Sarah teaching us about brocades at Mood Fabrics
Since we only have 4 days to figure out how to launch a product, we have a busy day ahead of us. We spent yesterday getting to know the Binder Bag, who might buy it, where it belongs in the marketplace, and how much it should cost. Today we need to figure out our resources and the costs of manufacturing. Alicia Kim, our handbag designer has been hand-making the Binder Bag for a few years and is ready to have it manufactured professionally- an intimidating thought for most!
Our first stop for gathering sourcing costs is Moods fabric store, famous for being featured on the TV show, Project Runway. You think, no big deal, find some fabric we like, get a price, and off we go. Of course not! While waiting for a late member of our team, we spent some time petting Mood's dogie mascot, Swatch, until we were greeted by the very entertaining Sarah, an expert in fabric science who offered to share her expertise. This should have been our first clue that this was not going to be an ordinary visit to a fabric store. Sarah traipsed us around Moods to introduce us to all sorts of beautiful fabrics including the fabric hand-me-downs created by designers like Marc Jacobs and Zac Posen. The glitch-you can't sell your product to the public using their fabrics, but you can give them away to all of your friends- this method should only be used if you are not interested in making money for your designs. The highlight of our time spent with Sarah was when she started lighting swatches of fabric on FIRE!
We were so amused that she was actually lighting fabric on fire that we missed her point. In the midst of this educational tour of fabric science, one of our students seemed to be suffering from a stomach flu and threatened to vomit all over the fabric if she didn't high-tail it home. One down. We were so razzle-dazzled by Sarah's presentation that we almost forgot why we were there-to gather costs. We gave Sarah a hearty thank you and spread out to seek the price per yard of our favorite fabrics. We were now late for our next appointment with Barry Martin, a manufacturer of high-end garments.
The beauty of the garment district is that all the resources you need to launch a fashion line are in one big cluster. Thankfully, we only needed to travel one block to visit Barry Martin's manufacturing plant. Barry was a little disappointed when we arrived late and was confused when we mentioned something about igniting fabric. Even though we learned that Barry mostly produces high-end clothing for companies like Coach, we gained valuable experience by talking the talk with him and by getting an inside look at an actual plant. It turns out that Barry's cost estimates for manufacturing the Binder Bag was too high for our price point, but cheap for him since he is used to manufacturing $3000 dresses and handbags. Regardless, he was very generous with his time and proudly showed off the alligator skins he had hanging around.
Barry and Diego inspecting the bag to give us our first estimate
It's now a little after 12:00 and everyone is famished. We don't have time for a leisurely lunch because a local newspaper reporter is scheduled to speak to us at 1:30 about how to write a press release. Once again we scramble for take-out food and hop on the express train to 14 Wall Street.
We arrive to our Donald Trump style conference room on the 20th floor. A little background on our office space; Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp recently won a contest held by Regus Offices that awarded them an office space for one year based on their promising entrepreneur program.
Huddled around a humongous conference table, we listen to Terese Loeb Kreuzer, editor for the Battery Park City Broadsheet, and founder and editor-in-chief of the Travel Arts Syndicate, talk about points to consider when writing a press release. We "spitball" important facts we think should be included. We all agree that we should play up the angle of eight teens launching a business so that we can stand out from the hordes of designers clamouring for attention too. The exercise of writing a press release proves to be an effective method in getting us to understand our product further. We spend the rest of the afternoon hammering it out- it's not so easy.
Our first stop for gathering sourcing costs is Moods fabric store, famous for being featured on the TV show, Project Runway. You think, no big deal, find some fabric we like, get a price, and off we go. Of course not! While waiting for a late member of our team, we spent some time petting Mood's dogie mascot, Swatch, until we were greeted by the very entertaining Sarah, an expert in fabric science who offered to share her expertise. This should have been our first clue that this was not going to be an ordinary visit to a fabric store. Sarah traipsed us around Moods to introduce us to all sorts of beautiful fabrics including the fabric hand-me-downs created by designers like Marc Jacobs and Zac Posen. The glitch-you can't sell your product to the public using their fabrics, but you can give them away to all of your friends- this method should only be used if you are not interested in making money for your designs. The highlight of our time spent with Sarah was when she started lighting swatches of fabric on FIRE!
We were so amused that she was actually lighting fabric on fire that we missed her point. In the midst of this educational tour of fabric science, one of our students seemed to be suffering from a stomach flu and threatened to vomit all over the fabric if she didn't high-tail it home. One down. We were so razzle-dazzled by Sarah's presentation that we almost forgot why we were there-to gather costs. We gave Sarah a hearty thank you and spread out to seek the price per yard of our favorite fabrics. We were now late for our next appointment with Barry Martin, a manufacturer of high-end garments.The beauty of the garment district is that all the resources you need to launch a fashion line are in one big cluster. Thankfully, we only needed to travel one block to visit Barry Martin's manufacturing plant. Barry was a little disappointed when we arrived late and was confused when we mentioned something about igniting fabric. Even though we learned that Barry mostly produces high-end clothing for companies like Coach, we gained valuable experience by talking the talk with him and by getting an inside look at an actual plant. It turns out that Barry's cost estimates for manufacturing the Binder Bag was too high for our price point, but cheap for him since he is used to manufacturing $3000 dresses and handbags. Regardless, he was very generous with his time and proudly showed off the alligator skins he had hanging around.
Barry and Diego inspecting the bag to give us our first estimate
It's now a little after 12:00 and everyone is famished. We don't have time for a leisurely lunch because a local newspaper reporter is scheduled to speak to us at 1:30 about how to write a press release. Once again we scramble for take-out food and hop on the express train to 14 Wall Street.
We arrive to our Donald Trump style conference room on the 20th floor. A little background on our office space; Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp recently won a contest held by Regus Offices that awarded them an office space for one year based on their promising entrepreneur program.
Huddled around a humongous conference table, we listen to Terese Loeb Kreuzer, editor for the Battery Park City Broadsheet, and founder and editor-in-chief of the Travel Arts Syndicate, talk about points to consider when writing a press release. We "spitball" important facts we think should be included. We all agree that we should play up the angle of eight teens launching a business so that we can stand out from the hordes of designers clamouring for attention too. The exercise of writing a press release proves to be an effective method in getting us to understand our product further. We spend the rest of the afternoon hammering it out- it's not so easy.
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