Why Your Clothing Brand Will Fail UNLESS You Do THIS

if you're thinking about starting a clothing line or perhaps you already have one and you're looking to succeed with it in this video we're going to share why clothing brands often fail and provide you with some tips to help increase your chances of success so if you're a new visitor to this channel make sure you hit that subscribe button and turn on the post notifications to be alerted of the latest drops and more importantly check out the free resources and academy trainings that we have available through the links down below in this video we're doing a collaboration with my good friend mike leisure who is a art director for many brands and is very experienced in this field so i wanted to bring him in here for him to share some of the insight that he's learned over the years to help you guys succeed hey guys welcome to FTGU I am Mike Leisure i'm an artist and an art director in the past i've worked with skate brands streetwear brands men's contemporary fashion athletic wear and even shoes as i've worked with these different brands i started to really take note of everything that the designers were doing and every time i would work with a different designer i would take note of how they worked how they sketched what they took into consideration and these small little details and workflows that they had then gave me insight on what made a brand or collection so great but inversely what makes a brand bad today as we go through that i want to cover some surface level things and i also want to note that this is not like talking about financial issues or business structure because that can also make your brand fail but we're strictly going over design aesthetic and uh branding as you look at these surface level ideas and deep rooted issues you can fix them you can grow and you can elevate your brand and your taste level so one of the first things i want to talk about is are you really a brand or are you a person who is selling clothes when i look at brands that just start a lot of times they'll just kind of make a t-shirt maybe they'll make a line of t-shirts you're like oh i like this one i like that one i'm gonna make these i mean i went to a graphic design class and i had a couple designs and people that thought like they're like yo this is really cool i would buy that from you so it's like okay all right let's start our brand um as you start to do that though i feel like that's a great start but then how do you expand on that what do you do to make your uh entire entity something bigger than yourself or just that t-shirt when i look into that i want to urge you to explore different silhouettes different styles fits look at the lifestyle of your consumer and have that inform how your collection is made so one of the first examples i have is like skaters and streetwear so i've prepared some boards and some slides for us to go through and try to show you some examples of like how this is done so as we're looking through this here we have you know you got these skaters sitting down you've got this guy with his bag and you've got this girl bombing a hill and when you look at that the first thing i know is obviously they're having a good time that having fun but you look at the crop of their pants the color of their shoes let's look at this guy who has his shirt tucked in and the type of hats that they're wearing and you've got some offshoots people too like um tyler here who's got like a different type of hat but you've got these different types of trucker hats and you've got um the five panel and when you look at that it kind of tells you like should i be making newer era like flat 50 caps should i be doing a dad hat uh what are these skaters wearing and then even within these uh small sections of people there's more to each person there's the person who's dressed as a little more baggy there's a person who dresses really like preppy and still skates so you have to consider these things and not try to market to every single one of those people but find a smaller lane that makes sense for you another thing i want to talk about is the street wear aspect of things and let's say you want to do a collection there if you look at this slide here we've got different people wearing different types of jackets and again all the fits are different there's this kid here who's baggy there's a guy who's wearing a beanie and then even here you look at the hats are different too and all the shoes are different some people are wearing boots some people wearing vans and you have to take those things into consideration as you build because like would i wear boots with this cut of a t-shirt if it's a longer tee what kind of pants is wearing is it skinny is it tapered is it uh more like americana like what are those things and why did you choose to do them one of the biggest things is using your consumer's lifestyle to inform your design and your silhouette choices so beyond just aesthetic is what is their day like what is their week like what is the month like how many pieces will they buy from your collection to build out their lifestyle so here i love ugly is i think a really clear cut and simple way of looking at some of the things they have maybe this person lives in the pacific northwest maybe they're in la it's not too cold it's not too hot so in the fall you've got these button downs right button ups i don't know what you want to call it but they exist anyway you've got that you've got the t-shirts and then not only just graphic t-shirts but you've got this more simple pattern shirt and then a vest as you go throughout the day maybe they're wearing uh that t-shirt with this vest and that could be a look but then at the same time you could just wear one of these graphic shirts right beyond that you could pair uh the pants that they made with this button-down shirt and then in the same time you could wear that vest too or you can swap out each one of these individual pieces but that all together creates a moving flowing closet for someone to pick from another big thing for me is launching your clothing brand with way too many colors for me when you take your logo and you decide to put it on a shirt it's like that's cool and then what colors do i choose you making one shirt and putting it on six different colors to me says i like