They say hindsight is 20/20. For me, hindsight cost about $5K. But hey, learning can be expensive.

I've used two different sewing factories to make my handbag samples in the last year. One in LA and one in NYC. As I've mentioned before, it will save you alot of time and money if you fix any design errors in the sketching process, before having your pattern and sample made. It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but in the excitement of launching your own line, you can get carried away and move too fast. I'm not a patient person, which is my biggest weakness. I moved too fast.

First things first, before you hire a factory, make sure their quality is top notch. Don't subtle because they are cheaper or more conveniently located. Quality is the most important (well, and good labor practices). Below is a picture of one of my "Mini-Denney's"...really cute (if I say so myself) handbags I designed. I'll get to the design errors in a minute. First, look at the corner of this bag.



See how the corner is kind of bunched up? It's not smooth. Now look at the corner of one of my other bags made at a different factory.



This is a perfect corner. See the difference in the quality? Here's another picture below of the bad corner bag. It's probably hard to see in the picture, but the corners are not square. The right corner is slightly higher than the left because that horizontal seam isn't perfectly straight.



Inspect your samples carefully, whether its clothing or bags or whatever. Make sure it lives up to your expectations. You should have perfection.

If you sew bags or clothing yourself, then I assume you know how to sew and you don't need me (someone who sucks at sewing) to tell you how to do it. Just make sure its perfect or find someone who can do it perfectly for you.

Dale Lindholm with Pure Accessories showroom in NYC spoke with fashionCEO last month. He deals with buyers everyday from Henri Bendels, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, and so on. He said that buyers look at EVERY little detail of a handbag, especially if its a new line. According to Dale, store buyers will inspect the seams, hardware, how the zippers move, everything. So don't skimp on quality if you want people to take your line seriously.

Now let's look at my design mistakes (do we have to?). I'm swallowing my pride here! The picture below is a bird's eye view into a leather briefcase bag I designed. It's a larger bag designed to hold folders, laptop, pens, etc. It has a center divider and lots of interior pockets. Not a cheap design. Problem is I have a snap as the closure. The snap is attached to each side of the bag. That would normally be okay, but once you throw in a laptop, tons of folder, daytimer, etc, the bag doesn't close. If you have to slide that baby under an airplane seat (which I've done), your stuff could slide out with it. I spent about $750 for the pattern and sample for this bag. Then I went and had 15 made (couple grand)! All before realizing this little flaw.



Certainly this can be fairly easily fixed, but I should have fixed it a little earlier in the process. (I still love the bag and use it anyway). I had that same issue on another design. I took it to the factory and they fixed it by adding a flap with a snap.



Its still a tote, but now even if this bag is full, one end of the snap will reach the other.

And lastly, and this one hurt, because I really love this bag. I had a bunch of these made (oops) before realizing my design mistake here. This bag would be perfect (I've had tons of compliments on it), but can you guess what's wrong with it?






The zipper doesn't come down far enough on the sides...and since the top is shorter than the bottom, it makes it hard to get your hand in the bag. And the zipper I ordered (yes I'm guilty of this) was metal and cheap so it scratches your hand when you go to grab something in the bag! (don't get me started on zippers...you know how I now feel about cheap zippers). BTW, I have about 200 of those zippers. Would you like some? I'll give ya some. Don't buy cheap zippers.

Well, I hope this was helpful. It's always a learning process, so you can't beat yourself up with mistakes. I did it many times, but I had to stop. You learn and keep moving forward.