Idea 401 of 500. Cluster 20: Design, fashion and the apparel spillover
Furniture design in rubberwood and rattan, for export
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
Commission one chair or side table in rubberwood or rattan from a local carpenter or rattan maker, and photograph it with its dimensions and a price. Send it to five interior designers or furniture shops abroad through contacts abroad and ask whether they would order a sample. A sample order paid in advance is your proof.
- Who pays first
- An interior designer abroad who wants handmade furniture with a clear origin for a client who asks for exactly that.
- What leaves today
- Rubberwood and rattan earn little sold as raw material; designed furniture for export keeps the design and the finishing value on the island.
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
- 396A Sri Lankan lingerie and swimwear brand, since the factories that make everyone else's are here
- 397Sportswear brands using the technical fabric and the cutters that already exist
- 398Made-to-measure shirts and dresses ordered online from abroad, cut and sewn here to the customer's own measurements
- 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
- 402Interior-design firms serving the villa and hotel owners, with the products sourced from this list
Idea 401 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.