Looking for a group of people to combine forces & start-up a clothing brand with
Hi Guys,
I am looking for a group of 10 like-minded people all located within Australia to combine forces and launch a clothing brand with… Here is the reasoning behind my idea… I have been in the fashion game for a while now… and have been working on my clothing brand since 2002… which is over 7 years… over these 7 years I have learnt heaps about the industry, read a lot of books and made tons of mistakes and also spent/lost a lot of money on things that were not necessary… However this is the learning curve in every industry…. Currently I have 3 different clothing brands all specialising in the streetwear industry (which I believe is by far the biggest market in the fashion industry… take a look at diesel, g-star etc… it’s a massive market)
Immediately people may be thinking while reading this is “10 people… how the hell are we going to run a brand with 10 different people and communicate between that many of us??”… If you read on it will all start to make sense…. And if “Abercrombie & Fitch” can control and communicate to over 83,000 employees… than I am sure we can control a team of 10 people…. The purpose of this awesome idea and creating a large group is this…
1) All the large major brands that you see out there in retail stores today have been around for a long-time… they didn’t just start out a few years ago and all of a sudden became a world-wide success… as with anything, these things take time… nothing happens overnight… no matter how good your brand name is, or how good your clothing designs are… the reason why these big name brands such as diesel, g-star etc… have become so big is because they have been in the clothing industry for years… and over those years they have developed a large group of industry contacts, sales agents and large sales distribution chain… you cannot do this overnight or over a period of 1-2 years… its impossible… and whoever tells you that you can… hasn’t got any idea what he is talking about…
Lets look at some examples;
Diesel – founded in 1978 by Renzo Russo Billabong – founded in 1973 by Gordon and Rena Merchant
G-Star – founded in 1989 Abercrombie & Fitch – founded in 1982
Now as you can see from the list above the majority of these brands have been around for a minimum of around 30 years… now I don’t know how you feel, but I really don’t want to be working on my label for 30 years until I reach success… by that age I am going to be over 50 and the best years of my life will be pretty much over… (lol, just kidding)… but you get my drift…
Now don’t get me wrong… there is a few brands that have exploded sort of overnight for example Ed Hardy, Von Dutch etc… but your chances of starting a label and exploding overnight such as these is almost 1 in 1,000,000%.... also keep in mind that the person that started the Ed Hardy label had been working in the industry for years and use to work for Diesel & Von Dutch and therefore knew a lot of industry contacts and also contributed a lot to his success….
Okay now for anyone who doesn’t know how much many can be made in the apparel industry here are some figures;
DIESEL Employees: over 1,500+
2001 Annual Turnover: Diesel’s annual turnover is 360 million euros (US$ 320M and a lot of lira) (back then this was approx $600 million in Australian Dollars) Source: diesel brand | brandchannel.com
2004 Annual Turnover: Italian casualwear and jeanswear company Diesel SpA reported it achieved sales of €1 billion (approx 1.6 billion Australian Dollars)
The company informed that profits accounted for 17 percent of sales in 2004 *Okay now this is important – unlike Billabong etc, Diesel is a private company owned by only 1 person “Renzo Russo”… this means that if 17% of sales accounted for profit, he would have been left with an annual profit of $272 million dollars in Australian dollars all for himself, just 1 person.
As you can see from the figures above… the fashion industry is a big market, especially the street/urban sector…
Now this is the reason why I chose to go for a group of 10 people… I initially thought of going with a group of 6 people, then 15 people, and decided that a group of 10 would be the ultimate for the following reasons;
1) 15 people will be too hard to manage 2) 6 people although easier to manage… the disadvantages are; i) As you may well know, in any type of business, there is always some start-up costs involved… now I want to keep our costs as minimal as possible for each member in the group… but at the very least… just to get the ball kicking this is what they would equate to… and lets also say that we don’t register the trademark until the brand is in atleast 15 different retails stores and has made atleast $5,000… *First batch of 50 t-shirts (including t-shirt & screenprinting) = 50 @ $10 each = $500
*Screenprinting Silk Screen Setup - $50 approx *Satin Labels (1,000pcs) = $70-$80 *Swing Tags (1,000pcs) = $100
As you can see this has already came to a total of around $730 just to get the ball rolling… and always remember that there will always be a few hidden expenses… Lets just say it comes to around $1,000 to start it all… this cost divided between 10 people is a lot less money for each of us as opposed to dividing it by only 6 people….
3) Imagine 10 people working on the brand for 2hrs each day… this equates to over 20hrs per day… more than probably any of us could work solidly on the brand in a week… and imagine if we all just did 2hrs per day first thing every morning, 7 days a week… that’s 140hrs per week!!!!
