3 Steps To Finding Your Niche For Your Fashion Business

The podcast episode discusses the three crucial steps to finding a niche in the fashion business. The hosts, Naima, Zahiyya, and LaTisha, explore their individual experiences and insights on defining a niche, understanding the intersection of passion and expertise, and monetizing their skills. Naima emphasizes the importance of patience, quality, and streamlining products, sharing her journey in the fashion industry. LaTisha focuses on teaching and problem-solving as integral aspects of her niche, while Zahiyya discusses her journey in design and the need for thick skin in handling critiques. The hosts encourage listeners to connect with other creators, seek mentors, and stay resilient in the face of challenges. Show Notes: – Definition of a niche: One’s passion and expertise. – Individual experiences in the fashion industry. – Connecting passion, skills, and monetization. – Importance of patience, quality, and streamlining products. – Handling critiques and developing thick skin. – Encouragement to connect with other creators and seek mentors. For more details and personal anecdotes or have a question or comment, watch to the full podcast episode on YouTube – please subscribe and share.

Naima Had a woman tell me I should use a different color thread. Zahiyya I got nothing for that one. Zahiyya Welcome to the Designers, Plants and Coffee Podcast, where we discuss how to succeed as a designer while staying true to yourself, finding peace in the process, and making money doing what we love. Subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Today, we’re talking about three steps of finding your niche for your fashion business. Which is your definition of a niche? Naima It depends on the country. My definition of a niche is that one thing that you love and are good at. LaTisha I would say mine’s definition is… I can’t give an example. For those who are, what they call them? Star Wars, the Trekkies? Zahiyya No, you just mixed the two up because I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. Naima I like neither. Zahiyya For those of you, Star Wars fans out there and Star Trek fans out there, you have to forgive Tish, okay? Because she don’t know. Star Trek is a-. LaTisha I do not know. I’m sorry you all. Zahiyya Okay, Star Trek is a Trekkie Naima – I do know the difference. Zahiyya And Star Wars is Yoda. Right now, you’re going to be my padawon, because I got to school you on the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. LaTisha Okay, so those of you who love those movies, if I were making T-shirt and I know I have a group of people like Zahiyya who loves those movies, but she’s also a fashionista. My niche would be to target a T-shirt directly to those two specific areas that she likes. It’s really something that’s fairly specific that you know these are your people. Naima Would you call that your niche or your target audience? LaTisha Actually, I would call it my niche because if I’m selling T-shirts, then I’m selling it directly to fashionists who like Star Trek and Star Wars. Naima Your niche is the T-shirts and your target audience are the trekkies. Zahiyya Okay. Yeah, I would say your niche is people who like Star Wars, Star Trek and like to wear those things. Then you can expand because it doesn’t just have to be T-shirts. It can be whatever that is. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. The first thing is what Naima already said is what do you like to do? You can expand on that further Naima. Naima For me, I knew that whatever I did would involve sewing. It relaxes me. I knew that my business would be something involving sewing. Now, the hard part in finding that actual niche is, what do I want to sell that I’m not going to hate, that I can make money off of, and that I can reproduce fairly quickly. So that was what I had to figure out. And what made me settle on bags and accessories are the three things I just said. They’re easy. I don’t hate them because you can grow to hate clothes if you have to fit every single person and you have to tailor these clothes to every single person. It becomes a bit of a chore. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love to sew clothes. I just don’t like to sew clothes for mass production. And so that’s how I found my niche. My niche was going to be sewing. My niche product was going to be accessories. Every season I do include some type of article of clothing. I’ve done a bomber jacket, I’ve done scar. Because a lot of people don’t know, my very, very favorite thing to me in this world is coat. Naima I love coats. I love to make coats. I love to wear coats. I love coats. I love winter. I’m looking outside right now thinking, When can I put on a coat? I have an idea in my head for a sleeveless coat right now. Coats are my thing. Do I want to sell coats? No, because coats are a lot of work. That’s how I came to my niche. When I need a break from creating inventory, I’ll make something to wear. Zahiyya Tish. LaTisha To me, it’s easy to find your niche when it’s the one thing that you do so freely and you would really do it for free for yourself. Zahiyya Okay, so what do you like to do that you would do for free? LaTisha Well, I like 3D. I like to sew. However, not custom. I love to show somebody how to do it. Naima As you were talking, I was thinking, I see you as the teacher. I know that teaching is something that you would do for free. LaTisha I do it even when I have the people underneath me who have less experience. When I’m showing them and explaining something to them, I’m teaching them. Zahiyya Honestly, I think it’s the same for me. I love designing. Whether it be designing clothes, websites, I’ve designed furniture, I’ve designed home decor, everything. I would say designing anything, that’s my thing. It doesn’t necessarily have to be clothes. It’s just creating something, just seeing it from my head and seeing it in 3D. That’s something I’ve always loved to do ever since I was a kid. I would do that for free because people always come in, What’s your idea for this? I was like, Okay, I can come up with an idea like this, executing it is something else, because everybody doesn’t execute as well. That takes skill and time and all of that stuff. Okay, cool. We