Fashion Business Jump Start from Made Institute
Starting any new business can be completely overwhelming, especially starting a new clothing brand. For a new fashion designer there are dozens of details large and small that have to be thought out — and that’s even before choosing a name! Industry research, product market fit, business registration and operating structure, fabric sourcing… the list goes on and on. Overwhelming is an understatement!
Fortunately, fashion school Made Institute in Philadelphia is here to help. Made Institute is offering a comprehensive new online fashion business program named Jump Start. For new and emerging designers, this program teaches everything that you need to know to successfully launch a new clothing business. The course is taught by Made Institute’s CEO and founder Rachel Ford in a series of ten modules that students take at their own pace.
Over the past few months, Michelle Fite, designer and CEO of Fite Fashion, has been participating in a trial run of this program and offering her feedback and experience to help tune the program for new designers. When starting Fite Fashion in 2018, Michelle researched and learned the many steps to starting a business by herself. Michelle found it challenging to discover all of the many steps she and her business partner needed to take, and the process took a lot longer than either of them were thinking. The Jump Start program would have certainly helped Fite Fashion during those early days to launch faster, more efficiently and for less upfront investment.
Although Michelle holds a masters degree in Fashion Design, she wasn’t taught anything about starting her own fashion brand — only how to work for someone else. The Jump Start program does an excellent job filling in these gaps.
Michelle was particularly impressed by how the team of instructors in the program helped break down the intimidating prospect of creating a factory-ready tech pack. Through thoughtful tutorials, the process of creating a tech pack is broken down into manageable pieces. There are even videos on how to most effectively use Adobe Illustrator to learn the techniques needed for designing flats for production.
Michelle highly recommends the Jump Start Program from Made Institute. The information is broken down and presented in a way that is easy to understand. The program’s instructors and guest speakers are highly knowledgeable and they offer sound advice. The program even includes one-on-one mentorship with Rachel Ford, which is incredibly helpful to dive deeper into areas and get personalized instruction. Michelle has used her mentoring time with Rachel to brainstorm marketing strategies.
Just some of the modules included in the Jump Start program:
Building your Technical Skills - this module covers using Adobe Illustrator for branding and supporting imagery, and to help create tech flats and tech packs.
Market Research - outlines all of the questions that need to be asked when looking at competitors, as well as the types of jobs available in the fashion industry.
Finance and Business Plan - the nitty gritty details of how to structure and fund your fashion business, including all of the legal details to set things up correctly.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Head over to Made Institute’s site to learn more about the Jump Start program.