Setting up a Boutique or a Garment outlet

Todays is the time when our lives are influenced to a large extent to style and design and when it comes to shaping our personality and grooming,clothes that we wear play an important role. The present age has focused our energies to looking good.Everyone wants to look good and influence others via their individualistic sense of dressing up and that has given birth to a breed of professionals related to fashion and garments.These may include the

designers,apparel merchandisers,tailors etc.Since fashion has taken the shape of a big industry-that earns a huge revenue-it has become an important part of economy.It has led to an enormous increase in the schools training future designers and fashion professionals.In this shimmering industry there is a scope for all kinds of work-be it fashion designers or textile designers or knitwear designers or accessory designers.Besides,there is a place and scope for other but equally important professionals taiolors,knitters,alteration experts.

Though there is an increasing trend of growing needs of readymade garments,yet the demand for made-to-fit garments has not declined as due to certain reasons,readymade or market-available dreeses do not appeal to all.Reasons may be an abnormal size or a will to wear a specific design and fabric as per ones own personal choice.

This personalized need of tailored clothes as per specific body measurement and a particular design has led to the birth of the boutique-which is a showroom for display and a specialised tailor shop that offers a wide variety of clothes either ready dresses or produces via stitching a particular fashion dress as per a particular body measurement.Many fashion designers display their creations in their boutiques.Some boutiques introduce latest fashion with traditional handwork like embroideries.Some boutiques cater to textile dsigns;dyeing and

printing techniques like tie and dye,screen printing.Some boutiques cater to accessories like hats,gloves,jewellery etc.

Setting up a boutique can be a highly rewarding entrepreneurial venture especially for women,as women have that innate and inborn sense of design,colour and form-that is the base of any design creation,but it can be rewarding for men too-who have taken to a design career to a great extent as opposite to the often thought male-dominated professions that were meant to be suitable for them.

Basics:

For a person to successfully start a boutique-it is required that he or she have a sense of design,colour and form.For this,either he or she should be trained in design or should employ and associate with designers who can assist and guide them.Furthermore,he or she should employ trained and skilled workmen-tailors,embroiderers,handworkmen and other people with varied skills required in creation of a design.One other option is to have contacts and source materials from professionals that can supply such materials.

Processes Involved in Design Creation: A dress designer first imagines a dress and sketches the design on paper or on computer.When the design is finalized ,draft and pattern of the dress is made on paper.An able tailor master then cuts the garment on cloth and sews it and thereby prepares a sample garment.The readymade garment manufacturer then produces the garment on large scale and launches it in the market.

In a boutique,a dress designer designs a dress and produces it in a limited quantity and sells it directly to customers in his store.A boutique sells not only garments but also accessories and beauty products,purses,shawls,dupattas,home furnishings.

Startup:

A boutique can be started with just one tailor,a sewing machine an overlock machine and a single room or if a large business is desired, the number of rooms and tailors may be increased as per the need.

Investment:

There has to be a minimum investment on machines,tables,display equipment that may include stands,hangers,glass shelves,showcases,statues etc.Apart from this,paying the tailors and other workmen has to be considered,any other services like pressing,dyeing,packing has to be considered.

Competition:

Initially, the boutique may have to work hard and face competition from others. This is more so because due to increasing number of training institutes and increasing awareness and demand for fashion,a large number of garment outlets have sprung up.A boutique owner may have to keep their prices low initially to attract the customers and to offer them a reasonable pricing,but once established the scope of generating a good profit is quite high.The owner should have a keen eye for designs as per the choice of customers and fashion-conscious people .They should know well the tastes of customers.

Profit Earned:

There is no fixed limit for determining an exact profit to be expected in a boutique.Garments may be sold at two to ten time the total cost spent on producing it including the tailoring charges.In middle class areas, the profit may be two to four times while posh areas may increase the profit to even eight and ten times.Success of a boutique depends on able workmen and the organizer or the owner and his ability to introduce new and attractive designs.Also, the tailor master should be able to make drafts as per the design. Maintaining a high quality in all stages and all kinds of work goes a long way in the reputation of the boutique and thereby its business.