The Power of Habit

What makes the difference between success or failure are a designer’s routines—whether they have a system for getting Italian broadcloth before wholesalers’ stocks sell out, a process for finding the best zipper and button seamstresses, a routine for shipping a dress to a store in ten days, rather than three weeks. Fashion is such a complicated business that, without the right processes, a new company will get bogged down with logistics, and once that happens, creativity ceases to matter. And which new designers are most likely to have the right habits? The ones who have formed the right truces and found the right alliances. 6.26 Truces are so important that new fashion labels usually succeed only if they are headed by people who left other fashion companies on good terms.