MADE Apparel Services Podcast

Host Heather Zager shares valuable insights for new and small brands looking to simplify their manufacturing process to save time and money. She emphasizes the importance of narrowing down design options to keep costs reasonable and avoid overwhelming inventory numbers. Heather suggests starting with one design in a size range with limited colors to keep costs manageable. Once success is reached with that design, other options can be explored. 

To help streamline the process and validate design ideas, Heather recommends sharing design options on social media to gather feedback. This also helps build a strong social media presence and encourages engagement. Listeners will also hear practical tips, such as how to learn more about material sourcing and pattern-making to save time and money in the long run. 

These strategies not only simplify production but also ensure that brands make informed decisions, minimizing risk, and maximizing profitability.


About Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services Founder and Owner
Heather Zager found her calling when she signed up for a beginning pattern-making course and realized she had a passion for technical design. She subsequently enrolled in the Apparel Design and Development program at Seattle Central College and graduated two years later with her Associate of Applied Science Degree.

After graduation, she began working with Meta assisting in developing and designing augmented and virtual reality wearable tech gear. In 2020, MADE Apparel Services was born with the idea of helping makers, inventors and designers bring their own sewn product ideas to manufacture. Since then, she has worked with various businesses such as Santa’s Tailor, Feathered Friends, Wolfpack Gear and Classic Accessories, helping them achieve their goals in design, development, pattern making, sewn construction and manufacture.
Today, Heather continues to grow her knowledge and share her experiences with others to bring their visions to reality.

Resources discussed in this episode:

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Contact Heather Zager | MADE Apparel Services: 
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Transcript

Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Made Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of Made Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.

Heather Zager: [00:00:29] Welcome back to my podcast. Today I'm going to talk about a few things you can do to simplify your design idea to better prepare you for manufacture. And by prepare, I mean helping you to understand ways you can keep the development and production of your idea moving forward so you save time and money. It's totally fine if you decide against these tips. My goal is only to help you to see the consequences of each of these so that you can more confidently make a decision now about your production plans. So the first and most obvious way to reduce costs and simplify getting to manufacture is to really think about how many designs you actually need. I've had clients with upwards of 15 design ideas, and this is because they feel their website should be full, but 15 is usually too many to start.

Heather Zager: [00:01:21] Even if you have a following on social media, you don't have any historical data to tell you what they will like or not like. Also, having fewer designs is much easier to track, especially when you realize that each design will have to come in a size range. And if you have colorways for each design too, you'll end up with dozens of inventory items to keep organized and keep track of. Instead, share your designs on social media and ask your following to pick their top three looks. Depending on how many people respond, and what they say, you'll get a really good idea of interest before you spend a lot of money guessing what designs will be popular. Plus, you build engagement and they get to be involved in supporting you. By the way, if you feel your site needs to be full, take a step back and ask yourself instead, what is unique about your brand over everyone else selling something similar? I find that folks who want a lot of designs on their website haven't really thought about what it is that's selling their designs. Most of the time you just need a good founding story, but if you still feel you must fill your site with items, then consider using branding blanks, which are just pre-made garments that you can have custom printed with your logo. You can use those as a way to fill in space on your website, rather than developing a lot of unique designs. Now, if you aren't on social media yet, or you don't have a landing page where people can go and sign up for updates and know where to follow you, then start working on that instead of more designs. The goal of gaining this following is to have some pre-sales. This will help you to know your order quantity, which sizes and colors are most popular, so you can be more confident that your first order you place for production will be on target with your demand, and you don't end up with extra supplies, colors, or sizes that you don't need. And this brings me to my next tip.

Heather Zager: [00:03:27] So if you still feel like you need a whole bunch of designs, then maybe this logic will help to convince you to minimize. So let's take, for example, that you have one design. Well, each design obviously needs to come in a size range eventually. Let's say that there's five sizes, extra small to extra large. That is the average number of sizes that a manufacturer will allow before they start charging you extra. If you haven't done pre-sales or any kind of customer surveys, which isn't uncommon at this point, and that's okay, then you likely don't know what sizes will be most popular. So, let's just say you need to start out with 5 of each size, so that's a total of 25 pieces. 5 in extra small, 5 in small, 5 in medium and so on. Now, also consider if you have colorways for each design, and usually there's about three. So, let's do blue, yellow and red. That probably means you need 5 of each color, also. 5 blue in extra small, 5 red in extra small, 5 yellow in extra small and repeat that for each size. This brings the total to 75 pieces. Now, if you're using a US based manufacturer, you're probably looking at somewhere around $15 a piece as an average. So that brings your total cost to make 75 pieces to $1,125 for one design. Now, if you reduce by one colorway, your total becomes 50 garments, bringing the total spent to $750. Obviously reducing by one design is a value of $1125, and one colorway is a value of $750, which proves that if you reduce your number of designs first, then your colorways, you'll reduce your costs more quickly. Try to preserve your size range as much as you can, but if you have to scale down on that also, obviously start at the extreme ends like extra small and extra large. What would be even better is if you can start doing some survey of your target market and see if they can shine some light on, are they going to lean more towards medium to extra larges, extra smalls to mediums, and get an idea of what sizes are going to be popular for your brand, and that can help you finesse down the number of sizes that you'll need.

