Episode 64: How a freelance fashion designer can help your business
TOPICS:
- Introduction
- Why businesses hire a freelance fashion designer
- How a freelance fashion designer can help your business
- Conclusion
RESOURCES:
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the Fashion Unearthed podcast. If you need help navigating the fashion industry sustainably, you have come to the right place. I'm your host Belinda Humphrey and my hope is to simplify the fashion industry so that businesses can make the best decisions for people, the planet, and product.
Welcome to episode 64 of the Fashion Unearthed podcast. Happy New Year! I'm your host, Belinda Humphrey, and I hope 2023 has started well for you. If you've listened for a while, you would know that I like to break down what's happening in a sustainable fashion and get it into simple and understandable episodes, and I've started doing more interviews as well. Sometimes I'll talk about design-related topics. Today, I wanted to discuss how using a freelance fashion designer can help your business. Now, the end of December has always been a time of planning for me for years, and even now I get a yearly planner and a hard copy week to two pages. I plan an overview for 12 months plus. I have a family calendar that has a column for each person in the family. It might be overkill, but it helps me feel less stressed and I'm able to prioritize things easier.
When things start to bank up, it really helps me focus on what is urgent and important to keep me moving toward my goals. I recently made the decision to get a VA because I couldn't keep moving towards bigger goals if I was spending time on weekly admin. I'm sure what I'm getting her to do at the moment is well below her skillset. But it's a huge help to me to have that off my mental list of things to do. It frees up the time I have when I'm not doing client work to focus on the bigger picture, which is similar to how a freelance fashion designer can integrate into your business.
Last year, I encountered three main reasons why businesses were needing my help with design.
The first one is due to time pressure, and that might have come from not filling a role quickly enough or an unexpected absence, and they've got a lack of resources to keep things moving and stay on the critical path. The other side of that is that they can see an opportunity for a product range, but they don't have the resources to execute it.
The second one is where a business owner has lots of ideas for a range, but they're all in their head. They've got trouble articulating what it actually looks like. A freelancer can help bring that to life through research, mood boards, fabric suggestions, color palettes, and silhouettes that really help it come into being the old saying “A picture says a thousand words”.
Thirdly, this has been actually really common last year, it’s where business stripped back all products to items that they were a hundred percent confident the customer would like. The last two are at three years now of a pandemic, businesses went into survival mode. But coming out of that, they're finding that the formulas of print or color or shape that the customer would normally like aren't landing as well. It's where you get stuck in a bit of a groove and have trouble looking at things with fresh eyes. In this case, a freelance fashion designer can offer you an outsider's perspective on where the opportunities might be for products and offer up some fresh ideas.
They're the three ways that a freelance fashion designer can help your business. Number one, adding extra people power. Number two, bringing your vision to life. Thirdly, offering a fresh design perspective. There are benefits to hiring a freelancer as well. You get access to a high level of expertise without the commitment of full-time, but with the chance to develop an ongoing relationship. In my case, this also comes with all the latest knowledge on sustainability. You also get someone who's genuinely passionate about understanding your problem and delivering the results that you're looking for.
If you are thinking you have some big goals this year and are thinking you need extra help to hit them, you can find more information about me on the website, belindahumphrey.com, or email me at info@belindahumphrey.com. As always, you'll find the show notes and any links on the website in the podcast section. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.
Thanks for listening to the Fashion Unearthed podcast. If you want to get in touch head over to belindahumphrey.com or you can find me on Instagram @belindahumphrey_.
Disclaimer: Whilst every effort is made to ensure that information is accurate at the time of recording, much like the fashion industry itself, this information may change.