We enlisted social entrepreneur and founder of Fashion Angel, Alison Lewy MBE to lead the workshop. Having run her own design and manufacturing business for 15 years producing under her own label as well as consulting on sourcing and production for designers including Matthew Williamson and Preen, she was able to share some of her amazing insights and industry knowledge with the group.
Alison covered a lot of ground with the students over the day, covering the whole process of getting designs out of sketchbooks, sampled, produced and sold. She went through all the different routes to market available, how to fund production, how to find customers and methods of selling your products.
We also invited Kenny Jackson-Forrest as a guest speaker, creator of Kickstarter funded book Trashion Forward – The Emergence of Sustainable Luxury. Kenny spoke about his lifestyle blog focused on sustainable fashion, trashion (using rubbish to create new clothing) and his own insight into the fashion industry.
If you’re looking to start your own fashion business, you can register to take part in our next Fashion Founder workshop here. If you have any question about the programme or would like to discuss a business idea with one of our advisors you can get in touch here.