This is a new designer’s guide for successfully shopping the fabric market and how to avoid the most common pitfalls. 

In the next few posts, we will answer the most-often asked question by new designers: “Where do I start?”.

Read on for the ABC’s of Making it on Broadway – I’m talking about making Lingerie, that is.

Did you know? The Great White Way is the nickname for that section of Broadway in the Midtown section of New York City, between 42nd and 53rd Streets. Its name dates to 1880, when that section was illuminated by Brush arc lamps, making it among the first electrically lighted streets in the United States.

It used to be a rough neighborhood. A certain type of lingerie was worn, if you get my meaning. The redevelopment of the area (that by some measures took thirty years to complete) means that “to make it on Broadway” no longer had the dark, seedy connotation it used to have.

Of course, being dark on Broadway has another meaning in the theatrical world.

Thankfully, after being dark for the better (or, more accurately, the worst) of eighteen pandemic months, the enthralling and mesmerizing marquees and billboards are beginning to again pour light onto Times Square and the surrounding Theater District. Whew!

Welcome to the Garment District!

When you leave Times Square and head south on Broadway, before you reach Herald Square, the diagonally planned thoroughfare cuts through garment district. The neighborhood (and it feels like a neighborhood) has garment warehouses and design studio atop store fronts. There are clothing stores, perfume stores, local eateries and hookah bars and factories and showrooms hidden on every floor of every building.

Hidden treasures are in every dingy building: exit an elevator and tentatively push open a door, you might very well enter into a magical world of costume design, such as Arel Studio, dedicated exclusively to creating costumes for the Broadway theatrical productions, quiet during the pandemic but now with sewing machines humming again.

There is a lot of similarity between lingerie and theater costume design.

The design process & the importance of planning.

Designing your lingerie collection starts with a sketch. Then all you have to do is find the fabric, lace, flowers, buttons, zippers, underwires, elastic, embroidery, ribbons and mesh to make it. Easy-peasy, right?

For designers creating a new collection or working on custom garments for private clients, students creating class projects, and even home-sewers working on clothes for themselves, all have the same thing in common – they need a process. Below is a tried and true process taught by fashion schools and learned the hard way by self-taught designers.

Step 1. Sketching

Start the design process with a sketch pad (or iPad with a sketch program). You can scribble, sketch, or paint, depending on your skill level. Just get it down before your ideas fly out of your head. Then narrow it down to the keepers.

Step 2. Mood Board

Next, create your mood board. Include images for all of your ideas and inspirations for theme, silhouettes, color palette, fabrications and so on. Bonus: this can be used later on in your presentation to the client, buyer, future employer, and look book, so you’ll be miles ahead of the game.

Additionally, a mood board will help you to not get confused, overwhelmed, and sidetracked when you start your supplies research. You don’t want to head out with a goth vision of strappy bondage fetish-wear and return with a cloud of tulle, butterflies embroidery and pastel feathers – or visa versa.

You can create your mood board digitally or the old school method – from magazine cutouts.

3. Research

Yes, I am calling the beginning stages “research”. It’s essential to conduct your research before taking the next step. It may take a few days to narrow the options down to final choices before taking out your wallet.

There are more than enough places to buy everything you need to complete a project from start to finish. And you may enjoy the thrill of the hunt as you search each store for the exact item you have in your mind’s eye. However, it can be extremely overwhelming as you go through rolls and rolls of fabric. More often than not, you will be tempted to make a “fatigue selection”. Don’t fall victim to purchasing yardage just because you’re on a deadline or because you don’t want to go back down to the Garment Center another day!

Pro tip: The easiest way is to start is by photographing the fabric, lace, trim, etc. with your phone, including the the shop’s business card in the picture for reference.

A lot of the shops look the same and chances are good that you’ll forget which one had that roll of the perfect beaded embroidery.

The importance of swatches!

4. Swatching

This can’t be understated. You will save yourself hundreds, even thousands, of dollars if you swatch before you spend. How many times have have you bought a few yards of fabric that you fell in love with and found no use for – shoved it under the table or in the cupboard? Even home-sewers working on clothes for themselves or family should get into the useful habit of swatching.

This is especially important when ordering online. Most companies will sell swatch bundles for only a few dollars. It is well worth that small cost versus ordering blind several yards of a lace or fabric that may come in the wrong shade, with a rough texture, no drape, not enough stretch – or just not as you pictured it.

5. Swatch notebook

Once you get back to the studio (or home), you can lay everything out and start the process of elimination – no, you can’t have everything. Some fabrics you might love but won’t be appropriate for the current project. Save those in your swatch notebook for later. Get in the habit of keeping records and being organized. If you’re not organized, you’ll never be successful. (And, hey, your sketches might sell at auction later for thousands after you become a famous designer.)

6. Sampling

Many of you are creating your first full collections, and may be fairly new to the practicalities of fabric sourcing and how to shop the market. A lot of new designers underestimate the importance of sampling which is more complicated than imagined.

What does that mean in practical terms? Supposing you fall in love with a particular fabric or fabrics/lace and purchase enough yardage to complete a collection of 10 or 15 garments. You coordinate it with other carefully selected components, such as lace trims and appliques, or unique vintage buttons. You make your patterns and sew your samples (or pay a sample-maker). Several months later, when you begin to take orders, none of fabrics and trims you spent so long choosing may be available when you go into production. What do you do next?

With all that said, let’s jump into the mysterious world of fabric sampling and how to do it properly.

Read next: Shopping guide for designers of bespoke creations or small run production:

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