Sorry for that super corny title but it made you click soooooo….

Anyway, the long and short of this is:

DON’T START A STREETWEAR BRAND UNLESS YOU’RE ONE OF THESE TWO THINGS :

1. You design and manufacture the clothes yourself (canva does NOT count, bro)

2. You create content

Why? Let’s get into it.

I think most people between the age of 17-25 have dreamed of starting a clothing brand, probably because it’s cool to have your clothing line and mainly because of Money, but is it really a good business to be in?

Let’s talk numbers:

Let’s assume you save up or borrow 1,00,000 rupees from somewhere. If you allocate 50% of that to inventory and source a hundred t-shirts from a manufacturer at 500 each,

You’re left with 50k for everything else

I’m talking packaging, performance marketing, photoshoots, influencer marketing, website development, due diligence, etc.

Designer fees on top of that will leave you with nothing but a hole in your pocket and a little Instagram clout considering you manage to sell everything out in the first place.

But that’s not the issue. All businesses burn money initially until they find product-market fit,

The problem with clothing brands is that they have to find product-market fit with every collection because how many times can you sell the same t-shirt? 50, 100 maybe 200 times max. After that you gotta come up with something new, which makes sense if you’re a designer, but if you’re not….idk.

Even If you create content every day, design your own clothing, and do everything else right, the chances of the brand working out are pretty slim because all rich artsy guys from Bandra have their clothing brand now.

Anyway, enough with the negativity. Let’s talk about Some NEW brands who beat the odds.

At number one we have,

Privatelimtd

What did they do right? CONTENT. One of their initial reels got 2 million views. check it out : here . They also collaborated with many influencers like Dev Raiyani to create hype around their brand. Their Cool edits paired with limited drops and good designs are what made them stand out.

Check out their Instagram here

Urban Needs

Urban Needs was started by San Kalra, a fashion and grooming influencer with 150k+ followers on Instagram and 600k+ subs on YouTube. This brand started with basic oversized t-shirts and still worked out, why?

1. San’s background in Men’s grooming and wide follower network made it possible for Urban needs to cut down customer acquisition costs to basically 0.

2. He created content around building the brand, even before it launched. Every product drop gets a dedicated reel with his main account, so a 100k+ reach organically.

I could go on and talk about Turnt Up clothing, Unreborn Project etc etc, but you get the point. Good designs + content + business acumen + execution.

What can be done instead?

If a new clothing brand is coming out every week, think about what do all clothing brands need? Photographers, Video editors, Performance marketers, Graphic designers etc etc. or,

Sell something nobody else is ( or only a few brands are)

Racing jackets ( I think Bonkers came out with one but still),

Men’s suits

Co-ord sets ( I’m talking Like Evemen )

Corsets

Accessories.

Basically anything other than oversized t-shirts, Cargo/parachute pants, hoodies, and basic things like shirts.

Also, do NOT sell sunglasses. Why? because a sunglasses brand gave you this idea that’s why. on that note, Techwear collection by Project Shades is out. shop here.

P.s Have you been following Throwing shade on Instagram yet? We’re doing some cool stuff over there 10/10 recommend it.

Follow us here

P.P.S. Before you go, Leave a comment or answer the poll below, it tells us you’re actually reading this.