got down what do you like to do. The second thing is what you’re good at or what you’re trying to get good at. These two things have to intertwine. Naima, you can take it away. Naima i’ll go back to the beginning. I like to sew. I am good at sewing. But with my brand, my expertise came from mixing prints. I work primarily in African prints. I’ll give a little backstory. When I first started my business, I was broke. I could only afford to buy maybe three yards of each fabric at a time. I’m going, I’m picking up three yards of five different fabrics. To stretch them, I would just mix them. I would create these textiles, and you’re a textile designer, so I would create these textiles by mixing these fabrics. That’s how I started with the one of a kind. It’s not so much one of a kind anymore because I do mass produce now. But when I first started, my brand was strictly one of a kind. And people would come up to me and say, I think I have one of your things. I would ask them, What’s on the inside? Because that’s my signature. So most people know if you get an item from me, be it a jacket or a bag or anything, there’s going to be some polka dot on the inside, right? Naima That’s my signature. It’s going to be an African print and a polka dot. And so that’s what I love to do. I love to make these prints. I love to see these new textiles come to life. I’m good at it. I think by now I’m a master seamstress, and so I combine those two things that I love, and it’s not work anymore. When we’re done for the night, I may go sew together because I have a pop-up coming up. And so these products have to get made. But it doesn’t feel like a chore. All of us have had that job where you wake up in the morning and before you put your feet on the floor, you’re like, Lord, help me make it through this day. And on the days when I am not at my job and I’m free to work, I can get up and I can walk around and drink coffee and say hello to the fabric wall and then figure out what I want to do that day, right? Right. I think that’s it. I’ve combined those two into this thing that I love and this brand that I’ve cultivated. I’m just going to keep making fabric magic. Naima That’s what I call it. All my kids, I teach too, and I always tell my kids, We’re going to make magic here. That’s our running theme in my sewing classes with the kids. If they start to feel discouraged, I’ll call on a kid and say, What do we make here? They say, Magic. I was like, We make magic here. Tell such and such that we make magic here. That keeps them encouraged and it keeps them motivated. Zahiyya Tish, the same question. What do you like to do and what are you good at and how those are intertwined? LaTisha I like teaching. I think I’m getting better at it. The things I’m good at, I think could it be the same thing? Because sometimes I’m really critical on my sewing. I think we all are. You need to make sure this is perfect because you would expect no less from your students, so you have to make sure it’s right. But with me, I actually would say the teaching and a bit of pattern making and putting that together. Naima I will interject just for two seconds because Tisha is being very hard on herself. I have seen her teach. I have witnessed her in her classroom. She’s very good at it, and she’s very good at what she does. But I’m the opposite when it comes to teaching. I tell my students, It’s okay to make a mistake, we can fix it. No, sometimes I don’t let them fix it because I want to say by the end of this thing, I want you to see where you started and where you ended up. These are eight and nine year olds. They are devastated by the slightest thing, right? Yeah. Zahiyya But sewing is a process. Everything is not going to be perfect. That’s why the seam ripper was invented, for real, and stay stitch and all of that other stuff. That’s why we have those things so you can take it apart. So for myself, I said I like design. I started designing doll clothes. But I’ve gotten good at design because people pay me to do it. When people start paying your salary and your stipends or whatever that goes up, and you say, Okay, your confidence builds. Like I said, I love design. I think I said it in the last episode. I’m not sure which episode I said it, but everything that I’ve learned since then supports creating design, getting design out of my head. I learned how to sew so I can create the items. I learned how to code and do web design because I love to design and see digital design. I love to do textile, so I learned how to do that. Actually, I built my sewing table. Naima Now you have to show it to us. Zahiyya I’ll show it to you. The thing about it, it’s adjustable and everything and it has side that collapse and it can come up and down. But it’s all designed, though. You know what I’m saying? I designed it for me for a specific reason because I just love to create and I just learned how to do things to get the stuff out of my head into the physical form. That’s good. So all of us are on the same page. The last thing, how can you make money from it? All three things have to be connected for this to work. So, Naima, you go first. Naima Okay, I will go first. I will say money does not come instantly, okay? I just spoke about how I had a very, very, very limited budget when I started my brand, right? And I think a lot of people in this age of social media and fast fashion and things like that feel like they have to be an overnight success. And you don’t have to be an overnight success. It took me years. But the one thing I will say is for me, if you make a quality product that everyone loves, they will come. I started this brand, oh, my goodness, 12 years ago. I still have loyal customers who will follow me around the city from that day, 12 years ago, who bought one thing. But they saw something in that one thing that they wanted to keep buying. The other thing I did was I streamlined what I make. When I first started, I would make any idea that popped in my head because I loved it, but nobody else loves it. Then you get stuck with all this inventory that you can’t sell. It ends up in a donation bin somewhere and you’re feeling defeated because you put your blood, sweat, and you love these things so much, but nobody else does. Naima One of the main things I did was streamline my product. I make maybe six different types of product, but they’re consistent. The only thing that changes is textiles that I use. I’m going to have that same tote bag. It’s just going to be in 59 different colors than it was from last year. It’s those little things that you have to watch out for. Be mindful of how you spend. There was a time when I was going to the fabric store every three days because I’m like, Oh, I got to go get this. I got to go get that. I don’t need that. Find wholesalers. Right, exactly. Find wholesalers. They are out there. I get my zippers for eight cents a zip from a wholesaler. I get my fabric from the wholesale places here. Find wholesalers and be patient. