Sustainable Fashion: How to Start Your Own Label

Every fashion designer dreams of starting their own fashion label, but as any start-up, it’s not an easy, everyday task. With the fashion industry being ever so changeable, you need to be quick-thinking, wise, and resourceful, but most of all, able to keep up with the trends and demands.

One thing that has changed lately is the customers themselves. It’s not only about their high-standards – that’s always been so, but now they insist on knowing everything else – how, where and when their clothing was produced, what material was used, what production process and what the carbon footprint was. For anyone wanting to start their sustainable fashion label, these are the primary considerations. 

Develop your design idea

Before even starting the actual design process, you need to establish your brand identity. Start by analyzing your desired target market and defining your ideal customers. Cover all bases – create a mood board, write down your brand message, and a summary of your target consumers so you can have a reference point when you start designing.

The next step is putting your ideas into reality. Produce clear and specific design sketches, patterns, and samples. It may take some time, several stages of adjusting, but eventually, you’ll have perfect garment models and patterns that you can pitch to a factory. Also, have a spec sheet ready to communicate the essential construction ideas to the factory so they can quickly produce your designs later. 

Once all of this is ready, you need to find a production partner. Be well prepared and have all the information, options, and costing quotes they might ask for so you don’t get overlooked as an amateur. Also, work out the factory lead times and come up with a production timeline that suits you. 

As the people behind the Master Course in Fashion Management at IED Barcelona nicely put it, it’s essential to develop a deep understanding of the complete ecosystem behind fashion business as this will make young designers who are starting their brand capable of facing the real fashion market challenges. As the owner of a sustainable fashion brand, you need to develop into a leader who can easily combine creativity, managerial skills, and an entrepreneurial mindset within the limitations of fashion business realities.

Specify your sustainability ethics

First and foremost, you need to consider what it signifies to be “sustainable,” and then decide how you can pull it off for your brand. The two most important factors that determine the sustainability of a fashion brand are ethical production and fabric selection.

Today, it’s common for major fashion brands to have their production facilities in countries where cheap labor is legal, but this typically results in too many human rights violations. Having the production of your garments in countries with fair work will guarantee the better treatment of factory workers and adequate wages. However, if you decide to have the output in your own country, you’ll be aiding your local economy. Just make sure you follow the principles of sustainable ethics and produce fewer garments of higher quality as opposed to the excessive mass production that already exists in the industry. 

For the choice of your fabric and materials, examine the origin of the structure and what environmental impact its raw materials and manufacturing processes have. As for the shipping methods, you might consider using recycled or biodegradable packaging. 

Source eco-friendly materials

When you opt for sustainable fashion design, your choices of fabric are somewhat limited. However, you still have several eco-friendly options. In general, organic materials have a much lower impact than synthetic ones as they use far less water and aren’t treated with chemicals. Such fabrics typically include organic cotton, bamboo, Tencel,, and linen. 

Other options can be recycled and deadstock fabrics. Fabric produced from recycled materials uses less energy than brand new fabrics and deadstock, or surplus fabrics, are leftover by factories, mills,, or other big brands and re-sold at cost-effective prices instead of being tossed into landfills. 

Find a few reputable suppliers and ask for samples of these fabrics for review. Once you’ve looked through your options, you can make your pick and proceed with design development. 

Promote your label 

It’s always a good time to promote your brand, even if you’re still in the early stages of development. Utilize the leading social media platforms and create your brand’s profiles. Post your content regularly, but make sure you have your website as well. Even if your product isn’t ready yet, have a landing page with a blog and generate traffic to your site so you can start growing your e-mail sign up list. When you finally launch your product, the audience you’ve already gathered will be priceless! 

It’s become more critical than ever before to advocate sustainability in fashion, especially with all the global issues the clothing industry has caused, from pollution to animal and human rights violations. Hopefully, tips listed here can help you create your sustainable label with a high and worthy social and environmental impact.