Counting clothes

Keeping inventory has been a tricky issue right from the first day. When we moved clothes from the production unit to the store for the inauguration last August, I only had a rough idea of how many clothes we had (what can I say, I was new to this)! At the production unit I would write down how many garments I wanted tailored in each size on a fabric inventory sheet, but then depending on the fabric consumption some garments would get left out or made in excess. So when I made my garment inventory list from the fabric inventory sheets, I was only in the ballpark range.

Finally, with some help, we graduated to a system where I print out a list for each collection, and each list contains the style names, and the number of garments made in each size by style. When new pieces come to the store, my sales staff adds it manually to the list and every couple of weeks when I take a new print out, I incorporate their additions. We also keep an inventory book that shows the total number of pieces in the store at any given point of time, and each day it shows the number added to the store (new stock) as well as the number subtracted (sales). To find out the number of pieces in the store by collection, I would have to go through each collection list and count the remaining stock.

Next week my summer 2008 collection comes into the store. This means that we will now have 5 collection lists to keep a track of and I can only image how counting by style is going to get more confusing and time consuming (I am thinking of having a sale in August for the 80 odd garments leftover from the first two collections though). The next 6 months are going to be hectic- I have a monsoon-winter collection to prepare, a website revamp by September, and hopefully an exhibition in Bangalore sometime in November. But early next year my goal is to have an easy computerized inventory system (just hope there is something more user friendly than Tally around) - any suggestions and ideas are welcome.

On a different note, below is a photo of the kurta that I designed from the shibori fabric I had talked about in an earlier blog post.

Design stage again

I feel as if I’m finally getting a chance to sit back and breathe after the frenzy of launching the Spring collection, and it’s already time to start planning the Monsoon collection. The Summer collection is in production right now, and the Monsoon collection should come out in September. I’m trying to work towards planning each collection a year in advance, but clearly I’m not there yet.

One of the toughest creative decisions I have to make every time I plan a collection is ordering a large quantity of fabric based on a small swatch or a photograph. With mill-made fabric I usually have the chance to see and test one metre of the fabric, but the colour options are usually tiny swatches of 1 inch by 1 inch. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what an entire garment in that colour will turn out based on a tiny swatch or a shade chart. With handwoven fabric I usually see a sample of the fabric weight (the thickness/transparency, and how closely the yarn is woven) but the colour combinations that I choose are risks I take. I never get to see what it is like until it is woven, and like it or not I have to buy the entire thing. Then there are crafts like block printing and tie-dying. These are usually safe bets unless I’m asking for a colour combination that is unusual. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to order larger quantities that allow for me to experiment first- like a sampling round that large export houses get to do before they begin their real production.

Anyway, I visited a shibori supplier in Santiniketan last year and took some photographs. She is probably my only supplier with whom I can communicate an entire order via email. I’m going to order some shibori fabric with this pattern below. You’ll have to wait for the collection to come out to see what it looks like on the garment.