Heather Zager: [00:05:38] Sourcing materials is a big part of the development process, and I have a podcast just about sourcing materials if you want a deeper dive on this topic. But in this podcast, I'm just going to touch on what not to worry about when it comes to fabrications. There are differing schools of thought on this. Some pattern makers want to know exactly the fabrication to be used, but if you are developing a new concept, sometimes fabrication needs to remain a variable and the designer should be open minded about the final selection. If you're one of those people who have been doing material research and you're starting to get frustrated about finding the perfect material, I'm giving you permission right now to not worry about it. It can actually slow down your progress or even stall your creativity. Do take some time to educate yourself a bit about fabrics though, because you need to be able to speak with a little bit of intelligence to suppliers and vendors, but it will also help you to feel more confident about shopping for sample swatches on your own.

Heather Zager: [00:06:43] Don't forget to work with a pattern maker to get their opinion on any final selections. By doing the heavy lifting yourself, you not only save money since you're not having someone else do it for you, but you are also the only person that knows your instinct on what will work. It can be very empowering to become your own fabric expert for your design, but don't agonize over it. If you're starting to get frustrated and you're stalling out, just stop, pick something that you feel is close enough and keep the development going forward. Speaking of simplifying material selection, I've had a lot of people ask me about custom weaving. This is where you have your own fabric created, such as a specific blend of fiber or a special finishing like a sun protection factor. I actually had someone once who wanted their logo woven into the fabric as a motif, but there are a few issues with custom weaving or finishing. First, it's really expensive. Think along the lines of tens of thousands of dollars. Additionally, even if you have the money, a mill likely will not work with you because, first of all, you don't have an established business to prove your order quantities will be large enough and ongoing, but also you are likely not as educated about materials as their current clients, and they won't want to take the time to answer what they consider to be basic questions or teach you as you go. So keep in mind that many times you can get to manufacture with a fabric that's close enough, and then the manufacturer can work with you with their own suppliers, who have a lot more reach, to take your research the rest of the way to the finish line and find something closer to your expectations. There will be a charge for this, and not every manufacturer will be able to do this, but it could be just the thing that you need.

Heather Zager: [00:08:34] My next tip is about branding. When starting a brand, we all get very excited about our logo or brand colors, origin story and so on, but getting overly creative on the application of your logo onto your garment, such as custom embroidery, heat transfer labels, direct to garment printing, and screen printing, is an unnecessary cost, and here's why. This isn't a bad thing, but you don't have brand recognition yet, so you likely aren't going to lose sales if you don't custom brand your design. The better way to showcase your logo or a brand identifier is through the use of preprinted sewn labels and tags. Custom labels are inexpensive and the options are almost infinite, so something should work well enough. Just do a Google search for custom garment labels and you'll see plenty of options. Sewing in a label now becomes a part of your bill of materials list, rather than an additional production step, and that will save you quite a few pennies and simplify your production. Additionally, you can always add customization later, so when you do become a famous designer, it's a very easy step to add in. In the meantime, you'll probably be much happier with the speed and efficiency of production by limiting your brand customization just to sew in labels rather than something in the garment itself.

Heather Zager: [00:10:04] The last tip I have is to take a step back and analyze your design for overall complexity. The main thing that keeps costs low during production is simplicity. Just like using sewn labels keeps things efficient, a simple design versus a complex one is also going to be more efficient. If you have a print on your fabric, such as horizontal stripes, and you want an applied pocket or side seams to align with those stripes when sewn, that will slow things down. And this is because the pattern pieces need to be placed on the fabric more strategically rather than more efficiently, which incidentally tends to increase fabric waste, too. Another complexity is color blocking, where different colored fabrics are used throughout the design, and that usually adds more seams, or colorful or decorative topstitching. That can require more thread changes, or just more sewing time, or even the use of additional machines. It all adds to the time, and that time has a cost. Think through all the details of your design and see how they add up. Can you remove one button or one seam and still achieve your design intention? Does it really need a lining or a drawcord in the hood or the waist? Will one pocket on the back of the pant be okay instead of two? These are all things you can look at to try to minimize the time in production and lower your costs. As I mentioned, you don't have to follow all of these tips. They are just to get you thinking so you don't spend time developing more than you can afford, and discover later that you have to eliminate something. It's a little more heartbreaking that way than being strategic early on. That's it for today's podcast, I hope you found it useful. Don't forget to follow me on social media and sign up for my monthly newsletter at www.madeapparelservices.com.

