Fashion consultants are invaluable when your business needs specialized apparel industry knowledge. With their vast resources, clothing consultants offer fresh perspectives, fashion experience, retail knowledge and business consulting skills to provide successful apparel solutions for your retail business.

Apparel consultants provide important skills for retail businesses seeking to plan new product lines, develop strategic planning, refresh current marketing or transition staff responsibilities. Clothing consulting firms increase productivity and efficiency by addressing essential fashion trends, recognizing sales and productivity obstacles and providing marketing services.

Before beginning your search for apparel experts, it is important to define your consulting needs. Clearly identify the goal of your fashion consultant service, including project scope, time frame and budget. This information will help you select the best apparel consultant to meet your specific needs.

When selecting clothing experts for your retail business, research each consulting agency and evaluate the following:

1. How much experience does each clothing consultant have in developing effective retail solutions for your business market?

2. What services does each apparel consulting firm provide to increase business profitability and enhance product lines?

3. How much should your business invest in wardrobe consultant services?

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Hire apparel consultants that specialize in your retail industry

Select clothing consultants who are seasoned professionals with extensive experience in your retail market. Ask to see a list of past and present clients, and request references.

I recommend: ATAC Network provides accounting and consulting services to nearly 500 apparel and textile companies. The Retail Management Advisors offers professional consulting services for small and medium-sized independent apparel, gift and sporting goods stores. Alchemy Fashion Group provides design consulting services to the apparel, footwear, accessories, jewelry and retail industries.

Choose apparel consulting firms with demonstrated skills

Review the services offered by each apparel consulting firm. Evaluate the apparel consultant's experience and qualifications, and request successful project examples similar in scope to your upcoming consulting needs.

I recommend: The Friedman Group helps clients build high-performance retail operations with services like business improvement audits, development programs, custom training solutions, accountability systems, organizational design and compensation planning. Design Options offers trend and color forecasting for the fashion industry. Apparel Search Fashion Design Consulting focuses on brand strategy and consulting services, including product development, brand innovation, marketing, sales and supply chain management.

Select fashion consultants that meet your budget

Many wardrobe consulting firms operate on a retainer with a minimum time commitment. Several utilize an hourly fee structure for short-term projects. Your clothing consulting cost will depend upon the scope of your services.

I recommend: ApparelLink charges hourly for consultations with a two-hour minimum, which includes travel time. GarmentoSpeak provides product line evaluation, development and marketing services with hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, project-based or retainer billing options.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Make sure that it is written into your contract that the apparel consultants will not provide services to any direct retail competitors during the course of your business relationship