As you can see a lot more can be achieved with 10 people rather than 6 people
4) Finally keep in mind the main purpose of this group is not just about making money… hey if the brand that we launch makes money than it would hurt either…. and I believe it will, how can it not with 10 people working on it??.… but being honest, the purpose of this group is to share our knowledge, industry contacts & workforce and combine it all together too fast track the entire process… like I said I don’t want to be working on my labels for 30 years until I achieve success.. I want to fast track it as much as possible… I bet if you took all these brands I mentioned above away from their original owners, and left them with nothing… I bet they could launch another brand & have it up and running within 1/10th of the time than anybody else or a newbie… due to all the industry knowledge and contacts that they have… This is the main goal & purpose of creating this group…
I actually heard from a reliable source, that all these big brands such as Diesel, Billabong, Quicksilver etc… get their tee’s manufactured, screenprinted, labeled, tagged, bagged, shipped and imported into Australia for under $1… this is simply because when they go to a manufacturer in China… they place an order for 1 million pieces of the exact same t-shirt… whereas every other brand may only manufacture around 500-1,000pcs of the same shirt design, and they are doing over 1 million… and that’s why they get the shirts made up and tagged, bagged etc.. ready for retail sale for under $1…. That is the purpose of this group…
Okay, so these are some of the characteristics that I would like to see in the people that would like to join this group;
Required Characteristics; i) Owning your own clothing brand must be your dream – just exactly like Australian idol, and that chef cooking show etc… these people’s long-life dreams are to become singers & chefs… they think about it everyday.. and even before they go to sleep…. If you don’t have a passion towards starting your own clothing brand and it is not your dream… then please don’t apply to join this group…. ii) You need to be able to commit to atleast 2hrs per day, 5 days a week on working on the brand… this really isn’t much if you think about it, I am not asking for much…. But if you are the type of person that loves partying, going out… and doesn’t have any discipline and cant commit to 2hrs per day… then please don’t waste any of our time… this brand will not become a world-wide success by working only 10min per day on it…. iii) Must know the basics of how to use a computer… if you don’t know how to use email, excel, word, very basic graphic design etc… than it is just going to be too hard for us to have to assist you all the time with certain tasks…
Optional Characteristics; iv) It would be good if we could atleast get a minimum of 2 people in the group to be located in the 3 major Australian cities Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane… this would be excellent because that way they can meet with each other if they like to… and work together on certain tasks and also choose to cold-sell the brand to retail stores together on weekends etc… Just so that you know I live on the Gold Coast QLD, and also travel to Sydney atleast once every 3 months…
If you have a dream of owning your own clothing label… and enjoy going out & seeing people wearing your own clothing brand as opposed to other major mainstream brands such as diesel, industrie, g-star etc… and would like to join the group that I am trying to create then please email me at
You don’t need to write a massive email just simply let me know that you are keen, and I will get back to you… and based on what I think and what you can offer I will accept you as a member of the group… Once the group has an initial few members we will decide as a team who can join the group…
Anyway for anyone that is interested here is what I can offer to the group i) As I said I have been in the fashion game for over 7 years… and have a few different labels… during this time I have read so many books, made so many mistakes, and have learnt heaps!!!… ii) Industry Contacts – I have all the contacts from; *t-shirts manufacturers - based in China, Fiji, QLD, Sydney & Melbourne… I even know the exact manufacturer in melbourne where travisty, mossimo, lee, st lenny, globe, kid chasey manufacture all their tees *fabric suppliers *t-shirt, caps etc – stock service suppliers within australia… no manufacturing required *screenprinters, embroiderers *laundry services *label makers – I know the best manufacturer of “embroidered & satin labels”… I have used them many times and the work is always 100% perfect… they are based in china and make 1,000 labels for you, shipped to your door for only $60 US
iii) I use to screenprint all my t-shirts myself and still have all the equipment so I know exactly how the screenprinting industry works
iv) MASSIVE SALES CONTACT DATABASE – I have an excel database which contains the contact details including fax, emails, phone numbers etc… to over “1,000 Sales Agents based in Australia”, “2,600 retail stores based in Australia”, plus international sales agents and retail stores
v) I have advanced computer skills – including website design, graphic design etc…. so basically I can have the entire website & current seasons catalogue created and ready to send in “pdf” format to retail stores & sales agents in under a week….
vi) Have a professional Nikon D60 digital camera, which I just purchased recently for over $1,000 for all photoshooting purposes
Plus others that I cant think of right now….
*For those of you that may be thinking how are we going to control the running over this brand over 10 people… it is actually quite simple… each task will be broken down to individuals…. Any purchases that need to be made will be first emailed to everyone within the group and only once everyone agrees on the purchase, will the purchase will be allowed to be made… all expenses and income will go in & out of only 1 bank account…. etc.. Exactly the same way Abercombie & Fitch controls 83,000 employees… we will create a system to control the group of 10….
Sorry for such a big post…. But I am really excited…. Like I said if you’re keen and want to join us in this massive future brand, and trust me it will be massive, then email me at
This is a discussion about Looking for a group of people to combine forces & start-up a clothing brand with that was posted in the Australia and New Zealand section of the forums.
Looking for a group of people to combine forces & start-up a clothing brand with 