Heather Zager: [00:11:54] Thank you for listening to today's episode, we hope that you enjoyed it. If we didn't answer all of your questions, or you just have some comments or suggestions about future podcast episodes, please email me at heather@madeapparelservices.com.

What is MADE Apparel Services Podcast?

Tips, tricks, and advice on getting a sewn product idea into development and manufacture.

Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Made Apparel Services Podcast. My name is Heather Zager and I will be your host for this series. I am also the founder of Made Apparel Services, which is a sewn product development company for small brands. Whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro, I have a lot of resources to help you on your journey to manufacture. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter and follow me on social media for other fun updates. Links to both are always in the show notes.

Heather Zager: [00:00:29] Welcome back to my podcast. Today I'm going to talk about a few things you can do to simplify your design idea to better prepare you for manufacture. And by prepare, I mean helping you to understand ways you can keep the development and production of your idea moving forward so you save time and money. It's totally fine if you decide against these tips. My goal is only to help you to see the consequences of each of these so that you can more confidently make a decision now about your production plans. So the first and most obvious way to reduce costs and simplify getting to manufacture is to really think about how many designs you actually need. I've had clients with upwards of 15 design ideas, and this is because they feel their website should be full, but 15 is usually too many to start.

Heather Zager: [00:01:21] Even if you have a following on social media, you don't have any historical data to tell you what they will like or not like. Also, having fewer designs is much easier to track, especially when you realize that each design will have to come in a size range. And if you have colorways for each design too, you'll end up with dozens of inventory items to keep organized and keep track of. Instead, share your designs on social media and ask your following to pick their top three looks. Depending on how many people respond, and what they say, you'll get a really good idea of interest before you spend a lot of money guessing what designs will be popular. Plus, you build engagement and they get to be involved in supporting you. By the way, if you feel your site needs to be full, take a step back and ask yourself instead, what is unique about your brand over everyone else selling something similar? I find that folks who want a lot of designs on their website haven't really thought about what it is that's selling their designs. Most of the time you just need a good founding story, but if you still feel you must fill your site with items, then consider using branding blanks, which are just pre-made garments that you can have custom printed with your logo. You can use those as a way to fill in space on your website, rather than developing a lot of unique designs. Now, if you aren't on social media yet, or you don't have a landing page where people can go and sign up for updates and know where to follow you, then start working on that instead of more designs. The goal of gaining this following is to have some pre-sales. This will help you to know your order quantity, which sizes and colors are most popular, so you can be more confident that your first order you place for production will be on target with your demand, and you don't end up with extra supplies, colors, or sizes that you don't need. And this brings me to my next tip.

Heather Zager: [00:03:27] So if you still feel like you need a whole bunch of designs, then maybe this logic will help to convince you to minimize. So let's take, for example, that you have one design. Well, each design obviously needs to come in a size range eventually. Let's say that there's five sizes, extra small to extra large. That is the average number of sizes that a manufacturer will allow before they start charging you extra. If you haven't done pre-sales or any kind of customer surveys, which isn't uncommon at this point, and that's okay, then you likely don't know what sizes will be most popular. So, let's just say you need to start out with 5 of each size, so that's a total of 25 pieces. 5 in extra small, 5 in small, 5 in medium and so on. Now, also consider if you have colorways for each design, and usually there's about three. So, let's do blue, yellow and red. That probably means you need 5 of each color, also. 5 blue in extra small, 5 red in extra small, 5 yellow in extra small and repeat that for each size. This brings the total to 75 pieces. Now, if you're using a US based manufacturer, you're probably looking at somewhere around $15 a piece as an average. So that brings your total cost to make 75 pieces to $1,125 for one design. Now, if you reduce by one colorway, your total becomes 50 garments, bringing the total spent to $750. Obviously reducing by one design is a value of $1125, and one colorway is a value of $750, which proves that if you reduce your number of designs first, then your colorways, you'll reduce your costs more quickly. Try to preserve your size range as much as you can, but if you have to scale down on that also, obviously start at the extreme ends like extra small and extra large. What would be even better is if you can start doing some survey of your target market and see if they can shine some light on, are they going to lean more towards medium to extra larges, extra smalls to mediums, and get an idea of what sizes are going to be popular for your brand, and that can help you finesse down the number of sizes that you'll need.

