Turn Your Sewing Skills Into A Side Hustle | Cover Me Chic (2024)

I’vealways been an entrepreneur. When I was younger I would braid the hair of thekids in my building. At $10 a head, I used the money I made to buy fabric. Bothmy parents had sewing machines that I had access to, yes my father sewed too,and I’ve been making money off of sewing ever since.

Now,in the era of the gig economy it seems that nearly everyone has a side hustle.Executive Assistants by day can be sculptors by night. As you build your sewingskills you may be considering how you can start to monetize your new skill set.The good news is that it’s now easier than ever. Here are some ideas to getyour side hustle going.

Tailor Made-to-Order

Iran a made-to-order business for many years. This entails consulting withclients to design clothing from scratch. You select everything together fromthe design, to the fabric, to closures.Often times people seek this service for formal wear. When there is anoccasion that someone really wants to stand-out and wear something unique.Particularly, because this is an expensive service. People are making aninvestment in the clothing and the service often because they want an outfit tomake memories in. Think about that when your marketing yourself.

Mostpeople start off with a specialty (suits, men’s formal wear, gowns, etc.) andperfect that before moving onto other areas. Because this is a one-to-one servicebusiness you can charge more than what someone would pay off the rack. The keyto success in this type of business is choosing the right clients, ones thatknow the value of custom made clothes and pay for it. Also, building a clientbase so that you always have a project to work on and there isn’t any lag time.

Alterations

Thisservice is the next best thing to a tailored made-to-order outfit. This entailsindividuals purchasing off-the-rack items and contracting with you to alter theclothes for better fit. This can include shortening a hem or letting it out foradditional length, taking in the waistline, or adding darts in a shirt for aslimmer fit.

Whileyou can still specialize, it is much easier to be a generalist in this area. Alterationdon’t take as much time as an outfit from scratch, so the price point isn’t ashigh. Depending on what your altering would dictate the price point. Forinstance, adjusting a suit would cost more the hemming jeans.

Ready to Wear

Now, you know how I feel about ready to wear. But there is a market for it and when done with intentionality and thought it is an option. This business model takes the most upfront cost out of all the ones mentioned. An over-view of the upfront cost you would have to consider when getting started:

• You would have to develop patterns(including grading for multiple sizes)
• Source fabric and trims
• Find fit models
• If you’re not sewing everything yourself,other seamstresses or a factory that excepts small lot orders.
• There are other things to consider, I’mjust scratching the surface.

Ifthis is the way you want to go, narrowing your focus is one way to cut costwhen getting started. Listed below are other options to keep cost to a minimum.

• Research your ideal customer and offer alimited size range to cut down on pattern development cost.
• Design a small collection of 5 to 10 piecesto limit fabric/ trim sourcing and pattern making.
• Use fabric and trim sources that sellwholesale and can reorder material as needed.
• Use a friend that fits the body type ofyour ideal customer as a fit model.
• In the beginning you may have to sew thefirst samples yourself and then give to seamstress(es) or small lot factory tosew the bulk of the pieces.

Selling Your Product/ Service

Onceyou have chosen the type of business you want and who you want to sell to, yourniche, test it. Start small to see if there is a market for the service or productsyou want to sell. Alternatively, you can work backwards and find a communitythat you want to serve and make what they want or what appeals to them.

Artistsand entrepreneurs have more direct access to consumers than ever before. Fastgrowing businesses such as Etsyand Shopify just to name few, havecreated platforms designed to facilitate selling your clothes if you choose theready-to-wear option.

Platformslike Thumbtack can be used to post your tailoringor alteration services.

Finally, you must notunderestimate the importance of social media. Building your followership onInstagram, Facebook or other platforms is an effective way to get buzz andword-of-mouth referrals.

Which method appealsmost to you? Leave a comment below.

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