I am the owner of a new company located in Santa Barbara, California.
We are working on producing a line of high end baby apparel, wedding
accessories, bedding and craft/home decorating items, specialty hand
dyed ribbons and hand dyed handcrafted silk ribbonflowers. You can see
us at http://www.alisaelaine.com. Our eCommerce site is being built at
this time, so we only have an " about us" site now, but you can see
the flowers and get a feel for what our things are there. We don't
have our graphics or our monograms on the site yet, unfortunately, but
they will constitute a large part of our products. They are exquisite.
I have searched for a " consultant" or " sourcing agent" to assist
me in this phase of the process, but I haven't had much luck. I
thought I would give you guys a whirl and see what you come up with in
order for me to source these things myself. This company is my
lifetime dream and between my parner and myself we have 40 years of
creative experience to draw from. If I could locate a
consultant/sourcing agent/ mentor to assist me in southern California
I would do that too. I have looked into workshops or classes. Time is
of the essence and I don't have time to sit in classrooms when I can
be out making it happen.
Currently we are acquiring the materials for our product samples in
small amounts, under 50 yds. at a time. This will have to change soon.
We are trying to make an informed decision on the possibility of
having our items, or some of our items, produced in America. Most of
our fabrics are produced in China, so we are trying to get an idea of
the cost difference between having our products made here versus
overseas. Possibly some would be made here while others would be made
overseas. Ideally all of our items would be made here in America as we
feel strongly that any jobs we create should be jobs stateside,
however, that might not be financially feasible since most of our
fabrics are made elsewhere. We need to locate sources and facilities
and do some comparison shopping before deciding on which way to go.
We are in the design/development phase and have 50% of our designs
digitized and ready for production. We are having that done in Los
Angeles, which is in close proximity to us. The apparel patterns have
been digitized and samples have been made. I do have a list of sewn
garment contractors in Los Angeles, but I have not contacted them yet
as we are still in the process of digitizing. We need to find sources
for all of our supplies and production facilities to produce them. We
would also need to have production facilities that would accomodate us
with smaller orders ( 100's versus 1,000's) in the beginning. As our
sales grow, we will increase our orders accordingly. It would be ideal
if we could find facilities that could accomodate us in more than one
area. For instance, a garment sewing contractor that can produce the
baby apparel and also the bedding products. The products break down
into several categories.
Apparel : baby coats, pants, dresses, rompers,hats and buntings
Bedding: sheets, duvets, shams, baby bumpers, dust ruffles, pillows
Wedding accessories: Picture frames, scrapbooks, photo albums.
Home accent items: pressure applied graphics for borders, murals,
decoration, iron on applied graphics for fabric applications.
We need to locate a textile company capable of producing printed
fabrics using our designs. We have a large collection of turn of the
century( and earlier) graphics, borders, monograms and motifs from
France that we are hoping to locate a fabric company to print for us
on linen and fine cotton. We also need embroidery contractors to apply
designs and monograms of our design. ( these too are being digitized
and readied for production) In addition, we need to locate someone to
make those graphics into dry rub or pressure release decals ( which
all will be digitized) to be used in decorative home accents ( wall
borders, wall murals, decorative furniture accents,etc.) I know this
process can be done, I saw borders being applied in this manner on a
HGTV airing of a This Old House episode recently. Unfortunately after
exhaustive research I was unable to locate the source for the paper or
a someone willing to make them for me yet. I do know that the dry
rub/pressure release paper exists ( graphics applied like a tattoo)
and the technology to apply the removable decorative graphics exists,
I have no clue who to contact to make them for us. Iron on
applications are readily available, but I want to make a pressure
release version also. They could then be applied to walls, furniture,
morrors, etc. I would hope to find a someone who could do both iron on
and pressure release types for me.
I also need a paper manufacturer/contractor that can take our
digitized designs and apply them to paper to be used in several
applications, wrapping paper, tissue paper, wall paper.
