Why new fashion brands struggle

Before you design a single piece, it helps to know where new projects usually fall. The causes repeat, and all of them can be avoided.

The five most common mistakes

1. No defined customer. A brand “for everyone” feels like it belongs to no one.
2. A collection bigger than the budget. Many pieces in small quantities mean dead stock and trapped cash.
3. An incomplete cost calculation. Shipping, duties, samples and packaging are forgotten, and the margin disappears.
4. A weak tech pack. The factory guesses, and the product arrives different from what you imagined.
5. A launch with no plan. The goods arrive and nobody knows they exist.

Every module in this course deals with one or more of these mistakes, in the order you will meet them in real life.

Exercise

On one page, write: what is your brand idea in two sentences? Which of the five mistakes do you fear most for your project, and why? Keep the answer, because we return to it in the last lesson.