Tech sheets. Spec sheets. Whatever you want to call them. The fact of the matter is, I have rarely ever been able to get a manufacturing quote for my little girls' clothing line with one.
When I first started looking for a factory, I made beautiful tech sheets. By the book. One production manager even went out of her way to compliment my flats. But the response I invariably got was, "Send a sample."
Fortuntely, I happen to sew. Otherwise, the amount of capital needed to start this line would have been prohibitive. Can you imagine?? Hiring a sample maker every time you have an idea?? And then most of my ideas don't even make the first cut, (no pun intended) once I see them in real fabric on a real toddler.
We would like to think we can visualize the whole manufacturing process in the abstract, from a spec sheet. But we are in the garment industry. Production managers need to touch and hold an actual garment to think about making it on a large scale. And I can't say I blame them.
4/6/09
Beauty Products & Packaging (the depressing news)
Great Idea: Pixyworld could start a little girls' beauty product line!
After all, I have a science background and two little girls to try out all my products on... and have already produced some cool products they love to use.
Bad News: Suppose I wanted to start with a test run of 100 units of product. I've investigated bare-bones packaging costs, and for this quantity they soar to $2.50 plus per unit. (See Labels Stickers and More and Midwest Bottles.) Multiply by 2 to get wholesale cost, 2 again to get retail cost, and the retail customer would be paying $10 in packaging costs alone!!
Obviously, we would have to absorb much of the packaging cost for a trial run like this, and large-scale beauty product lines are paying less per unit for packaging.
But... it does make you wonder what we are paying, as retail customers, for the packaging of our beauty products. Then again, I suppose we really couldn't use them without the packaging?
From now on, when paying for a tube of lip balm, I will think of myself as purchasing a nifty lip balm dispenser, with a little lip balm thrown in as a bonus!
While doing the webmastering for Boutique Baby Toddler & Little Girls' Clothes by Pixyworld, I have joined quite a few of them. They are, of course, a free inbound link to my site. Hopefully they are also a little bit of advertising, allowing visitors to see a banner and description of my site.
But here's the catch: My theory is that you pretty much have to be on page one for your link to be found by google; also, you have to be on page one for your ad to get decent visibility.
The top site list moderator is usually more than happy to offer you a paid spot on page one. But if you are doing your business on a shoestring, as many of us are nowadays, you are depending on the free spots.
Many of the lists are ranked by "votes," (clicks to the list from your site.) This is to the advantage of the top sites list moderator, who likes to rack up traffic stats in order to sell more paid ads. But you feel a little silly "voting" for yourself once a day just to keep your spot on page one.
The other way sites are ranked, occasionally, is by traffic. They have a nifty traffic counter you put on all pages of your site (which, incidentally, gives the top site list hundreds of inbound links rather than just one,) and your site goes up and down in the rankings all day long, based on your site traffic.
Now, this type of top sites list I find irresistibly interesting. I have to confess to checking Top Baby Boutiques several times a day to see how my traffic stacks up. And that means -- you guessed it -- more traffic for Top Baby Boutiques!
Well, they are a clever idea. It can't be denied. And who am I to knock them, when they are undeniably helping me too?
4/4/09
Colors in Fashion Design
As cheesy as the title has come to sound, Color Me Beautiful, by Carole Jackson, has been a milestone in fashion history. Take a look on Amazon at how many titles and products use it as a springboard. And for me, it was the beginning of the love affair with color that eventually led me to a career in children's fashion.
Jackson's color theory forms a foundation for color selection in fashion design. It reminds the designer to select colors from all four seasons, so that her line can have the broadest possible appeal. It also recommends the basic dark neutrals that a wardrobe can be built around.
But it does need to be balanced with the colors that are trendy in fashion at the moment. For example, our Pink Jungle and Flower Power collections are both built around chocolate brown, and the popularity of the color has led to much greater sales than could be expected from Autumn shoppers alone!
A lifetime of selecting colors for fashion is still too short for me...
4/3/09
I see London, I See France...
I volunteer occasionally to work in the preschool class at church, and as much as I love the age, being a preschool girl does come with its fashion dilemmas.
In fact, I began designing children's clothes with just these dilemmas in mind. These little girlies are at the prime dress-wearing age, and they look as pretty as posies in their twirly dresses and piggy-tales.
But, they do tend to expose themselves for all the world to see. Parents tend to either ignore this problem -- fair enough, I guess, since at this age are practically babies -- or, they put them in leggings or jeans under their dresses.
My personal favorite is the jeans, both for their durability and their style. I love that jeans with dresses is a current trend even among teens and adults. (See Heart or Hate: Dresses Over Jeans on kids.aol.com.)
Put some fun embroidery on the jeans, and they become a favorite with little girls as well!
4/2/09
Sublimating the Shopping Urge
When a girl needs to shop, she's going to shop. I've accepted that about myself.
The question is, how to direct the shopping impulse toward something easy on -- or not too catastrophic to -- the credit card balance! And that's where it comes in so handy being a clothing designer.
When I need to shop, I can browse fabrics for my next Pixyworld collection. And if the urge is strong upon me, I can even request swatches.
Swatches are one of life's few free pleasures. When they arrive in the mail, it's like my birthday! I can spend hours holding up fabrics next to each other to see how they look.
There is something absolutely adorable about toddler jewelry. I used to make jewelry to go with my outfits when I was doing customs on eBay, but when I began manufacturing for Pixyworld I had to simplify things for awhile, and I miss the jewelry!
I bought this sweet silver ring recently for my preschooler, from Overstock.com, and she just loves it. It fits perfectly on her little ring finger, even though she is so small. (A size 1 actually exists -- who knew??)
I do have to help her keep track of it, which is the big drawback with all toddler jewelry. What has helped is that she loves it even more than I do, so she is very motivated.
If Pixyworld does decide to add the element of jewelry to our ensembles, I think we will have to start on the well-trodden ground of rings and bracelets. So many accessories, so little time!
My personal favorite is the jeans, both for their durability and their style. I love that jeans with dresses is a current trend even among teens and adults. (See 
There is something absolutely adorable about toddler jewelry. I used to make jewelry to go with my outfits when I was doing customs on 
