A lot of emerging designers are creating for an imagined customer instead of a real one. In many cases, they’re designing for a version of themselves that doesn’t actually exist in real life. That disconnect shows up in the product.

Why Emerging Designers Must Build Demand Before They Produce Anything Everyone wants to be a fashion designer. But very few designers ask the most important question before they begin producing garments: Who is actually going to buy this? Without a real audience, launching a clothing line becomes a gamble. Designers produce inventory hoping customers will appear after the fact. Hope is not a strategy. Hope does not repay production costs. Hope does not move unsold inventory.