HOW TO PREPARE YOUR FASHION PRODUCTION TIMELINES

‘Tis the season to prepare your fashion production timelines for 2023! As everyone begins to feel the warmth of the festive season creep up on them, the Visionise team included, the important art of preparing fashion production timelines has come up.

There are so many things to prepare for as you look to launch your custom fashion design brand. From research, design, creating a brand identity and voice, manufacturing and marketing, it can all seem overwhelming. As with many things in life, even the best laid plans can go a little awry but the more you invest in a business plan and timeline for key milestones, the better prepared your business will be to succeed.

‘Timing is everything’ is a much used turn of phrase, which speaks to the consideration of other events greatly influencing the outcome. This is just as true in preparing your fashion production timelines. Here are some key timing events to consider when launching your fashion brand:

Choosing a Fashion Season

If your initial line of designs will lean towards wear for the Summer, then you need to work backward from your launch date, giving yourself a good 12 months or more to plan. The more you work with your clothing manufacturer and fashion designers, the better you will become at preparing for the next fashion season.

This article has some useful tools for planning out a timeline according to your chosen fashion season.

Product/Clothing Manufacture Process (Fashion Production)

Once you have your designs and tech pack ready to send off to your chosen clothing manufacturer, prepare for a lot of communication, garment review and refining. This initial process can take up to 6 months, especially as many of the factories will also be working to orders from other fashion brands.

It’s also a good idea to be aware of special holidays, like Chinese New Year, as many of the clothing manufacturers are based in Asian capitals with eastern traditions. Some important calendar dates to note for 2023:

• Chinese New Year 15^th-18^th February 2023
• Kuningan 13^th-15^th January 2023
• Nyepi 22^nd-24^th March 2023

Our certified clothing manufacturers are located in Bali, China and India. You can view their important dates and public holidays for 2023 by clicking the links below:

• Bali/Indonesia
• China
• India

Marketing and Brand Awareness

As we’ve discussed in some of our previous blogs, including ‘How to get creative when promoting your fashion brand’, the earlier you begin this phase the better. You don’t have to have completed garments in order to build on your brand awareness, gauge market interest or create pre-sales excitement.

The earlier you can get a jump on advertising your fashion label, the better. This also goes for new season line drops, with plenty of ways to promote new garments and register pre-orders. We encourage you to communicate your brand to your target buyer and invest in advertising, especially digital marketing.

As we all close out a huge 2022, the holiday season can be filled with many emotions. We saw some normalcy return after 2 years of the COVID pandemic changing our lives completely; including slowing down fashion production timelines. We often find this time of year quite inspiring… you can use the season to harness your creativity, as you find inspiration in the beautiful Christmas lights, the sharing of meals with your families or a drink with friends. We hope everyone has a wonderful end of year break and for those who have been separated from family and friends across oceans during the pandemic, we hope you might get to see each other soon (in person!).