product prices up!

So when we were contacted by Summer Place II, a showroom in the Southwest, we had hope that they would be able to accommodate continuous manufacturing. Although this wasn't the way they were accustomed to selling, they were willing to work with us. Gail, my contact there, said, "Typically our buyers spend budgets a season in advance, however, I think the need is growing for "pay as you go" ordering, so to speak. I have been seeing some success with my lines that carry inventory and are flexible with opening orders and reorders."

So Pixyworld Wholesale is now "good to go" with Summer Place II, thanks to her flexibility!

ALWAYS Get Counter-Samples

My overseas production manager has proved herself responsible. After sending her a physical sample, graded patterns, and finished product measurements for my new Pixyworld collection, and after being hit with high FedEx bills in the past, I figured it would be unnecessary to have her send me finished counter-samples. Photos would be fine.

But she was concerned enough to do it anyway, at her own expense. And, sure enough, we had narrowly averted disaster. She had made the dress bodice out of jersey knit, whereas I had designed the pattern for a stretchy rib knit. The dress would not even come close to going over my toddler's head!

There are some absolutes in life, and one is toddler head size (see KidsGrowth.com.) A detail like this can make or break a design. And how many other details that seem obvious to the designer can be miscommunicated to a factory?

So have I learned my lesson? Well, when next season comes around, we'll see!

Also Posted at Pixyworld Blog

Giving Birth to a Brand

Like many first-time parents, my husband and I had no idea what we were signing up for, when we decided to create our own children's clothing label. He had grown an online watch business, from startup to profitability, in less than a year. "Piece of cake," we thought.

But building a new brand from scratch is a whole different ballgame. Like giving birth to a child, it is a long process, during which there are times when it seems nothing is happening and nothing ever will!

There are the months of waiting for the first production run to be finished. The months of waiting for a website to appear on google. And the long, slow process of building a customer base.

When a child is born, we celebrate a job well done! But of course the job is really barely started. The child is utterly dependent, taking constant care and devoted attention, and, at first, unable to give back even a smile.

When a new brand is finally launched, the situation is similar. The clothes came out well -- good! Showrooms and retailers are signing on -- great! But profitability is still a long way off.

Production quantities need to be gradually increased, until a sell-able wholesale price is actually twice the production price. And this has to be done without spending so much on advertising that the business' debt swallows up its future!

We have hopes that one day our brand will grow to maturity. Maybe (like a good child) it will even take care of us in our retirement! But for now, we have only the satisfaction of doing our best day after day, waiting, and hoping.

Profile of a Designer-Entrepreneur

I'm sure everyone has a different opinion about what it takes to be an independent designer-entrepreneur. We designer-entrepreneurs probably all think, "you have to be like me!"

I know I started out feeling extremely under-qualified. With no current connections in the industry and no fashion education, where was I to start?

At that time I failed to recognize the strengths I had inherited from my family. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, who can never be happy in an ordinary job. They are always starting something. Since they are both in the non-profit world, I didn't make the connection at first between their careers and what I was trying to do.

But there are very close connections in what was needed: extreme persistence, a mysteriously unshakable confidence in their eventual success, problem-solving skills, and an inabililty to stop thinking of new ideas!

I also didn't put two and two together, at first, about the previous generation. My paternal grandfather was a knitter in New York City, who owned a factory and designed his own sweater line. My maternal grandmother was a dressmaker out of her home. Why was I so surprised to discover, at age 30, that I had a passion for design and a need to sew my designs into existence??

And then there's my situation in life. At first glance, being a middle-class stay-at-home mom doesn't seem ideal for starting a new career in fashion design. But there were some hidden strengths there as well. I found I had married (surprise, surprise!) an entrepreneurial husband, who enjoys taking risks and thrives on new business ideas. And I found myself in the position of not needing a salary to support myself right away. That has given me the time to get started, without the financial pressure of mounting debt.

These may not be the characteristics you would list if asked to describe a well-qualified designer-entrepreneur. But I think there's one universal qualification we can all agree on -- slight to moderate insanity. :)

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog

Why Wovens but Not Knits??

It's a little puzzling, given the immense popularity of knit fabrics in fashion today, why knit prints are relatively hard to find. Premier fabric designers like Robert Kauffman (pictured), Amy Butler, and Michael Miller all seem to design prints produced exclusively as woven fabrics.