We are prepared to put up a substantial amount of money to make
this happen, and have spent substantial amounts to date but we aren't
exzactly Pottery Barn and we want to bring our designs to the market
in phases so we don't get stretched too thin. Most of our time is
taken up with designing now. ompanies that can work with us and allow
us to start with smaller amounts in the beginning will also be a party
to our success in the end.
We are hoping to find contractors that we can build ongoing
relationships with to the benefit of us all. Quality is extremely
important to us, as are working relationships that people that support
and encourage our endeavor.
We plan on being " hands on" in all aspects. It would be important
also that the people we work with speak English as we,
(unfortunately,) have only English language skills. Any facilities
close to the Los Angeles area would be beneficial, but we will take
them where we find them. Obviously the textiles are made elsewhere, so
not all can be found in the US.
I will list the supplies, then the production needs we have.
materials:
*silk velvet in widths up to 110"
*silk bound edged ribbons from 7mm up to 8"
*silk grosgrain ribbon
*double faced silk satin ribbon
*suit weight cashmere
*fine linen
*Egyptian and/or Vietnamese cotton
*silk satin charmeuse
*silk organza
*English tulle
*laces various sizes
*cotton organza or dimity
*child's size covered hangers ( hopefully in fabric of our design)
*rub off decal paper ( use a burnishing tool to apply)
*iron on paper ( to be used on fabrics )
*picture frames, various sizes to be manufactured with our designs applied
*scrap book albums and photo albums in various sizes to be
manufactured with our designs
production facilities:
*fabric and ribbon suppliers
*dyers ( fabrics dyed to our color palette)
*embroidery contractors
*hand sewing contractors
*sewn garment contractors ( I have the list for Los Angeles, however I
have not contacted them yet)
*printer for graphics to be applied to papers
*textile producer who will print to our design specs
*paper products producer who will print to our design specs
I realize this is a complex question, I would appreciate anything you come up with. |
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
06 Jul 2004 10:18 PDT
kalio -
I just got off the phone with an individual who is VERY well versed in
the industry. She is a college professor in apparel, she ran a $2M
apparel factory, and she's an apparel business consultant. She HIGHLY
advises, as a start-up, to narrow your focus into one particular area,
such as "high end baby apparel" -- get VERY good at that, and then
branch off from there. She has seen countless businesses fail whose
focus was too wide. She said, as an example, that you could do some
home decorating items, but still within the "high end baby" market,
but you should pick one "parent" category, and have your other
endeavors fit within it. That said, she also encourages doing all the
sourcing yourself and highly advises attending fabric shows as a
source to find your fabric.
I have 2 sources -- one where you can find shows in the area, and one
where you can find contractors, also in the area. Would you be
interested in these 2 sources, along with the contact information for
this consultant, as a potential answer to your question, perhaps at a
lower list price?
jbf777
|
Clarification of Question by
kalio-ga
on
06 Jul 2004 12:48 PDT
I am quite aware of the pitfalls you mention in your letter, but I
didn't write asking for information on the viability of my business.
To clarify, we are doing exzactly what you suggest in your last
letter, focusing on producing one thing at a time. However, we are a
design company and it is necessary to source other items prior to
producing them. I thought I was clear in explaining that we are
through the design/development/sample making phase and ready to go to
production only with our high end baby items at this time, and that we
are introducing the additional items in phases. I listed the fabric in
my first letter, if you found an agent that can source all of those
fabrics and ribbons, great. We have a unique situation in that we will
have National exposure on a major TV show this summer, and another in
the Spring, which has sped up our process. The paper sources and
contract printers to make the phase two products are an important part
of the next phase, again, I will ask did you have any luck with
finding them? The woman you mentioned that you spoke with sounds a lot
like Jean Gipe in Pomona. I will consult with her soon, but as I
pointed out in my question there is not time to participate in classes
or workshops at this time. I will consult with her or one of her
referrals, which are free.
I was hoping to get paper sources for rub off decal paper in
bulk,and/or sourcing agents for both the paper and the fabrics I
listed, and production facilities capable of producing the paper
items.
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