Fabric Sourcing for Fashion, in Vietnam

Lots of people get in touch with me about fabric sourcing. I can understand why people find this difficult at first, but I’m happy to say that in general, fabric sourcing can be one of the easier parts of the process and, in my opinion, much easier than finding a manufacture.

I often get asked if I recommend travelling to find fabrics, lots of people are keen to go to China. So far, I’m yet to recommend that anyone goes to China, it’s just not been right for them. In general, if you’re starting a fashion business there’s not a real need to travel. Certainly not long distance, when there’s lots of expenses - I feel the money can be put to much better use elsewhere in the business.

If you’ve been following along at all, you’ll know that I travel a lot and do supplier visits, so you might be surprised to see that I don’t view it as essential. Why is it different for me? Really, for 2 reasons. First off, I’ve been in this industry a long time and know what to look out for. Because of this I can make decisions much faster and I tend to know if I’m going to make a purchase somewhere before I’ve arrived. A lot of startups want to go to fabric suppliers and browse, most are not set up for this at all and don’t appreciate browsing - it takes time out of their busy day and in many cases suppliers don’t have a shop, you visit them on location where production takes place. Second, I have lots of clients with different needs. Most startups keep fabrics to a minimum (as this keeps costs low and profits higher), so many will only need to source a couple of fabrics. Travelling half way around the world for 2 fabrics doesn’t feel worth it. But for me, as I might shop for say 10 clients in one visit, it becomes more worthwhile.

If, after all that, you’re still keen to head to Vietnam for fabric sourcing, here’s a few things I found out. Just to let you know, I mostly visited smaller scale suppliers on this trip, I didn’t go directly to fabric mills due to the distance (many were located hours drive away from where I was and for me at this time, I didn’t need to go there).

Streetside applique sales!

Streetside fabric ‘shops’

Don’t expect good service

The suppliers I went to had some great fabrics, but if you’re expecting a nice air conditioned shop nicely laid out for you, think again. Many of the suppliers I came across had their ‘stores’ in tiny spaces directly on a main road, the heat and the fumes from the motorbikes could get intense! If you don’t know much about fabrics, you won’t get the answers here. For one, it’s just not that kind of place and second, English is often very limited. I had several suppliers negotiate on pricing with a calculator as the only means of communicating!

As well as ‘shops’ in Hanoi and Hoi An, I also visited the fabric market in Hanoi. This was great and had a large area dedicated to all sorts of fabric, trims and findings. As with anything in Vietnam, negotiating is key! Start at 50% of the asking price and settle somewhere in the middle.

Don’t look for swim or active fabrics

During the whole trip, I only came across one supplier selling swimwear fabrics (which I suspect were imported) and none for activewear, so I wouldn’t recommend Vietnam for this market. Instead, I’d say their strength was in woven cottons and linens, they had some lovely stripes and patterns woven in.

Sewing businesses at the market in Hoi An

Sewing workshop specialising in leather

Sampling here might be beneficial

If you’re looking to have samples made, it might be worth considering a stay in Hoi An, to work 1-on-1 with a sample maker here. There was so many tailors and sewing businesses here that made custom clothing for tourists, it gave me the idea of spending some time here and getting a collection sampled. This is only an idea at the moment and something I need to look in to further, so at the moment I can say if it works or not. But watch this space for the future.

In general, because of the language barrier I think it would be easier to have a reference item to show the sewer (perhaps for fit and/or construction) along with your tech pack.

Museums can be great for learning about techniques

I visited a number of exhibitions all of which had some great insight into the traditional processes of weaving and dying fabrics. Many of the villages still use the ancient traditions and weave their own clothes by hand, which is very inspiring. I’d love to learn more about this next time and ideally partner with suppliers who can work in this way. The fabrics themselves were fantastic and it would be great to help local people get them out into the rest of the world.

Learning about traditional weaving techniques in Ho Chi Minh City

Examples of the patterns woven into the fabrics

Enjoy it!

If you do go to Vietnam, enjoy it! The food is some of the best I’ve ever had and the culture is so rich and diverse, it makes it a great place to visit. As I said at the start, I don’t believe travel is nessarsay for a small business, but if you do go I’m sure you’ll have a great experience and see some nice fabrics, particularly if you’re looking for wovens.

If you don’t fancy the expense or culture shock and would rather get some help sourcing your fabrics, I’d love to help you. You can email contact@29andseptember.com or click here to get in touch for more information.

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Fabric Trade Show 2018 Round Up

Trade shows can be a great way to grow your fashion business and contacts. Last month I went to Munich Fabric Start, one of Europe’s largest sourcing fairs for the fashion industry. For me, the event has three standout benefits; the fabrics on offer, the amount of sustainable options and the seminar programme. In this post I’m going to cover my round up of these three topics.

Trade shows can feel overwhelming for new designers, due to the sheer scale and amount of companies on offer. I believe Munich had over 1000 suppliers and more than 20000 visitors, so the scale is huge. But, personally I do believe that trade shows are really important for new brands, especially those who are new the fashion industry too and have a limited knowledge of fabrics. One of the key things I teach students in my online course is to go out there and actually feel fabrics. Fabric production is a science and it’s hard to understand what the outcome of different elements is, without having seen many fabrics. Trade shows are a great opportunity to view thousands of fabric options and get an understanding for your personal preferences and also so you know what’s out there.