Is this because their target market is primarily quilters? Today, with the emergence of so much patchwork in boutique apparel, there would seem to be a growing market for designer knit prints.

At this point, Pixyworld is relying on the mercy of fabric printers who bring their minimums WAY down for us (in return for extra compensation, of course.) If there were wholesale knit prints available with the kind of thoughtful and artistic design of today's quilting fabrics, what heaven for a designer like me!

But then again, where would be the challenge in that?

The Princess and the Pea

How could I have understood, before giving birth to a Princess, the humor of The Princess and the Pea?

It can get to you, if you lose your sense of humor about it. Some little girls are simply born with an acute sensitivity to anything -- ANYTHING -- that rubs them the wrong way.

I suppose I was this way myself as a girl; perhaps that is why I find myself designing little girls' clothing.

My little princess had issues with jeans. She simply would not wear them. Denim was just not soft enough to be in contact with Her Royal Person. Then I started meeting other moms with the exact same problem!

My Pixyworld jeans are one attempt at pleasing the exacting little mistress. They worked for mine. The baby-rib-covered elastic waist was what she needed. Now she wears them almost daily.

I think I will also buy her this book. Perhaps she will have a flash of self-recognition?? In living with a Princess, that can make all the difference.

For the Toddler Divas of the World

I have two tiny divas of my own, so I knew the Accessorize Me! collection would have to be part of my toddler girls' line.

I knew it the day my 2-year-old sached into the kitchen where my husband had just arrived from work, struck a pose, and waited for him to compliment her new shoes.

I knew it when my 4-year-old became fascinated with filing her nails and having them painted.

I knew it when, a year before that when she was still perfecting the finer points of speech, she asked me for a cotton ball with "salsa" on it, for her facial toilette.

Isn't it great to be a girl??

A Basic Sewing Studio for Knits

I am indebted to the Leabu Sewing Center for not only repairing and maintaining my machines, but advising me on how to provide myself with the essential machines for my work, without breaking the bank.

Many designers do great work without sewing, but I design mainly by sewing. Since I began working mainly with knit fabrics, in developing the Pixyworld line, I realized that my sweet little Huskystar 219 (Husqvarna) wasn't going to be adequate for sewing my samples.

I first acquired a serger, used, which was a good start but a bit of a disappointment. It arrived broken, and after the first repair I was able to use it for awhile. I then started having trouble with the threads breaking, and Leabu showed me that it was because of a design flaw, not a problem that could be repaired. My new serger, only about $500, is the Janome 1110DX, and it is working just fine for me.

I then splurged on the MemoryCraft 350E, an embroidery machine which I needed to embellish my designs. It was very inexpensive for an embroidery machine, and I have had no problems with it so far.

Finally, I got my CoverPro 900CP, on sale for $300. Nearly all my hems are coverstitched, and it does fine with those. It does not have a narrow gauge setting, which I would have liked, for foldover necklines, but I am happy enough.

If I were to choose on more machine, it would be a 5-thread machine for topstitching. But at present I can use covertitch, upside-down, to create an approximation for factory samples.

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog.

Date Change for Michigan Runway Shows

Designers and models can still sign up for Dressed on Washington Street, southeast Michigan's new annual fashion event!

The runway shows will now take place on Saturday, May 30. Pixyworld still has spots available for mini-models, sizes 18M to 7. You can contact me directly if you're interested.

In addition to the fashion shows, there will be an accessories show inside the What is That Gallery in Ypsilanti, MI. If you're nearby, don't miss this fabulous event!

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog

Yummy Yarn-Dyed Stripes

Fabric quality is such an important element in producing a pleasing and long-lasting product. The average consumer does not necessarily know the technical terms for different types of fabric, but she knows good fabric when she sees and feels it.

My aspirations in this area, for my toddler girls' line, are high. One aspect of high-quality knit fabrics is that striped knits are yarn-dyed rather than printed.

Having a yarn-dyed fabric custom made for a small boutique line is virtually impossible, because of impossibly high minimums. But there are some wholesale sources that can provide good yarn-dyed stripes. I m finding them gradually online, and will soon be incorporating them into my striped designs.

