Fifth&Brannan

Did you know Fifth&Brannan has more…

… than just shirts?

At least once a day, I have people ask me about my “shirt company”. When I tell them we have an entire assortment, (pants, shirts, outerwear, and accessories) they always seem surprised. Maybe I haven’t made myself clear in my posts, but we DO have other items besides shirts :]

Now that I have bored you all to tears over my shirts and the issues I have been having with them in recent posts, (remember that difficult sleeve?) I will introduce you to my pants.

I currently found a wonderful fabric converter carrying a large selection of 100% cotton twills. I originally contacted them in hopes to find interfacing for my shirts, and they surprised me with a huge book full of fabrics that I have been searching for since January.

Textiles

The book contains twills that are both 100% cotton and cotton/poly blends. Since I am only interested in using 100% natural fibers for my pants, I was pleased to find a wide variety of colors to choose from.

Most fabric cards consisted of 8-9 oz. twills which are too heavy for lightweight summer pants. I did find a 4.5 oz. French twill that I loved but I’m afraid it’s too light for pants, it could be perfect for shorts. I have narrowed my selection down to 6.5 oz. 100% organic cotton twill.

I have a great selection of in stock colors to choose from and the weight and price meet my requirements. And the best part of all… the fabrics are DOMESTIC! This means I no longer have to worry about paying customs or shipping, hiring a broker, or waiting on ridiculous lead times.

Fabric

My options of fabric these days are endless! If you would have asked me last week, I probably would have wanted to gouge my eyes out thinking about my terrible experiences with sourcing. Everything has done a total 180 and my spirits have been lifted!

If any of you would like to see my other options for what else I will be offering in the line, please don’t hesitate to ask! I would be happy to share what I have found with all of you.

-Katie

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Date: August 12th, 2010

Posted in: Fabric

Tags: Customs, Domestic Fabric, Fabric, Fabric Converters, Organic Cotton, Sourcing, Twill

The Never-Ending Nightmare of Sourcing Fabric

Sourcing1

Lately, I have been having a lot of trouble sourcing fabrics. I want to make sure my customers will have the best, so my requirements are high. The fabric must come from a respectable mill, consist of all natural fibers, be of top quality, and have outstanding properties. I have been using numerous resources to help me locate mills such as The Small Design Company’s Guide to Wholesale Fabrics and Trims, Alibaba, and recommendations from other designers. Some mills have been very helpful, others have let me down, and some just don’t respond at all. Either I find a fabric that I really love, but they don’t have the exact color I want… or I find the right colors and fabric, but the mill is extremely shady.

Sourcing2

After graduating FIDM, I never thought I would be turning to my books for help. I have come to find that they have been the most helpful. I have been able to reeducate myself on the weights of fabric, the properties, and how to spot quality. Of course designing for another company has helped me greatly, but I am surprised how much knowledge I held onto from school.

Sourcing7

The Small Design Company’s Guide to Wholesale Fabrics and Trims has a section for fabric converters (an individual or organization that buys greige goods and sells them as a finished product to retailers, cutters, wholesalers, and others) which has been the most use to me. After emailing several converters, thinking few or none would contact me back, I received an overwhelming amount of responses. Each person I dealt with was so supportive and offered to send me free samples (that’s not common) without hesitation.

I should be receiving my samples this week and will give you all a peek of a what goes into your garment that you may not be aware of :)

Sourcing6

I am now starting to feel the stress of making my deadline for the S/S release. Besides working every free minute I have, I also design full time for another clothing company. It becomes frustrating when I use all of my creative energy at work and come home to source fabrics (one of my least favorite things to do). Hopefully this week I will have good news for all of you!

Sourcing3

… sigh!

Katie

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Date: July 28th, 2010

Posted in: Fabric

Tags: Fabric Converters, Fairchild's Dictionary of Textiles, FIDM, sourcing fabric, textile mills, The Small Design Company's Guide to Wholesale Fabrics and Trims

Decisions for S/S ’11

As you read in my last post, I have decided to push my premiere line into S/S of 2011. I am currently rushing to source fabrics so I can receive them in plenty of time to plan. I don’t want to run into the same problems as I did before, when time was working against me.

Setup

I have narrowed my options down to ten fabrics and I’m crossing my fingers I’m not too affected by the increase of cotton prices.

Summer

My next step will be to finalize my accent fabrics and make sure I am incorporating key looks for the spring and summer seasons.

Pitti

Primary Colors

Color

I know it’s a long ways from now, but what are you looking forward to most for S/S ’11 that you didn’t see this year? Fabrics? Colors? Textures? Please leave your comments below, I would love to hear what you have to say!

-Katie

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Date: July 20th, 2010

Posted in: Business Talk, Fabric, Inspiration

Tags: Pitti Uomo, Primary Colors, S/S '11, sourcing fabric

Back To Work!

Sorry for the lack of posts! I have been extremely busy at work (Back to School season starts soon), working on Fifth&Brannan… oh, and vacationing :)

Beach

Fence Beach

beachWalk

Night

Because being a perfectionist is part of who I am, I have decided to push my line into S/S instead of rushing into F/W. There are a few things I would like to tweak before I send the line to production. This was not my first choice, but I felt that releasing in July would have been a poor decision.

Now, with having changed the collection to S/S, I am going to have to source new fabrics. It’s a nice change to search for cotton twills and lighter weight fabrics, but I am running into MOQ (minimum order quantity) issues. I have found that most twill suppliers require a 5,000-10,000 meter minimum. Being a smaller company, this is a big problem.

I have searched tirelessly for a good supplier of cotton twill. Because there are so many colors to choose from, I may have that working in my favor. Most suppliers will let you choose from a stock collection, which means much lesser minimums. Thankfully, I still have my shirting supplier locked in and I will be using them for my S/S collection.

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Date: July 18th, 2010

Posted in: Business Talk, Fabric, Travel

Tags: Light weight cotton twill, Miami Beach, S/S 2011, sourcing fabrics, Vacation

Our Final Unofficial Fitting

Body

For those of you that have been following our fittings, the sleeve issue has been resolved! The first and second fit samples were twisting because of the pattern and an innocent mistake made by my seamstress. After the pattern was corrected, my seamstress was still sewing the pleats of the sleeve incorrectly. This is what caused the sleeve to twist in the first place. However, just by looking at the sleeve after completion, you would have never been able to tell there was a sewing error. The first thing that always came to mind was the pattern.

Once I picked up my third round of fit samples, I took them to my tailor to have buttonholes sewn on. Industrial buttonhole makers are very expensive. So, for someone like me who doesn’t use one on a daily basis, using a tailor for these minor tasks is necessary if you want a professional looking buttonhole.

While I was at the tailor, I asked for his expert opinion on the sleeves. He instantly knew what the problem was and assured me he could fix it. He explained to me that the pleats were incorrect, and on one of the shirts the fabric wasn’t cut on the straight grain. I may be the one to blame for that… It’s hard cutting out fabric at 3AM and not making a mistake :)

I suddenly felt at ease that my samples were in his hands. After a few anxious days of waiting, I had the patterns back with neat, professional buttonholes and two PERFECT sleeves! I am so thankful I was able to turn my third fit samples into my fourth ones without going through the entire process again.

Below, you will see what was my third round, but became my fourth and final session after a quick fix. I am very pleased with the outcome, and I hope you all are too!

Next, we have some ideas for our pants, you can look for that in an upcoming post. In the meantime, please leave your comments below! We’d love to hear what you think about the fit, the styling details, our process or even this blog in general. We read every comment and enjoy hearing from you all!

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