Apparel Business Question

[Inovate2Succeed]

Hello everyone. I joined this forum earlier this week and love it!

My question is as follows. I have an idea for a shoe business. I'm trying to design and create my own custom type shoe but am puzzled as to where to start in terms of finding someone who can make me a prototype as of the shoe and insoles. On top of that, once the prototype is made, who can I goto to have it produced? I know that overseas it's cheapper, however I'm not in the mass production stage that Nike is and don't speak the language/know the factories well enough to find people there. I currently live in California.

I've tried google, yellow pages and other places but it seems as though all these sources focus on huge companies offering custom shoes to be purchased at retail price per pair with their prefabricated designs which you can mix and match.

My other question refers to other apparel. When creating how can you tell which producer is the most qualified and what is the brand name of tshirts that is similar in quality to ambercrombie? And my final question is, does anyone here know of any company that does custom clothing etching/soldering?

I appreciate all of your help and hope that I haven't drained you all with too many questions. I'm just seeking a few pieces of info that have been holding me back from starting up what I forsee to be a successful business

Thanks Again,

Jason

[Inovate2Succeed]

anyone? :-/

[MASapparel]

You will not find anything like that. Shoe wise you will have to get a good amount and apparel wise unless you are just printing shirts on pre made blanks such as american apparel the minimums are usually around 1000.

If you just want to do a few shirts at first to see how things go and break into the industry shoot me an email at info@makeascenenow.com

[Bobby1986]

I know a couple of people who are sucessful in the "streetwear" fashion industry, their words of advice is to take an internship to learn the process of how a clothing or shoe company works, you also get a chance to make mistakes under the company you are interning for and learn from them, so when you do start your own you wont make the same mistakes and you will have a bit more knowledge of what you are suppose to be doing.

[Inovate2Succeed]

Thanks a lot for all of your advice. Of course I am not looking to jump head on to battle huge companies such as Guess and Abercrombie in my intial step. First I will try some samples out on a small scale. It is true that if you want extremely low t-shirt costs you have to buy huge quantities in bulk, however many sites and locations I know of will do smaller orders for a little higher price. I'm not looking for huge profit at the moment. I would rather focus on brand establishment. Also, for shoes....I believe that someone has to be out there who will design a prototype before mass asembling 1000 pairs. I don't think New Balance or Nike started making 1000 shoes at the very beginning, but had the plan to expand later on in the company's life.

Bobby, I agree whole heartedly with your advice..this way I can learn the ins and outs. However my followup question would be which side of the industry should I apply for? I'm guessing retail won't teach me much about those responsible for production..but would, rather, focus on inventory and customer management. Should I apply corporate? And if so which end will give me the best insite into their production/suppliers? Also...do you suggest small or large company (both have their advantages/disadvantages)?