So I love to start things without thinking them through. Nothing wrong with this, but I also deal with being hard on myself so what do I do? This article will have a lot of questions because I can see where I should’ve been asking myself questions to clarify my vision, direction, and goals of starting a men’s vintage clothing brand.
I started a men’s vintage clothing brand and named it Admiralty Vintage. The name Admiralty is from a city in Hong Kong — where my parents are from. I knew my vision of the aesthetic and branding, neutral earthy tones that represeneted vintage nostalgia — sepia and browns mixed with 40’s to 50’s era of Hong Kong fashion like when Bruce Lee was around. I found this new vision that took me away from the stagnant growth of my womenswear clothing brand that I didn’t want to think about anymore. So I decided to create something new to distract me, acting on another idea I had to make me happy.
Little did I know, what made me the happiest was creating the logo, choosing the colors for the packaging and marketing materials. That’s pretty much it besides the fact that I get to thrift for men’s clothing which I get major inspiration from for my own fashion designs.
I see where the downfall is. Same issues in both Admiralty and the one I no longer wanted to work. This was not having a marketing plan. Simply producing content purely on aesthetic and not setting intentions for what I wanted this content to represent or do. I was running away from the same issue and it was coming up in this new brand I created for “fun”. I didn’t spend any time making a marketing plan, researching what people really wanted to see, and having an unbiased opinion in this research phase. Not that I didn’t want to do these things, but I didn’t know how to best do these practices and I couldn’t look at the bigger picture of needing it. Which by the way is very hard to do where first, you’re working on a passion project that you care so much about and second wearing so many hats where you’re constantly pivoting and don’t have a break to see what’s really going on in it’s entirety. I just wanted to thrift, post on Instagram (not that I really enjoy doing this as a job), and send out packages. These things make me happy and that’s all I honestly wanted to focus on.
Now as I write this article, I’m realizing all I wanted to do was branding and logo design. I didn’t want to deal with customers who needed to return things or going to the post office for all the international orders. By the way this brand was not a complete failure, I just did not want deal with all the other facets that come with a business in this instance. Most of the orders were coming in internationally which is great, but this means higher shipping costs, duties and fees, and returns — oh the returns! Since it is vintage and I was just starting, I really needed to pay attention to stains, marks, tears, or thinning fabrics were present on any garments. Selling internationally was just not working out unless I raised the price becoming a high end vintage line and here we go again focusing on marketing and showing people in an online space why it is worth buying for this particular high price point aka content creation.
But how about the marketing plan and the user research? I was only choosing items based on look and quality (as best I could.) How was I best planning to show this quality through an online shop? I see people selling vintage clothing and I know what I appreciate: great quality pieces and a cool brand aesthetic. This is all I wanted to focus on when realistically there is so much more to it. There’s the part of having consistent sales (marketing) and actually buying things that I would learn that the customer would want. I think its very similar as I learn about UX design that a brand needs to be a representation of the customers needs and that I am not the sole customer base. I could’ve started with these assumptions I had about men’s fashion and had this as a starting point, not as the guiding point for all decisions that I was making.
Oh so many aspects for improvement, but this is just one thing I want to share about the needs of a clothing brand which is also a huge part. The need to have pristine photography, models that represent your niche market, and editing all those photos. Since it was just me I was doing all of these things. Renting lighting for the studio photoshoots, finding the models for all the different sizes of clothing, being photographer, and editor. So the photo here is just one edited photo for one shirt. Remember what I said about quality and portraying the clothing in a visual space online? Yes so this means for a high price point you have to have great editing, a good 5–10 shots showing how great the item is and oh ya marketing it to people on social media and in the item description involving copy and great SEO (another couple hats to wear!) The price of one garment selling internationally with the fees of the international duties just wasn’t making the cut.
All in all this tiny business venture represents how I was trying to fulfill my needs of wanting to work on a new shiny project that could make me happy besides the womenswear clothing brand I was already working on. I hope sharing some insights about the hardships I dealt with and learned along the way can shine light on knowing what you really want to do. Failures are only bumps in the road that push you in the direction you really need to be going. This article helped me realize all I really want to do is branding and logo design and that doesn’t mean I have to start a whole business around it, but the possibility is always there because I have an entrpreneurial spirit. I’m just telling myself I have options now.
