The clothing business is undoubtedly one of the most lucrative ventures. Getting dressed is a primal instinct, and any business idea that feeds our basic human instinct will always find relevance.
Now, the business of clothing has moved on from serving efficiently to making bold fashion statements.
Getting dressed up is a huge deal. So how can we turn a basic need into a clothing business? It goes beyond the need to show up at events because people bought clothes during the lockdown, then made videos for TikTok.
I don’t get it. Yet It’s a thing. Our need for new clothes is insatiable.
This desire to wear fashionable apparel will never go out of style. This is why the clothing business remains at the centre of business endeavours. Ask Gucci, they’re selling e-fashion and it’s more expensive than the real items.
We will consider some of the easiest and not so easy ways to turn a simple clothing business into a money-spinning engagement.
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Cloth Making
Many people make tons of money from making clothes; whether as ready to wear apparel or customised clothing sewn upon demand, cloth making is highly profitable. You will need a lot of capital to set off your own space, and of course, you will require designing and sewing skills.
If cloth making is something you are passionate about, you can easily turn it into a profit-making business. But, first, study the various available business models, find out the particular niche you want to go into (Men’s wear, Bridals, ready to wear, bespoke, embroidery, children’s wear and many others).
Once you know the type of cloth-making you want to take up, you can go ahead and draw up your business plan and work towards finding the sponsors or capital you need to set up and grow your business.
Selling Thrift Cloths
Thrift clothes are used clothes or unwanted clothes. Clothes that have been worn and disposed of by their former owners, clothes that were damaged from the factory or clothes that had passed their season, all fall under this category. All these clothes that, for one reason or the other, cannot be placed in a proper store and sold at the designated price are usually shipped off to be sold as second-hand clothes or fairly used clothes.
These types of clothes are bought at low prices and resold at a profit. To get into this business of reselling clothes, you may need a certain amount of capital and possibly a link to people who gather and sell these types of dresses. Whatever the case, you will need to have a little start-up capital to start up this business.
Costuming for Film
Making clothes is more than just pulling threads through a fabric. There is a lot involved in bringing intricate designs to life on a piece of material. Anyone endowed with the right skills can pull off any kind of costume that storytellers need to add to their visual presentation to bring their stories to life.
Costumiers help filmmakers tell their stories by ensuring that the characters are presented to meet the viewers’ visual expectations. This could serve as an additional means of income if you are already into the business of cloth making. For example, you could provide the right kind of clothes filmmakers need to make their characters pop.
Become a Celebrity Shopper or Stylist
Celebrities always want to look their best when they turn up on every occasion. So this could be a cool way to make some extra bucks. Starting this business does not require a huge capital base; as long as you have established your reputation as a fashion authority, you are good to go.
This business, however, functions mainly as an additional income generation option. If you already have something doing or you are a student, you can run this business on the side because it is not always an everyday business. For example, when celebrities need to turn up for a show, they will require you to pick out the right outfit. Most times, you will be using your funds to purchase these clothes from online or offline stores, and you will get paid for your work. How good is that?
If you promote yourself well, you will have a huge clientele base in no time because this space is not yet occupied by many people offering very professional services in this area. You can study your competition and build a massive business out of this seemingly small business idea.
Fashion Consulting
The beautiful thing about consulting is that anyone with the right amount of expertise could go into it. Anyone could be a consultant for any number of reasons. You can build a business around selling your fashion expertise to people. A lot of people don’t know what to wear when going out. You could offer your professional advice to such people and get paid for your services in return. It may seem like it is not mainly a business to consider, but it is an option that many people will choose over having to turn over their wardrobe looking for the right outfit to wear to a function.
Costume Rental
You can rent out some high-end fashion clothing to people who ordinarily cannot afford to own these clothes for keeps either because they are too expensive or because they are not the everyday clothing necessity. You can rent out these clothes for events, parties and red carpet outings. Upon return, these outfits could be tweaked to look different. Thus, you can make a considerable return from renting out clothes to people for other occasions.