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of long nights. It’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Literally, I’ve sewn my finger to the sewing machine. Zahiyya But that’s why you have to love it. All right, Tish? LaTisha I would say with mine is definitely teaching. I love everything about fashion. The reason why my brand is called Keeping You in Stitch because from your head to your feet, you can make something… When I say from your head, I literally mean you can make a wig using the same stitch as the stitch for your clothing, stitch for your shoes. It literally all is the exact same stitch. And when I discovered that, because, of course, I like to learn and teach and do everything, I realized that it’s all really interconnected. And if it can teach you how to crotchet or how to knit, then you can take that skill and transfer to making custom wig pieces or little pieces for people that have cancer, or you can make clothing, embroidery, or add sequence, or you can make your own shoes. All of it is connected, but you need to learn how to do that. That’s where our minds come in. Zahiyya For me, designing, I think I mentioned it before, is I get paid a salary to design. I also have my own business where I design and sell those designs. I found a niche in boys and men’s activewear, so I get paid for that. I also get paid for modest women’s clothing. Those are my two niches that I’ve gotten really good at over the years and those where I focus on because that’s where I make the most money. Money is very important, but it’s not the only thing because you also have to love it. How we interconnect all three of these things is how you really get your niche down. That’s how you can really make a living doing what you love and find peace in that. Sometimes sewing is meditative. You don’t make money in the beginning. LaTisha Probably New York’s salaries were a killer. Zahiyya I know. Then the cost of living and all that stuff, so you really have to love it to stick with. Any final words, ladies? LaTisha I would say mine is also with technical design, since that is also what I have most of my experience in, but that’s also problem-solving. A technical designer, you’re the problem-solver. I’m taking Zahiyya’s design, and I am the one who’s going to help execute it. Naima I would say try to stay encouraged. There’s going to be a lot of naysayers. They’re going to be a lot of people who don’t believe in you. They’re going to be a lot of people who unfortunately will say, I would never pay that much for this. Don’t let that discourage you, because your person is there. That person who is telling you these things is not your person. That’s a very tough lesson to learn, and it’s a very hard lesson to learn, because, again, this is your baby, and you’re putting your baby out there and somebody’s telling you that your baby is not worth 50 bucks. You’re getting in your feelings about it. I had a woman tell me I should use a different color thread. Zahiyya I got nothing for that one. Naima you know what I told her? I said, Well, when you make your things, you can use whatever color thread you want. I was a little older and a little wiser and have been doing this for a while. But people will say the most ridiculous things to you, so you have to develop that again. Anywhere in the fashion industry, you have to. Zahiyya Have that thick skin. Yeah, you really have to develop that, especially being a designer. Especially being a designer, because my thing is designs are so personal and it’s like something that you came up with and I think Naima you said before, it’s like it’s your baby. Then when somebody doesn’t like it, it’s. Like- they’re rejecting you. Exactly. It’s like you feel like they’re rejecting you. It’s like, no, they’re not rejecting you. They’re rejecting what you created. It’s not the same thing and you have to be able to distance yourself from it. Naima I always like to say it’s the equivalent of somebody calling your baby ugly. You’re ready to fight if somebody calls your baby ugly, right? It is. Zahiyya It was funny because one of my sisters, she’s a doctor, and she came to me after we had a conversation. She was like, I can’t imagine a career where your success is based on somebody else’s idea of what you create. Do you understand what I’m saying? I mean, just think about that for a second. Because scientists, they put these facts, accountants, and finances, facts, and numbers and everything, but- You’re right. -in fashion its based on somebody else’s idea of what you created. Zahiyya You really have to take that into consideration and really can’t take anything personal. Naima Watch your self, I guess I’m snappy, but polite come back. Zahiyya See, that’s Naima LaTisha No, I’ll just look at them. Zahiyya Okay. I know. You know what? I just do the silent thing. I’m just like… LaTisha Yeah, I’m like… Zahiyya Exactly. There’s nothing to say. Any last words before we sign off? LaTisha I would say also get to know other creators because they will actually help to encourage you. You’ll also see that you’re not in this alone. But also find mentors. People who have already been there, hello, we’re here. Thanks for listening to the podcast. But we’ve been there and we can help walk you through that experience. Naima Exactly. I would also like to say, if you all have any questions, if you want us to talk about something else, leave those in the chat. LaTisha Now remember, we have thick skin, but don’t get crazy. Zahiyya Because not everyone will. Naima Snap back politely. See you. Until next time. Zahiyya Until next time.