The Fashion Designer Survival Guide: Start and Run Your Own Fashion Business

Amazingly detailed book, full of tips and great pointers. Very easy read. Packed with references. I strongly recomend it to the people who a planing on starting a fashion busines as well as to people who are planing to be involved any kind of production.

I've read a few books on how to start and run your own fashion design business, and this is one of the best ones I've read so far. Not only is it shorter then a lot of the huge books, but it's too the point and Mary writes in a style that is very easy to understand. She gives great advise and there are good examples and pictures in the book to help you further understand how to do things the best way. I have the first edition that she wrote and that one is great also but this one has new sections and it's a more complete form of the business process.

I really wish I had read this before I set up a fashion business; this is invaluable reading from somebody actually IN the industry. With relevant information & quotes from designers, & other people in the industry, the reader is able to understand so much more on what is actually involved in setting-up/running a fashion business. The book is extremely easy to read & each chapter covers a relevant topic fairly concisely, enabling the reader to learn from others experiences; from costing through to actually selling, & will always be there for reference when needed. We all have so many questions to ask when setting up/in a business & this book will probably answer most, if not all, & may actually save you from having to learn from your own mistakes...well most anyway! If you are looking at setting up a fashion business, then BUY this book & learn 'how' to do it better. Thankyou Mary Gehlhar, from a young designer company who now realise they were right on some things, feel reassured on others, but who now have a vast amount of new knowledge to take it further...

By far, the most impressive, knowledgeable and useful guide to everything from the decision to start your own design business to handling the press, buyers and everything else. It's not a book that sugarcoats the truth about how hard it is to succeed in this business and how few succeed at all. Even established designers who didn't lay the right foundations, had it come back to bite them. It starts you off in the right mindset and helps you learn from the mistakes and experiences of others, so that you don't waste time and money screwing up by yourself! A must have book!

Mary Gehlhar's book is outstanding. It has depth and breath. I really enjoyed all the quotes and pearls of wisdom provided by so many lovely people in the apparel industry. This book covers everything - from concept and design to wholesale price points to retail product placement. This book shows you "the what" and "the how" like no other apparel industry book has. What I especially enjoyed learning about was the legal information. Thank you Charles Klein for you saved me much heartache that comes with losing your intellectual property. Now I can work with investors wisely for you have banished the only fear I have and that is losing control of my intellectual property as I lose some corporate control due to investors' terms. This is what I read books for - to gain knowledge and insight from people who have done it before me, do it better than me, and write it down to share with us curious souls and thirsty minds. The other aspect of this book I found to be stellar and not noted in any other fashion industry book (and I read them all) is what Mary Gehlhar says about patternmaking and samplemaking. She states both sides of the argument, doing it yourself and others doing it for you, articulately and succinctly. I applaud you Mary Gehlhar. You wrote a great book.