this logo somebody's gonna like this shirt but i don't know who's gonna like it so i'm gonna make one for everybody and when you make one for everybody it looks like like you didn't try and you didn't think hard enough about it and then people might not connect to it because they're like why is it blue why is it green and purple sometimes it works there are exceptions to every rule but for this one i think that it's important to be to look at these details and ask yourself why so if you look at this example here we have this big ass graphic with a dollar sign maybe my brand's about making money all day you know what i mean and you look at it and it's like this is the same graphic and it's just all the same silhouettes all the same t's just different colors and it's like when i land on your instagram page why would i buy this just like big-ass graphic with a money sign maybe i do like that look but then it's like what if you said uh like you know get rich or die trying and then you had another uh thing it's like each one of these shirts should inform that same theme of let's make money together let's get this bread um so here's a mock brand that i've made just to kind of reiterate these things because maybe you're not this guy maybe you're not the big ass graphic with the not built out stuff so let's dig a little deeper uh i created a fake brand called noir monday just for the sake of this presentation and in here you have the single logo and then you have this other thing that's like wish it was friday wish it was friday and then i have a shirt that says weekday i might not make these but it kind of shows you a little bit more of a scope of what we have to offer and then the colors i picked here are this charcoal gray i've got a nice light brown and then i've got this kind of a deeper blue and that to me kind of feels like either late fall early spring kind of vibe right and then let's build on that a little bit further as we come out and we want to expand these ideas that we have i think the general issue for some brands is that there is not enough research and there's not enough breadth and depth to every single collection that you do so your logo is not your brand your logo is what people look at and identify with your brand but just that alone is not going to cut it so here is an example of something that actually to me doesn't look bad i might even wear it it says noir monday but i took it i put it on my t-shirt i put it on a hoodie and then i put it on a hat in the future too when you do collections it's like you can have these pieces and you can call them essential pieces core pieces and you can drop these in collections but you don't you're not going to do an entire collection with just logos this is an example of something i might do is like i'd have the core essential t-shirt and then i have this noir monday hoodie and then on there it actually says death and desire so this collection to me is about you know death desire uh it's about like endlessly uh living and finding lust and love for what you do and then now you have this uh cap here with the same thing on there maybe i'll have that embroidered but now it kind of gives you a little bit of everything i could wear this shirt i could wear the hoodie and the hat together and it won't look like overdoing it because like if i had a shirt that said noir monday a hoodie that says no on monday and then a hat it's like why would i wear those all together unless you have that crazy fanboy consumer was like i wear noir monday everything it can happen but unless you're like an adidas or a supreme or nike you're probably not going to have someone wearing an entire uh outfit of just your brand the next point i want to talk about is over using your brand colors so you've done the research you've picked your brand colors you have your messaging all put together and i think this mainly comes from pretty good graphic designers and the transition from being a graphic designer to a clothing designer or someone who does an entire collection is understanding the aesthetic but also the lifestyle and the overall brand it's easy to create like five t-shirts that look good together but it's like what am i really doing and so when i say overusing brand colors is you're gonna pick something like you you maybe you look at uh diamond so here's a collection of huff and diamond you know when i talk about diamond they have that tiffany blue that kind of turquoise look every time you see a shirt a hoodie you're like that's diamond for sure you recognize that so people take those ideas and like i'm going to have my brand color or brand colors and it's always going to be that while you have pieces in your collection you should not be doing an entire collection of just that color you should not be doing an entire feed of all that again exceptions every rule but you got to be tasteful with these things another one you might look at and say well supreme does it so here's the thing you look at the photo on the left here and you see red and you're like that's supreme for sure undeniable but if you look to the right here you have these shirts and you have these different patterns and so the branding itself the red allows you to associate that with supreme but it's not just that if you dig deep you'll notice that they actually go in and use all these different patterns and uh colors to help tell their brand story don't get caught up in that single color or two colors whatever you need to do the key is to fully build out your brand if you haven't built it out enough you rely on the logo you rely on the colors and you rely on that single line that you have that tells what your brand is about let's say again my brand is about making money and then it's like every single line is about making money but it's like do you need to do that what else do you do to make money there are people that you know are entrepreneurs there are people that are rappers there are people that uh do video can you find a way to make money within each one of these lanes and then like pick a lane for those so then it's like uh how do i make money as a photographer maybe those lines that idea is gonna sell better to them but you're not gonna take that same line and try to sell it to an entrepreneur it just doesn't really work so do the research for each one of these ideas and