Heather Zager: [00:05:38] Sourcing materials is a big part of the development process, and I have a podcast just about sourcing materials if you want a deeper dive on this topic. But in this podcast, I'm just going to touch on what not to worry about when it comes to fabrications. There are differing schools of thought on this. Some pattern makers want to know exactly the fabrication to be used, but if you are developing a new concept, sometimes fabrication needs to remain a variable and the designer should be open minded about the final selection. If you're one of those people who have been doing material research and you're starting to get frustrated about finding the perfect material, I'm giving you permission right now to not worry about it. It can actually slow down your progress or even stall your creativity. Do take some time to educate yourself a bit about fabrics though, because you need to be able to speak with a little bit of intelligence to suppliers and vendors, but it will also help you to feel more confident about shopping for sample swatches on your own.

Heather Zager: [00:06:43] Don't forget to work with a pattern maker to get their opinion on any final selections. By doing the heavy lifting yourself, you not only save money since you're not having someone else do it for you, but you are also the only person that knows your instinct on what will work. It can be very empowering to become your own fabric expert for your design, but don't agonize over it. If you're starting to get frustrated and you're stalling out, just stop, pick something that you feel is close enough and keep the development going forward. Speaking of simplifying material selection, I've had a lot of people ask me about custom weaving. This is where you have your own fabric created, such as a specific blend of fiber or a special finishing like a sun protection factor. I actually had someone once who wanted their logo woven into the fabric as a motif, but there are a few issues with custom weaving or finishing. First, it's really expensive. Think along the lines of tens of thousands of dollars. Additionally, even if you have the money, a mill likely will not work with you because, first of all, you don't have an established business to prove your order quantities will be large enough and ongoing, but also you are likely not as educated about materials as their current clients, and they won't want to take the time to answer what they consider to be basic questions or teach you as you go. So keep in mind that many times you can get to manufacture with a fabric that's close enough, and then the manufacturer can work with you with their own suppliers, who have a lot more reach, to take your research the rest of the way to the finish line and find something closer to your expectations. There will be a charge for this, and not every manufacturer will be able to do this, but it could be just the thing that you need.

Heather Zager: [00:08:34] My next tip is about branding. When starting a brand, we all get very excited about our logo or brand colors, origin story and so on, but getting overly creative on the application of your logo onto your garment, such as custom embroidery, heat transfer labels, direct to garment printing, and screen printing, is an unnecessary cost, and here's why. This isn't a bad thing, but you don't have brand recognition yet, so you likely aren't going to lose sales if you don't custom brand your design. The better way to showcase your logo or a brand identifier is through the use of preprinted sewn labels and tags. Custom labels are inexpensive and the options are almost infinite, so something should work well enough. Just do a Google search for custom garment labels and you'll see plenty of options. Sewing in a label now becomes a part of your bill of materials list, rather than an additional production step, and that will save you quite a few pennies and simplify your production. Additionally, you can always add customization later, so when you do become a famous designer, it's a very easy step to add in. In the meantime, you'll probably be much happier with the speed and efficiency of production by limiting your brand customization just to sew in labels rather than something in the garment itself.

Heather Zager: [00:10:04] The last tip I have is to take a step back and analyze your design for overall complexity. The main thing that keeps costs low during production is simplicity. Just like using sewn labels keeps things efficient, a simple design versus a complex one is also going to be more efficient. If you have a print on your fabric, such as horizontal stripes, and you want an applied pocket or side seams to align with those stripes when sewn, that will slow things down. And this is because the pattern pieces need to be placed on the fabric more strategically rather than more efficiently, which incidentally tends to increase fabric waste, too. Another complexity is color blocking, where different colored fabrics are used throughout the design, and that usually adds more seams, or colorful or decorative topstitching. That can require more thread changes, or just more sewing time, or even the use of additional machines. It all adds to the time, and that time has a cost. Think through all the details of your design and see how they add up. Can you remove one button or one seam and still achieve your design intention? Does it really need a lining or a drawcord in the hood or the waist? Will one pocket on the back of the pant be okay instead of two? These are all things you can look at to try to minimize the time in production and lower your costs. As I mentioned, you don't have to follow all of these tips. They are just to get you thinking so you don't spend time developing more than you can afford, and discover later that you have to eliminate something. It's a little more heartbreaking that way than being strategic early on. That's it for today's podcast, I hope you found it useful. Don't forget to follow me on social media and sign up for my monthly newsletter at www.madeapparelservices.com.

Heather Zager: [00:11:54] Thank you for listening to today's episode, we hope that you enjoyed it. If we didn't answer all of your questions, or you just have some comments or suggestions about future podcast episodes, please email me at heather@madeapparelservices.com.