The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
- ISBN13: 9781427797100
- Condition: New
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Mary Gehlhar, author, industry authority, and consultant to hundreds of designers, including Zac Posen, Twinkle by Wenlan, Rebecca Taylor, and Cloak, gives readers behind-the-scenes insights and essential business information on creating and sustaining a successful career as an independent designer. With advice from fashion luminaries including Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Cynthia Rowley, Diane von Furstenberg, Richard Tyler, and top executives from Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York, this
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(out of 17 reviews)
List Price: $ 22.95
Price: $ 12.44
August 24th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Review by msb for The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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Extremely disappointed with this book. Rather than focusing on the struggles, adversities, drawbacks, and the unhappiness of being a designer, I’d rather invest my time in a text which offers concrete instruction on how to overcome the obstacles. This book is premised upon the “facts” that you: a) require hundreds of thousands of dollars in reserve to even consider launching your own line, b) MUST work for several years under another designer prior to designing for yourself, and c) you most likely won’t make it, even on a small scale. Every artist is aware of monetary limitations and minuscule success rates, so I believe most of us would benefit more from tangible advice, and an author who can offer various routes to achieve discernible goals (rather than abstract ideas and incessant “words of warning”). A few good points throughout the book, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
August 24th, 2010 at 1:02 am
Review by Jane Tompkins for The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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I will admit– I chose this “how to start a fashion business” guide book over the other ones because it’s more famous. And because of the Diane Von Furstenberg foreword, Tim Gunn review, and many little interviews with actual designers. Lets not forget the great price (w/ free shipping if $25 is spent).
This book is definitely a good read– its full of practical information and great advice and real-world examples of situations designers go through (designers going bankrupt, exclusivity of certain production factories, problems with selling to certain stores, etc). Its a very “real” look at fashion from a well thought out point of view.
All that said, when I began to create my business plan this book was little help. I mean it certainly gave me a great summarized outline, but it lacks numbers. I just wish it had more number examples, you know more “averages”. Like the average or sample amounts of material cost, production, and overhead cost for an emerging designers. How many pieces are recommended for a new designer and if they choose to sell to a store– whats the average amount of pieces they sell the store and how many of each sizes (ie: 20 dresses? size 2(2) size 4(2) size 6(4) size 8(4) size 10(4) size 12(4))
I know averages can greatly differ, but I wish they would have made-up or created a fake fashion line, and created a very modified business plan with numbers, just as a sample. (That alone would have made this book perfect.)
It also needed more equations. The only equation was COGS. The book was great, but it seriously lacked numbers and tangibility. As in I was thinking this book would be a onestop shop, but it wasn’t. This book gives you direction and an idea of how your mindset should be when creating a line and it gives you alot of pointers and warnings. Making this the perfect book for someone who isn’t in the fashion industry. But as a person who’s been to business school and studied at a fashion school I just expected a little more, I’m probably asking for too much, but what the hey- why not? lol.
I look at this book as a great complementary to a more detailed book. I haven’t read these, but from what I can see in Amazon’s “look inside” and from some of the reviews: “Fashion Unraveled”, “Fashion for Profit”, and “How to Setup and Run a Fashion Label” may be great compliments to this book. For my fashion marketing class I had to read “The Business of Fashion, Designing, Manufacturing and Marketing”. That’s a textbook and does offer great detail as well, but it comes at a much bigger pricetag. I just wish I kept it instead of giving it back after my class was over.
As a person in the industry I’ll say that this book definitely solidified alot of my own thoughts and gave me many great tidbits that will be helpful and will come to mind as I’m creating my line. Just don’t expect “numbers” and financial examples from this book. Just view it as a insiders guide to the business of fashion with accompanying examples and summaries of the experiences of other designers. Because of the low pricetag and solid examples I would definitely recommend purchasing it, but keep in mind that you will still need to find books and search the internet for number and business plan examples. (And, lets just say with all the junk out there its hard to find everything on the internet it takes soooooo much time digging through sites and sites and fake sites that lead you to sites that want you to pay hundreds just for a numerical overview of the women’s retail market… oops sorry, I think I’m venting now, lol).
This book is great, I recommend buying it. But I suggest Mary Gehlhar make a revised version in a year or two that has numbers because if she did it would be like the Bible for starting a fashion line.
PS- This book really is like a wake-up call for people who just say to themselves “I want to start a clothing line”, you know, people who aren’t in the industry and just think it’ll be this fun easy thing to do. It gives those type people ALOT of perspective. For someone who already has an idea for a line, is well-versed in fashion, and aware of the climate of the retail industry and fashion market this book has its shortcomings. But it is still helpful though, so thats why it’s a useful book to have around.
August 24th, 2010 at 1:29 am
Review by Andrew Salzer for The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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For anyone that is looking to get into design (or even if you have just started your own line / business), this book is a *must have*. Ms. Gehlhar’s breakdown (and overviews) of each category is spot on. I seriously and honestly believe that if this resource had been around when I started my own collection, I would have saved myself a lot of running around and $ in the process. I highly recommend this guide. Plus, it’s simply a great read. The insight from other designers profiled is fantastic!
August 24th, 2010 at 1:48 am
Review by J. Foster for The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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This is a great book. If you want to know how the business really is, read this book. The only reason why I took off a star is because I was terrified after reading it. It briefly discouraged me from design because it seemed to focus on all of the pitfalls.
August 24th, 2010 at 2:14 am
Review by Alisa for The Fashion Designer Survival Guide, Revised and Expanded Edition: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business
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I’ve read a few books on how to start and run your own fashion design business, and this is one of the best ones I’ve read so far. Not only is it shorter then a lot of the huge books, but it’s too the point and Mary writes in a style that is very easy to understand. She gives great advise and there are good examples and pictures in the book to help you further understand how to do things the best way. I have the first edition that she wrote and that one is great also but this one has new sections and it’s a more complete form of the business process.