Some of my favorites are Denver Fabrics and Sand Textile. If you find any others, please let me know!

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog.

Images on Clothing: Embroidery vs. Applique

The ability to put images on clothing has opened up new vistas of fun and personal expression, both for adults and children. Printed fabrics and printed tee-shirts are so ubiquitous now that we take them for granted. But my favorites, especially for children's clothing, are embroidery and applique -- two methods that give an image a special texture and style that really makes it pop.

Embroidery Library has great examples of both. With embroidery, there is the possibility for almost limitless detail. With applique, although the scope for detail is more limited, the design incorporates one or more different fabrics. This gives the design a very special quality, resembling the beautiful appliqued quilts that have long been a part of our country's artistic tradition. You can see more great applique designs at Embroidery Boutique.

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog

Spec Sheets, Schmeck Sheets.

As much as I love Mary Gelhar's The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, there is one area in which it hasn't tallied with my experience.

Tech sheets. Spec sheets. Whatever you want to call them. The fact of the matter is, I have rarely ever been able to get a manufacturing quote for my little girls' clothing line with one.

When I first started looking for a factory, I made beautiful tech sheets. By the book. One production manager even went out of her way to compliment my flats. But the response I invariably got was, "Send a sample."

Fortuntely, I happen to sew. Otherwise, the amount of capital needed to start this line would have been prohibitive. Can you imagine?? Hiring a sample maker every time you have an idea?? And then most of my ideas don't even make the first cut, (no pun intended) once I see them in real fabric on a real toddler.

We would like to think we can visualize the whole manufacturing process in the abstract, from a spec sheet. But we are in the garment industry. Production managers need to touch and hold an actual garment to think about making it on a large scale. And I can't say I blame them.

Also posted at Pixyworld Blog

Colors in Fashion Design

As cheesy as the title has come to sound, Color Me Beautiful, by Carole Jackson, has been a milestone in fashion history. Take a look on Amazon at how many titles and products use it as a springboard. And for me, it was the beginning of the love affair with color that eventually led me to a career in children's fashion.

Jackson's color theory forms a foundation for color selection in fashion design. It reminds the designer to select colors from all four seasons, so that her line can have the broadest possible appeal. It also recommends the basic dark neutrals that a wardrobe can be built around.

But it does need to be balanced with the colors that are trendy in fashion at the moment. For example, our Pink Jungle and Flower Power collections are both built around chocolate brown, and the popularity of the color has led to much greater sales than could be expected from Autumn shoppers alone!

A lifetime of selecting colors for fashion is still too short for me...

It's In the Fit (that's where it is...)

There are so many thing that have to go right in garment production, to make a pleasing product. It's no wonder I find myself returning half the clothes I buy from Chadwick's, my cheap online clothing source.

But if I had to pick one detail that is make or break, it's fit. And I'd say that with the childrens' clothes I design, sizing is even more challenging, but just as important.

It's more challenging because children vary tremendously in both height and weight, whereas in standard adult women's sizing the differences are mainly in weight. (Fortunately we now have petites and talls, but even there, there is a relatively slight difference in height.)

I had a stress attack this morning, when looking at counter-samples made by an overseas factory we're working with. It was clear to me that they had done something to my patterns!! I agonize over my patterns, and what they had made was clearly proportioned wrong. Fortunately, having paid nothing yet, I was able to ask for another sample, after getting to the bottom of the problem.

Is overseas production worth this kind of stress?? The jury is still definitely out.

A New Look at Wholesale

It seems that with the advent of e-commerce, the rigid dividing lines between apparel wholesalers and retailers is softening, and Pixyworld is ready to step into a newer hybrid role. We have always been open, in theory, to wholesaling, but we seemed to have readier access to the retail market. Not to mention profit margin -- which is miniscule for our wholesale sales at present.

However, we've been getting more and more wholesale inquiries, and it's caused us to take another look at the potential there. I've never forgotten how, awhile back, Baby Gassy Gooma had a sliding scale for smaller wholesale orders. That works for us, and also seems to work well for smaller retailers who can't buy large quantities at first.

The ideal for us could be a happy medium -- retailing for the financial profit and the energizing effect of direct contact with the consumer; wholesaling to boost production quantities and increase brand recognition.