your brand and then build out on those also as you find these key messages in your branding and collections it helps because if you have your whole thing is about making money and then later you have a shirt that says broke boys it's like are you being ironic or you know satirical or you actually just like broken that time but your brand is about making money so then it becomes conflicting use your brand deck and your brand bible really as the law um for your collection and it also informs uh who you're collaborating with like are you gonna collaborate with brokeboy's llc probably not you're probably gonna go find the um rich boys and work with them you know what i mean and these are all obviously fake brands but you know what i'm talking about you there's just different things that's not gonna work maybe you're about uh activism and then you're gonna go collab with like a graffiti brand but it's like did that make sense unless you're gonna do the research and look into this uh weird graffiti artist who was working during um the 70s or 80s and he was talking about like anti-racism and you're gonna bring that in together and like create a collection that makes sense use your brand bible use it as a guideline it is the law for you the scriptures look into that as we move on from the brands and the branding i want to talk about planning your collections carefully and when you look at that each collection in itself is like a story that you're telling and you don't want to tell a story that's too thin and you don't want to tell a story that has so many details that nobody's going to understand for instance i tell you i go to the store you don't need to know everything that i bought but you would like to know that i went to the store maybe i went for one thing and it's the same way in your collection i see a lot of brands will come out and they'll just drop like six t-shirts ten t-shirts and then that's it uh that's too little for someone who comes to your page and looks at that one t-shirt do i wanna buy from this company do i wanna buy more do i wanna look into what they're about and then some brands will immediately try to put out everything they have they'll come out and be like i'm going to drop a 30 piece collection and then what happens is you start to overflow your feed you start to spread yourself thins like can you market those sweatpants and the shoe that you tried to make with the shoe laces and the other accessories and that t-shirt because like you only have so much to put out and then in that same way if you split that into smaller collections which we call capsules or quick strikes it makes so much more sense now you can create a couple outfits in one collection spread it out put a couple accessories here and then put that into another one right and that then allows you to focus on these smaller pieces the smaller collections that will allow you to not spread yourself in but really focus on them and market them the right way as i said in the capsule collections and the quick strikes it really allows you to diversify your capsule collections and put certain things in places that will make sense for instance you would have the logo tea a graphic tee a hoodie and whatever else if you put these things all together it becomes convoluted and hard to digest so be clear and concise with every single collection that you make so the next point i want to bring up is bad photography bad does not mean bad to me whether you shoot it in low quality high quality you could shoot this on a medium format you could shoot this on a film camera or your iphone it doesn't matter about the quality always what matters is the subject you're not going to shoot a collection that's about the beach with a bunch of cars this is like why would you do that unless you pick the right cars in the right setting so the what some of the biggest problems that i see is picking the wrong photographer having the wrong model and picking the wrong locations so let's dive deeper into that finding the right photographer is really about picking and choosing and looking at someone's portfolio as you grow and you meet different photographers you'll find out photographers don't just shoot one thing or everything there are people who have strong points and they understand certain things some photographers actually like fashion so when they look at someone wearing a piece of clothing they're going to be like wow i would love to shoot that to see how far that shirt drops down and how that gets buttoned up that's a really nice detail to me and those people understand those things someone who shoots cars is going to come back and shoot from this really low angle and show the tires on a car maybe that person could shoot shoes i don't know but uh for clothing it doesn't always work and then you have people who are really into shooting the models but not so much the clothes and that also works but you have to pick and choose and be very picky about why you chose a photographer uh when it comes to models oh for the love of god do not take your shirt and put it onto a pretty girl you got your friend who's got a friend and she's really pretty you know everyone's like oh my gosh she's so cool and pretty and then you're like i'm gonna throw my shirt on her like money boys all right it doesn't always translate just because a pretty girl is wearing a shirt doesn't make it cool your cool friend your cousin who is not really a model but he looks good probably not the best choice for your model unless of course you have a low budget and you really need to do this but again being picky with your photographer is going to help being picky with your model and then you doing those mood boards to look at and say you should pose like this you should do this because if you just bring someone who's inexperienced in and try to have the model it doesn't always turn out well then the last thing is the wrong locations if you pick the right one it should help tell the story of your collection stop shooting in front of graffiti walls stop shooting your models on the train tracks it doesn't make sense why are they on the train tracks why is there a giant graffiti wall and you know this i know you've all seen the brand every single photographer who first picks up a camera is like oh all right i'm gonna get my uh homegirl she looks really