Fashion Unraveled by Jennifer Lynne Matthews

I must say this book wasn't what I expected, but it has proven to be a very interesting read.  This book is a 400 page textbook to help you learn how to start and manage your own fashion design/craft business.  It is for the entrepreneur.  It gives an in-depth look at what it takes to start and run the business.  Each page is designed with wide margins for jotting down notes, even provides lines for you.  There are work sheet pages to work through in setting up your business.  The author states from the ground and moves you up. The Introduction discusses the fashion industry and entrepreneurship.  Then you move into developing your line such as:  defining your market and customer, creating your brand and identity, and moving on to developing your collection.  In the production section things such as fabric, pattern and samples, cutting and production are discussed as well as fast fashion, slow fashion and sustainable fashion with one chapter on tee shirt business.  Moving along to marketing and sales, starting the business, law and regulations, running a business and closing with building a business plan.  No stone is left unturned, it's all in this book if you are in the market for starting and running a fashion business.  You can learn from someone who has been there.  This book is well laid out and you come away well informed about everything that goes into a business of fashion.

Read guest article on  Reasons for using a Business Plan by Jennifer here.

Read an interview with the author @ Pump Up Your Book tours

Fashion Unraveled offers an inside look into the operations of a small fashion design business. This book offers tips, tools of the trade and valuable insight into the industry. This acts as a guide for developing a customer, market and collection. The book introduces the reader to sourcing and production, as well as explains marketing concepts. Whether the reader is an entrepreneur, designer, student or craftsperson, this book will guide one through the business implementation process.

Fashion Unraveled introduces an in-depth look at creating a costing model, solid pricing and realistic budgeting. Fashion Unraveled is user friendly and was designed for the creative mind. Chapters are laid out with definitions and web links located in the sidebars of the book for ease in use. The second edition features over 400 pages of information transforming this into the “must read” resource for every designer entrepreneur.

This book offers a new case study feature, following a small fashion business through their business launch, including their business plan. Fashion Unraveled also features several designer interviews, including a Q&A with British designer Timothy James Andrews and couturier Colleen Quen.

As an educator at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (San Francisco & LA), Jennifer Lynne Matthews, recognized that there was a need for a step by step educational manual to teach her students on how to start their own business. Consequently, Matthews wrote the first edition of Fashion Unraveled in 2008 to provide such educational material; the second edition is due out in early 2011. Matthews, also a lingerie designer and entrepreneur, began her path in the fashion industry in 1994. She attended Florida State University, then the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, completing her degree in 1999. With a specialization in intimate apparel, Matthews began working in the industry as a stylist and freelance designer.

In 2002, Matthews opened her own business, Porcelynne Lingerie. Fashion Unraveled is built on Matthews’ experience in both opening and sustaining a successful business. She brings the knowledge of running a small business and her expertise in the industry into her book and it continues into her classroom teaching.

Matthews has won numerous awards for her designs and has received worldwide accolades for her work, including the Best of the East Bay and the Best of San Francisco Mastermind awards for her lingerie designs. Her most recent project has been on a reality TV show (currently being pitched to networks) as a co-producer and fashion consultant for a lingerie design competition show.

Future plans include authoring a collection of books on lingerie design, draping and clothing construction. She also aspires to open a showroom and education studio in the garment district of Los Angeles.

For more information on Jennifer Matthews and her work, see www.fashionunraveled.com and www.porcelynne.com.


A copy of this book was provided for review by Virtual Book tours