RTW or Besspoke? Which should you focus on? As a new designer, you cannot escape from the desire to want to design every type of dress. You’ll start off knowing only one desire- to design fabulous dresses for everyone

At first you will not be specific about who you’d like to design for, you are drawn to a lot of things and yet to carve out a niche or style that will define what you’ve got to offer

But let’s look at the two concepts closely:

BESPOKE TAILORING

This concept of tailoring is about making clothes according to what your client wants. The term ‘bespoke’ itself means to make something according to Specifications asked. Bespoke doesn’t just exist in tailoring, you also have bespoke events. So basically a client sends you a style inspiration and asks you to make it exactly or simile to the style inspiration

READY TO WEAR (RTW)

As the name implies is clothing that is made ready to be worn. Clients walks into your store or orders what you post online and expect to get into the dress and ready to go to work, an event etc.

In this article, we will explore the concept of RTW and how you can start a RTW business with as little as 5,000 naira even if you are a new designer with zero marketing skill.

But first let me share with you a little bit of the process that goes into Fashion Fridays with Koffykombs.

I comb the internet, looking for industry professionals to collaborate with so that I can share with you the latest industry news that helps you make informed decisions on how to grow your fashion design business

Today, we will look at the case study of one of the successful students of a RTW industry professional. Let’s name her Yetunde.

Now, Yetunde wasn’t always successful in her business, she didn’t start off being a student of this said professional, her mistakes took her there.

I will share with you some of the costly assumptions Yetunde made as a new designer so that you can stop yourself in time if you have been thinking along these lines

Yetunde started off, fresh from fashion school with limited resources, lots of excitement and ideas. All her thoughts led her to the equipments, tools, dress forms, shop etc that she will first get.

She spent her days investigating prices of these things. Never for once did her mind lead her to put some money aside to actually learn how to do the business aspect of this career. She assumed that the ability to make clothes is the same as the business of making clothes

This led her to a series of happenings.

First she noticed that she couldn’t keep track of her expenses, she didn’t know if she was making profit or not. She found she was always busy, but the bank account wasn’t growing.

She began to owe her tailors salary and couldn’t meet up with the rising expenses of running the business, in desperation, she would take anything that came her way, just to keep afloat

Two of her best tailors left because she was owing them and the the rest were those whose skills weren’t so developed and was just managing them

One day, she got a bulky order to make dresses for a bridal train, she also had some other errands to run, so she left instructions on exactly what to do

When she got back, she found her shop deserted, the doors were opened, no one was in sight. She walked over to the dresses she left for the tailors and wondered if it was the same clothes that she left them with in the morning

A devastation and mutilation of the styles presented itself before her eyes, a complete opposite of what she asked them to do. Enraged, Yetunde started calling their numbers, none of it was reachable. She called and called. No response. Panicky now, it began to dawn on her what had really happened.

The tailors, after realising that they have spoiled the dresses, ran away and didn’t come back, leaving Yetunde with the mess to clean up, more debt to pay (these were clients fabrics) and a broken heart.

With all the strength gone out of her, all she did was to call her client, explained the situation and then borrowed money to buy another fabric so that her client could give someone else to make. She was ready to throw in the trowel. Yetunde locked up her shop. She decided she was out of business

Alone in her dark room, after crying her eyes out, Yetunde reflected on how she got to this point and it hit her that she hadn’t planned her business strategy very well. Because she hadn’t planned well, she made sporadic decisions that didn’t support the business growth, leading to her owing her tailors, leading to her left with tailors who couldn’t deliver.

A single decision/in decision leading to an unfavourable cascade of events.

Broke and in debt to her teeth, Yetunde started to seek for help and started her research on who will help her out of the financial mess.

After several weeks of research, she came across her present coach. Six months later, not only is Yetunde out of debt, She was opened for business again, with limited resources, a lot of business wisdom and strategies.

What could it mean for you to finally be able to set up your RTW business making the kinds of dresses you love and your customers paying you the exact amount you asked for?

Are you ready to stop groping about in the dark and doing trial and error business strategies?

Click the link below to access the exact audio training that Yetunde’s coach used to help her not only get out of debt, but to start making some serious cash .

The best part? Because you are Koffy’s friend, You get the audio training for free PLUS a 20 per cent discount off the main RTW course, that will teach you everything you need to know about setting up your RTW brand on a limited budget

Click on the link below to gain instant access

https://forms.gle/DwevdxD6jZk6KeBs7