pretty i'm gonna go shoot her in front of this graffiti wall she's gonna wear the snapback hat with my shirt that says money boys in a box it doesn't work you might sell 10 to your cousins you might sell some of your friends in high school or in college who like kind of support you and might throw 20 away but that's not how you're gonna scale if you're happy with that money do you think but let's elevate your brand let's take this to the next level the last point i want to talk about is bad marketing if you've designed this great collection and you have all this research done the last thing you want to do is to put it out in a way that nobody understands or put it out in a way that is like so detailed that people just kind of lost on it right if you're in a high fashion brand you can do all these cool things and people will be like oh that's really cool i like how they built that out but if you're a t-shirt brand and you're out here just doing some girl laying in a river with a wet t-shirt it's like why did that make sense to the money boys it doesn't as i go on instagram i get a lot of people who dm me and talk about hey bro do you want to wear my shirt can you help us out with this collection and i go to their instagram and i see the same thing it looks like this actually uh your brand your logo is split out into the top three posts and you got your three shirts and you got three money rolls right money boys for life but then when i land here i'm like this looks low quality and it doesn't look like something i would buy again you do have some people who would best thing to do is revert back to your brand bible in your brand bible you should have talked about who your consumer is maybe he's 25 to 35 maybe he's uh the high school kid going into uh college what does that person do what are they interested in maybe i'll take the guy who's like 23 to 28. he's graduating college he wants to live a better life and he's got a good job now but he's like you know what i'm done with the street where i want to look a little more grown as i walk into the office on my days off i want to let people know that i do care about my style so like what do they wear um when you take that into an instagram feed i might show you like what his apartment might look like maybe i'll give you aspirations on i want a really light looking apartment and i want these kinds of furniture maybe it's mid-century modern and then you've got like how he wears that and what it should look like what does that model look like that model should low-key be who your consumer kind of looks like and then here you've got six traits for success the comfort zone and that's all a part of the same thing these aspirational ideas and then you start throwing in influencers and people that would help inform those decisions of your consumer and not only that is once you bring in these categories of content you can actually spread out your content in a way that makes people want to come back if all you did was post your clothes nobody would come back they would just be like all right cool i bought that shirt and now i don't really have any value for it and then if they're following you just to watch for like 30 uh pieces later or like three collections later to be like oh i actually kind of like that piece the majority of the time they're probably not going to continue to follow you through then so you have to provide some sort of valuable content that keeps them coming back give them some quotes and it's not always quotes give them something that you believe in about your brand that will reiterate everything they came to you for so to finalize everything the things that i want you to take away from this is do your research tell your story and be in love with the details really live that lifestyle and go through and explore all those nooks and crannies of every single thing you do why did you choose that typeface was it because it was part of the same era as that same photo you took from whatever decade that was those are the little things that matter you have to be an artist you need to trust your intuition and what i say here is not the law it is not the end-all be-all it is merely a guideline and something for you to move towards if you want to change and grow and with that being said as an artist which you all are you need to trust your own intuition but if things don't work you need to be open to change to come back and revisit the things that didn't work well and try implementing something new that might work for you uh with that being said i want to invite back money boys ceo john santos from scgu hey guys man so i have a lot of work to do with my moneyboy brand um no but for real mike thank you for coming on the channel and sharing this knowledge with everybody i hope you guys enjoyed it more importantly make sure that you check out proper worldwide which is where mike and his team are going to be located on youtube we're going to be linking it right down below in the description as well as in the video cards right over here on this side so go ahead and check them out make sure you hit that subscribe button for them and they'll continue to produce marketing branding visual art and just helping you build with the tools that you need to become the artist or that entrepreneur or that brand maker that i know you guys are so appreciate you for coming through and more importantly guys a final announcement if you're interested in learning more about mood boards and designing and the photography videography check out the ground up academy where mike is going to have a special course in there a little mini course that he's going to dive into in more detail so dude appreciate you bro for everything and we'll be in touch guys see you later

Channel: John Santos

Views: 638,688

Keywords: why your clothing brand will fail unless you do this, why clothing brands fail, why apparel brands fail, why your clothing brand will fail, clothing brand fail, clothing brand, starting a clothing line, tips for starting a clothing brand, starting a clothing brand, clothing brand tips, how to build a clothing brand, clothing brand startup, starting your own clothing line, how to start a brand, streetwear, proper worldwide, mike leisure, johnxsantos, from the ground up

Id: euT9uKhHuB0

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020