Idea 396 of 500. Cluster 20: Design, fashion and the apparel spillover
A Sri Lankan lingerie and swimwear brand, since the factories that make everyone else's are here
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans make the world's underwear to the world's standard, and the country has no fashion brand of its own that the world has heard of.
Every idea in cluster 20 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ask a factory's merchandising manager whether they take small orders for a new brand, and at what quantity and price. With that price, have 10 samples made of one design and sell them to friends and contacts abroad at full retail price through a simple order form. If all 10 sell, and people ask for other sizes, the brand has a buyer.
- Who pays first
- A woman abroad who already buys lingerie made in Sri Lankan factories under a foreign label, and would buy the same quality under a Sri Lankan name.
- What leaves today
- The factories make the world's underwear for other brands' margins; a Sri Lankan brand keeps the design, the name and the retail price here.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
MAS and Brandix: the world's first green apparel factories
More from cluster 20
- 397Sportswear brands using the technical fabric and the cutters that already exist
- 398Batik and handloom in contemporary fashion, sold in London and Tokyo, not only at the airport
- 399A fashion school linked to the factories, so the designers do not have to leave
- 400Surplus and off-cut businesses: the factories' waste as a design material
- 401Furniture design in coconut timber, rubberwood and rattan, for export
- 402Interior-design firms serving the villa and hotel owners, with the products sourced from this list
Idea 396 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.