Do One Thing, Do It Well, and Do It FAST. Find some article of clothing that you make
very well. Now, get better at it. Get better than anyone
else at it. Now, get faster. Get faster than anyone else. Invest in the
tools it takes to make that one item of clothing faster and better than anyone else
you have to compete with.
Speed, speed, speed. I can't say it strongly enough: money comes from volume, and volume
comes from speed.
A Real World Example
In my case, it's shirts. I started this whole business making shirts, and with the
assistance of my mentor and, later, a year spent doing alterations in a tailoring shop,
I learned the tricks to making a shirt look like a million dollars. In the spring of
1999, I purchased a production serger that cut my time (literally) in half. A few
months after that I purchased a professional hemmer foot ($30!), which cut my
time hemming in half. I won't say exactly how fast I can make a Signature shirt, but let's
just say it's substantially faster than it was when I started. Sure, the investment
in equipment was hefty (couple of thousand dollars when it was all done), but I'm finally making
enough money per shirt to justify selling them.
So, that begs the question: what's the measure of "good"? First, let's get past the
artistic snobbery that is the hallmark of our species: we're talking simple construction,
not design. Now, compare what you make to what you can buy at, say, JCPenney.
Are your edges finished, or do the seams fray in your costumes? Is your edge-stitching
a consistent distance from the fold, or does your stitching visibly wander?
I can favorably compare one of my signature shirts to an Arrow, or a Kuppenheimer.
I don't mean to imply that my work is as good and consistent as that, but
it's a far cry from a lot of what I see sold at faires now.
If you absolutely must do custom sewing...
Back To "Sewing For Others"...
