http://www.fashion-incubator.com How to start a clothing line or run the one you have, better. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:36:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-120-22-2006-2011/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-120-22-2006-2011/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:45:22 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10807 let us know to expect you. Jay has the membership list; see him to get a perk to place on your show badge so you can identify other F-I members easily. If you have no idea what I'm banging on about, catch up on the details. Speaking of trade shows, we're in home stretch for the Las Vegas February Market shows, aka Magic et al which open February 12th. Without fail two weeks from now, people are going to complain that they couldn't source the fabric or services they had expected to at the show. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I say this is not the optimal show for that, people think they will find that which eluded everyone else. Toward that end, this public service announcement is required reading -Don't go to Magic to buy fabric. I'm not saying not to go because the experience will be invaluable but the research you do is that of learning the ins and outs of wholesale selling, not a leg up on getting inputs and suppliers to produce it. And as is often the case, follows is a selection of entries published on this site for this week in history over the past nearly seven years. We'll be coming up on our seventh anniversary soon -February 14th I believe. Likewise, there's the archives page which is a running list of site content. Have a great week! January 20, through February 2, 2006 What do fashion designers earn? Fashion design isn't glamorous How to make a line sheet Color numbers Importance of Product Identification pt. 2 Nameless Tutorial #9 Suffering Unappreciated Inventor Manufacturing organic home furnishings Button sewing problems? Designer's guide to a business plan Bias match-stripe Piece rate is good Sending patterns off for correction How to make a line sheet pt.2 Analyzing sales by size]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-120-22-2006-2011/feed/ 1 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-113-119-2006-2011/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-113-119-2006-2011/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:46:47 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10758 Two tidbits of interest to my fashion friends. First is word of Valentino's archives. With respect to that there's a plus and a minus and another minus. The plus is you can download it (site plays an annoying midi all the while). Minus is that the archive is software driven (that you download). Second minus is that it seems to be buggy (v.1). I use two monitors; after installation, clicking anything in my second monitor minimized Valentino in the other one. Also, my shipping program and Adobe Pro commenced wildcat strikes so I had to uninstall. I hope your experience is better, lots of folks are raving about it. Second item of interest: the most expensive tee shirt in the world (as depicted at right) Yep, $400,000.00 worth. As befitting such a discriminating item, allow 28 days for delivery -'cause it's bespoke ya know- for the firm to "exceed your expectations". On the other hand, shipping is free! Below you'll find the usual sampling of content that's been published this week in history over the past six -soon to be seven- years. If you don't find what you're looking for, keep the archives page handy; it lists every entry ever published. January 13, through January 19, 2006 How to issue style numbers pt.127 Interview with a buyer How to issue style numbers pt.128 The post office is closed Yet another pet peeve: Waistbands Getting a quote for cutting More cutting and grading questions]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-113-119-2006-2011/feed/ 3 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1230-112-2005-2011/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1230-112-2005-2011/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:17:27 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10732 I laughed out loud at this photo that one of my students (Antonina) sent me. She works (hard) in the film and TV industry. Those of you who have taken my production pattern making class will probably get it right away. Everybody else, well, who knows. The back of her jacket says Poka Yoke (pronounced “poh-kah yoh-kay”) which is Japanese for idiot error proofing. Nicely made production patterns have all kinds of poka yoke strategies built into them. It's a primary tenet of lean manufacturing. There's no easier or better way to reduce but hopefully prevent, the number of things that can go wrong once your stuff hits the sewing line. Unfortunately, they don't teach much of this in school or in books. It's one of those things you learn on the job if you've had the fortune to work at a good company. In any event, here is the archives post for this period in blog history -and there is more, much more on the archives page which lists nearly every entry ever published. One reader this week mentioned it was challenging to find specific material so I wrote a tutorial on how