Fashion Business

Some of the most expensive decisions in a clothing business are made before a single garment is cut. What the range contains, how many styles it carries, which price points it spans, when it lands in store and how much cash it ties up — those are commercial decisions that set the constraints manufacturing then has to work inside.

Two of them recur. The first is range size: more styles means smaller runs per style, which raises unit cost and multiplies the sampling and approval work, so a range that is too broad is expensive before anything goes wrong. The second is price architecture: entry, mid and premium tiers have to be distinguishable in construction and fabric, not only in price, or the most expensive tier does not read as premium and the cheapest one does not read as value.

The cash side is the least visible and often the deciding one. A larger order lowers unit cost and ties up more money for longer; a smaller order costs more per unit and leaves room to react. Payment terms decide which of those you can actually afford, and they are worth negotiating at the same time as the price rather than afterwards.

The guides below cover range planning, launch sequencing and the commercial arithmetic behind both. If you are at the stage of building a first range, the route from startups sets out how the first collection is usually structured commercially.