My Journey As A Founder
My clothing line FT The Label has been in the works for just about a year, and it is finally coming to fruition. With countless financial, logistical, and personal issues in between, it’s been nothing short of a challenging journey.
As of October 2021, my actual clothes for FTTL will be launching and I could not be more ecstatic. It’s always been a dream of mine to have my own clothing line and to start things from scratch. The point of inspiration for creating my own label was because I grew up obsessed with shopping and clothes, but a lot of the time I noticed there was always some detail that was off that I could better refine to fit my taste. I continued to learn more about the fashion industry through internships and big-girl roles, like my time at Stitch Fix as a stylist.
In high school, I was obsessed with doing OOTD pictures on Instagram but other people weren’t as obsessed.
I began to hide my love for clothes and styling under a rock to try to fit in with everyone else, but obviously, that didn’t last long. I got into college and realized that the world is quite literally my oyster, and who cares what “they” think? I began to build a reputation for a very minimalist style that a lot of my friends and mutuals referred to in order to inspire their own personal style. By then, I figured that after college, I’ll enter the fashion industry and I was a competitive candidate.
To my surprise- I was rejected from 2 of my “dream” roles after putting in over 30+ hours of research and heart into my projects.
On the bright side, that’s how FT The Label was created.
Ironically, I now work at one of the sub-brands of the company that rejected me and realized that the role wasn’t right for me overall. The project they assigned me was to create another hypothetical company for a new sub-brand that they would acquire, and at the time my company was called “F The Label”.
Once that project went kaput, I figured I had such great research on my hands that I couldn’t let go to waste. The first step was changing the name- I figured there would be some type of scrutiny or misunderstanding, so I changed it to FT. My intention for the brand name is to have it be my initials, Fiona Tran, and also have it mean feature- Fiona Tran, featuring you.
I wanted to create a brand that embodied an individualist creating her own style and identity through timeless clothing pieces that also have a romantic touch. In addition to that, one of the biggest goals of my company is to implement full sustainability and transparency. By creating timeless, quality pieces that you would have in your closet for years would also mean reducing the need to buy more clothes that would soon cycle out old ones, creating waste. Considering that the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters in the world, especially when it comes to fast fashion- I felt like this was a good first step in the right direction. This is actually the most exciting part for me because I love sharing with others what I’m learning and how I’m implementing it.
Once COVID hit in March of 2020, it felt as if life hit a standstill and everything just became eerie and uncontrollable. It sent me down a spiral of depression and I felt so confused and lost, a feeling that most post-grads feel but emotions were even more heightened in the midst of a pandemic that we’ve never lived through before. To tone down my anxiety, I wanted to tap into my creativity. Now it’s important to know that I have never been good at drawing (seriously, I can’t draw a stick figure), playing music, or anything creative really. I used to make fun fashion Youtube videos, but that’s as creative as I got.
I knew I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I continued to listen to more and more stories of successful entrepreneurs today and noticed that there was a trend of people who had no clue what they were doing with little to no skill set to execute their ideas, but yet their simple ideas have now IPO’d and/or have made an incredible impact in some way, shape, or form.
I used this as the motivation to start my own clothing line even though I couldn’t draw, couldn’t sew, or went to fashion school- my degree is in Political Science (sheeeeesh)! I think sometimes my personality can be obsessive, and in this case- this was definitely for the better. I began to spend all of my spare time watching endless YouTube videos on how people built their clothing lines and developed an understanding of the difference between producing from scratch, screen printing, and dropshipping. I spent more hours building a brand book to visualize what my brand would be and what it could become, and a few more hours (a lot more hours) learning how to draw fashion illustrations on Adobe Illustrator. Ultimately I also began to learn the meaning of actual investments- the difference between time and money. I was so focused on being as frugal as possible in the beginning that it ended up costing me time that was not worth saving the $50 or $100 it would have cost to outsource the work to get it done right the first time.
Along the way, I’ve learned so many tips and tricks that have inspired me to want to build a course or mentorship to help others who want to start their own fashion labels whether that’s in clothing or bags to keep aspiring entrepreneurs from making the same mistakes as I did. If you know the fashion industry, you know time is a precious gift and it should not be taken for granted. Yes- that saying also applies to all areas of life, but the pressure is on in the fashion industry. You’re challenged by seasonal trends, daily trends that you see on Tik Tok that are changing by what seems like the minute.
I’m still learning a lot on this journey, and while some people have already told me to give up when I’m so near the finish line, I refuse to quit because I can’t imagine my work going to waste and because I feel like I’m building a formula for future launches to be more financially beneficial and effective of my time.
It’s scary putting this much work into a launch and then listing it, not knowing if it’s going to fail or succeed, and what the backup plan is in between. Have I figured out the formula for that yet? Not quite. Am I working on it? Most definitely.
My journey as a founder has been nothing short of humbling, fulfilling, and inspirational. You constantly feel like your brain is on information overload and the feeling of things going wrong all the time is felt all too often, but the “AH-HA!” moments and seeing the fruits of my labor make it all worth it (imagine a kid in the candy shop feeling). I’m hoping in the future I’m able to make this a successful brand, but in the meantime, back to work!
XO,
Fiona