to find stuff that should dramatically improve your results (the search box is useless unless your keyword is very unique). Have a great weekend. December 30, 2005 through January 12, 2006 Thread consumption formulas Dress Kathleen Nameless Tutorial #7 Nameless Tutorial #8 Push Manufacturing Bras Sewing patterns for geeks A question of line size Paper wedding gown If I were to produce a line pt 2 Top 10 lies of designer-entrepreneurs Who's copying whom? Fix my pants]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1230-112-2005-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/happy-new-year-2012/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/happy-new-year-2012/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:51:48 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10657 Another peek and shriek of project assessment folder to develop generic product review standards to post on F-I. Cleaning crew@ 10:00 AM, $127 with tip. Tell Annette they left garbage bags in foyer, found it strewn across the lawn later. Books came in. Must deposit progeny at Greyhound at midnight, set alarm. Made potato & green bean stew for dinner with leftover french onion soup. Need to add forms to real estate contract, fill it out and send it to Estelle for LC house sale. Need to write a letter of reference for BC.]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/happy-new-year-2012/feed/ 15 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1221-1229-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1221-1229-2005-2010/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:09:02 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10652 archives post listing the entries published on this site, for this week, over the past six years. I hope your holiday is enjoyable and loving, surrounded by friends and family to welcome in the new year. December 21, through December 29, 2005 Design review tutorial 1 Importance of Product Identification A post about nothing Somebody likes me Decisions decisions... If I were to produce a line Design Creep Batch product development 3 Tyranny of tiny sizes?]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1221-1229-2005-2010/feed/ 0 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/holiday-edition-archives-1214-1220-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/holiday-edition-archives-1214-1220-2005-2010/#comments Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:09:04 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10605 Happy holidays to all my lovelies! As decoration for today's holiday archives entry, you'll see what passes for a Christmas tree around here. Yes, it's a vintage wire dress form adorned with lights and giant microbe tree ornaments. [I have a soft spot for those because if that company owner had come to me wanting a professional assessment, I would have said their idea didn't have the proverbial snowball's chance.] The "tree" frame is a microphone boom, a section of pipe and a hardware connector from a garment Z rack. The star is two layers of pattern paper taped together. Beneath you'll notice that the gifts are wrapped in standard kraft paper and tied with sisal twine, laying on a couple of yards of red wool (the wool is horrible, bleeds like crazy and the grain isn't stable either). It looks very pretty in real life, the brown with red. I haven't had a real tree in years if for no other reason that trees and a half dozen or more cats, don't mix. Well. Said tree would require more maintenance than is normally warranted as this will attest. Anyway, I hope your holiday is warm and loving. Enjoy your family and friends. Now I have to go make dinner. We are having spinach lasagne, salad, rolls and apple crisp for dessert. We made the crisp yesterday which was not such a good idea in hindsight because there may not be enough left to serve our guests. If you should have time to kill, here's this week's archives entry. Happy holidays! December 14, through December 20, 2005 Knits are evil Pattern puzzle: Julian & Sophie You have got to see this Batch product development Slavery or Bravery. Pick one. The eight deadly sins of waste Marketing only gets you so far How to get from a 7 to a 10 Which fashion school is best? Engineers gone wild Batch product development 2 Get off your lazy butt]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/holiday-edition-archives-1214-1220-2005-2010/feed/ 8 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-122-1215-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-122-1215-2005-2010/#comments Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:18:39 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10581 reviewed but I didn't. With several hundred entries, I finally had the time to collate the data, print out each person's name (for however many times they entered) to create the slips for the drawing. And Mr. Fashion-Incubator pulled one lucky name out of the lot: So our lucky winner is Sylvia Cox. Congratulations Sylvia! Now there only remains one difficulty -that of finding the book because I seem to have misplaced it. It's always something, no? Okay, now I have to go back to work. Like most of you, I have major mega chores pending with the upcoming holiday in addition to the usual stuff. In the meantime I'll leave you