While it is a lot cheaper to produce results faster if you have the skills and clientele base of a cloth maker, you don’t need to have the technical skills to get into this business. You can hire creative cloth makers to make clothes for you. You can make a living renting clothes if you have a good eye for fashion. Do a market survey and see if this is something you can try.
Fashion Blogger
You could write as a columnist or as a fashion expert. If you know the right blend of clothes to put together to fit any personality or body type, then you could sell that knowledge through books.
Write about your knowledge in a book or magazine. Then, you could self-publish your book and sell it on platforms like Kindle and Amazon. Of course, you will need to have some experience in writing, but that is not a requirement. You can get a freelance ghostwriter to do the writing or editing for you. Whatever the case, you will be paid for your written work, and you can build your business portfolio around your writing knowledge.
Writing about fashion could be the first step you will need to take towards getting yourself out there and showing off your expertise, and it could open a lot of doors for you in the clothing and fashion industry.
Third-party Cloth Marketing or Affiliate Marketing for Clothing Brands
The clothing business is not limited to only people who can make clothes. People who have little or no knowledge of cloth-making can stand as middlemen or marketers, linking the cloth makers to the end-users.
A third party marketer does not need a huge capital base to start up a cloth marketing business. All you need is a sample or picture of the cloth sold and a sales-generating marketing strategy. The third-party marketer may or may not be in direct contact with parties to the transaction, but in most cases, the third-party marketer is often in league with the cloth maker.
On the other hand, an affiliate marketer also uses a similar marketing trend as the third party marketer. However, instead of the third-party marketer who may come in contact with either the cloth or the parties to the transaction (buyer or seller), the affiliate marketer never comes in direct contact with either the fabric, the cloth maker or the buyer of the cloth. Instead, the business is transacted through a website; all the affiliate marketer does is to serve as a signboard advertising the clothing brand and showing off the product to potential customers to get those customers to purchase those clothes advertised.
This is one business option available to those who would like to enter into the clothing business but have no proper training in cloth making.
Pattern Making
In most countries, industrial cloth makers require the assistance of pattern makers. However, learners and hobbyists often also need to work with a guide. You can make a business out of selling patterns or instructions that tell people how to make clothes easily.
You will need to know how to plot your designs; as such, having a little artistic skill will not hurt anyone. However, it is also essential to draw the patterns and pictures of the final product. Therefore, you’d possibly need the assistance of a graphic designer to help visualize your drawings.
Armed with your business plan, laptop, workspace, design tools, and software, you can set up a pattern-making business and sell your patterns online on several art and craft websites. You will not need to print out your work first before selling because most people will be buying the softcopy or printable versions of your work. First, however, as with every business, you will need to put your creations out there by advertising.
Start Your Clothing Brand
Currently, on websites like Shopify and several other branding and e-commerce websites, you can start up a clothing brand or a fashion label without ever having to step into a clothing factory. Instead, simply create a design and send it to the factory so they can print it on your shirt.
Once the shirt is designed, you can invest in pushing the branded shirts out through marketing. Your clients order the branded shirts straight from your page on the Shopify website. As a result, the shirt never gets to your house. Instead, a product is delivered directly from the factory or warehouse to a customer’s doorstep.
In the same vein, you can also sell your brand of fashion items known as Merch. Once you gather enough audience, you can simply get regular plain tee shirts or any other kind of clothes, print any message you would like to convey to your audience on them and ship them out for sale; you are in business. Of course, you will need to promote your brand aggressively by running adverts, creating awareness and generally putting your business out there. Still, your already existing fan base or audience will purchase your clothing items to show their support for you. This usually works for people with an already existing following, but it can work for anybody irrespective of popularity or status.
If you are dedicated to building a brand, you will succeed. Look at the available options in the fashion and clothing industry and try your hands on any of the options that work for you.
If you’re wondering where to begin, then read about building your tailoring brand.
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