Idea 404 of 500. Cluster 20: Design, fashion and the apparel spillover
Homeware brands: ceramics, linen, brass, made here, sold under one Sri Lankan name
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
Choose one maker each for ceramics, linen and brass, and put a set of their products together under one working name with a common label and good photographs. Offer the set to three gift shops or concept stores abroad through contacts abroad. A reorder, not the first order, is your real proof.
- Who pays first
- A concept store or gift shop abroad that wants a coherent range with one origin story rather than scattered one-off imports.
- What leaves today
- Island makers sell unbranded to traders who add the name and the margin; one Sri Lankan brand keeps both at home.
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
- 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
Idea 404 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.