It can be really inspiring too. Chances are, if you’ve not been working in the industry long, your fabric knowledge will be very limited. By going to see fabrics, you can be inspired by the many combinations on offer. I still find fabric shopping inspiring, even though I’ve been in the industry for over a decade. There’s constantly new innovations as the worlds of biology and fashion continue to mix - fabrics can now be made from varied sources such as pineapples, algae, orange peel and mushrooms, to name just a few.

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Fabric Sourcing

Personally, I had a lot of success at the show, looking for new fabrics for clients. Some of the fabrics on my ‘hit list’ included sustainable t-shirt and sweater fabrics, recycled activewear options, innovative swimwear finishes and handfinished organic cotton shirting fabrics. All of which I was able to find at low minimums, but it did take a lot of hard work and research prior to the show. If you go to a trade show, any trade show, always do the prep first. If you go without a plan and a list of people that you want to visit, you’ll waste a lot of time. You can easily get overwhelmed and end up wandering around aimlessly (I know this, as that’s the experience I had at my first trade show - I was like a deer in headlights!). There’s also the danger that you’ll stumble across something you love, only to find that the minimums are really high. Some vendors had minimums of 20000m, hence why it’s really important to research beforehand. The vendors I visited generally had minimums of 1m - 100m, with some going up to 300m for my larger clients.

Due to the huge range of suppliers, I’d hazard a guess that you can find pretty much anything you need at the show, however, to ensure it’s worth your time going, you can check the online exhibitor list via the Munich Fabric Start website. This is also the starting point for my research, before going to the show and how I create my plan prior to arrival. It can be quite labour intensive, but totally worth it in my opinion.

If you’re looking for accessories, such as labels, zips, buttons, etc, this can be a good option too as there was a lot of vendors for this type of product. I wouldn’t suggest it anymore for factory finding, as they have really reduced their showing of producers. I only found 2 possible options, both who had mid sized minimums that don’t work for most of my customers.

Sustainability

You might know that I’m passionate about sustainability and one of the great things about this event was the selection of sustainable fabrics available. The new ‘Resource’ section (pictured above) had a range of different products on display from a range of retailers, who you could then visit within the main show areas. There were various different categories, including recycled, organic, regenerated, new innovations and also a section for trims and labels. Through this section I found out about a number of new vendors with low minimums, who I then went to visit.

The selection was pretty sizeable and featured around 700 fabrics and 100 trims, according to the website. I personally found 8-9 new (to me) suppliers who had options that I feel will be good for some customers. I was really happy with that and along with the new vendors, I was also able to meet up with existing contacts and see their new ranges.

It’s really great being able to meet up with the fabric suppliers in person, particularly within the sustainability area as so many of them are passionate about what they do and are excited to show you what they’ve been working on. This is a great way to improve your knowledge and learn more about fabrics and the properties that might be helpful for you. This information not only helps you to choose suitable fabrics, but it also gives you clear features and benefits that you can pass on to your clients. This in turn helps your customers to see the value in your products.

Seminar Programme

Most of the seminars are free, which is amazing, especially as the entry is also free (but you’ll need to register in advance). In fact, I only went to the free ones, as there were so many I wanted to go to, I didn’t have time for the paid ones. The seminars I went to included information on manufacturing and managing production, sustainability in both fabrics and business, fashion technology and new fabrics that are becoming available and trend presentations, both on consumer trends (more on that in an upcoming post!) and fashion trends.

If you’re new to the industry, some of these are quite advanced and may go over your head a little, as they talk about high level systems and infrastructure management - needs that small businesses don’t have. But, there’s a lot of value in many of the events, particularly the Fashion Nerd discussion on fashion tech and the trend prediction talks. Fashion tech is a really exciting area of the industry and one that’s set to grow massively. Many startups don’t even know about this area and are missing out - by attending such panel discussions, you can have a great idea of what’s going on in the industry and how it might be beneficial for you.

Trend prediction information is super expensive; I spent a small fortune on trend books while I was there - the books cost more than my hotel bill, (which says a lot as spending 3 nights in one of Europe’s most expensive cities doesn’t come cheap!). Trend books are often priced too high to be accessible to startups, so going to one of the free trend seminars can be super helpful. Do keep in mind that there’s free and paid trend seminars - I went to the free ones which were great, but you don’t get any handouts. If you see people with trend forecasting packages, they were from the paid presentation.

I hope this post has given you some insight into why a trade show visit might be good for you. But, if you can’t make it to a show and still want the benefits, I’d love to work with you on this. Whether it’s fabric sourcing, trend information, areas for growth next year or something else, you’re welcome to get in touch for information on how we can work together. You can send me a message by clicking here.

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Demystifying Sustainable Fabrics - feature on Maker's Row

If you've been following me at all, you'll know that I'm passionate about sustainability and spend a lot of my time researching alternative ways of producing clothing, in order to be more sustainable.  I was recently selected to write an article on the subject for Maker's Row, a US based website which focuses on American made products. In the article, I share 5 tips to help with understanding sustainable fabrics. There's a lot of mis-information out there and it can be hard to know if a fabric is truly sustainable, I hope this article will help you with the decision making process.  You can read the full article on the Maker's Row blog, here.

I love helping brands understand sustainability and ethical issues and have a free Masterclass available called ‘How to Start a Sustainable Fashion Brand’ which you can register free to watch by clicking here.

I hate spam too - if you sign up to this email list, your details won't be sold or leased to anyone else. I will email you from time to time with helpful content and occasional offers, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.