Idea 409 of 500. Cluster 20: Design, fashion and the apparel spillover
Print and pattern studios licensing Sri Lankan motifs to the fabric mills of the world
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
Draw 10 patterns from Sri Lankan motifs, temple paintings, lacework or batik, using only designs that are yours or free to adapt. Put them in a small digital catalogue with a licence fee per pattern, and send it to five fabric mills or textile buyers abroad. One licence sold is your proof, and the patterns they ask about show you what to draw next.
- Who pays first
- A textile mill or fashion brand abroad looking for original patterns with a clear source, and willing to license them rather than copy.
- What leaves today
- The island's motifs earn nothing while they sit in temples and museums; licensed patterns turn them into income that comes 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 409 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.