with the weekly archives post -actually two weeks worth since I didn't post last weekend. And again, this is just for this time period over the past seven years; there are more on the archives page which lists every entry ever published on this site. Hope your weekend is great. December 2, through December 15, 2005 The crisis of Kaizen Project Kaizen: Monday A cutter's must Project Kaizen: Tuesday Manufacturing in Canada pt 4 Industrial sewing machines pt 2 Project Kaizen: Wednesday A cutter's must pt 2 How blocks work]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-122-1215-2005-2010/feed/ 11 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1125-121-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1125-121-2005-2010/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:29:22 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10497 the book I reviewed yesterday. You may enter the contest as many times as you like. To enter, leave a comment or comments on any post(s) on this site over the next week. Tomorrow I'm being featured in an interview on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. The schedule isn't up yet but the topic is related to clothing fit and sizing. The correspondent is Marisa Penaloza. I haven't heard it so I don't know how the topic matured. I never anticipate a favorable treatment because so much of what I write about sizing is a radical departure from what most people think they know. I don't care if no one on the planet (other than scientists, engineers and econ grads) agrees with me, there is no such thing as vanity sizing. And as usual since this site is so resource intensive and it is difficult to slog through thousands of posts (but you still want a survey of material here), this is the weekly archives post. Meaning, below are links to entries published on this site over the past six years. Cruise the list for topics of interest and as always, there is more if you want to scan the archives page which lists every entry ever published. November 25, through December 1, 2005 Compromising with Retailers Sleeve cap ease is bogus Saran wrap pattern making method #2 Stock size update On becoming a pattern maker Industrial sewing machines Gemba Keiei on Panta Rei Dress forms What is Kaizen?]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1125-121-2005-2010/feed/ 12 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1111-1124-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1111-1124-2005-2010/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:05:28 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10421 archives entry last week, today's post of all the entries published on this site over the past six years is a bit lengthy. Perhaps between leftovers and resting, you'll have more time to read. See you next week. November 11, through November 24, 2005 Yet more marketing hype Children's wear & web marketing A question of collars The battle of retailers vs manufacturers Advantages of selling what you produce Establishing payment terms Saran wrap pattern making method #1 The skinny on retail Selling your company Pattern makers know best So, what did you do on thanksgiving?]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-1111-1124-2005-2010/feed/ 1 http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-114-1110-2005-2010/ http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-114-1110-2005-2010/#comments Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:02:18 +0000 Kathleen Fasanella http://www.fashion-incubator.com/?p=10327 Final Fashion. She's been busy since moving to London to pursue greater opportunities in illustration but she's kept up with her blog -which I don't read nearly often enough. Recently she pondered how one might categorize designers. She came up with 8 types: Narrators,  Characterists, Personalities, Aspirants, Conceptualists, Postmodernists, Technicians (more) and Artisans. Not surprisingly, I am closest to a hybrid of technician-artisan but am most attracted to color hungry postmodernists. Go check it out to see where you fit. Next up, Melanie.IO. I find blogs like this and am convinced I've been living under a rock. Biting, incisive, nothing is sugar coated here. A TechStars alum, she has plenty of backstory viewers never saw. This is required reading for anyone convinced they're going to be The E-mortar store and flummoxed that never the twain of tech and apparel shall meet. As if it were any surprise to kindred that apparel hasn't kept up. Later, I was pleased to learn she knew who I was, loved my book and wanted to have coffee. She has started another interesting venture, shirts by subscription. I will have to keep an eye on that. As for myself, I continue supervising construction and I have a tutor coming over today to teach me how to use Illustrator. It was time. I get in a very bad mood whenever I have to use it. Anyway, here is today's archives entry. Have a great weekend! November 4, through November 10, 2005 LA Textile wholesale fabric show pt.2 Poor man's BMI The Apparel Engineering and Needle Trades Handbook Garment design copyrights & patents Outdoor sewing sites Lean manufacturing is resiliency Designers at craft fairs Patently arrogant]]> http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/archives-114-1110-2005-2010/feed/ 4