Fashion Unraveled - Second Edition - How to Start and Manage Your Own Fashion (or Craft) Design Business

Fashion runs on these really strange net 60, net 30, net whatever, store pay payment terms. We didn't understand all of this at first. When we first started PD, we asked for a deposit when someone placed an order, that helped at the beginning. But over time, stores overturned those rules. No one really pays on the dot. The reason a lot of brands do... See more

Well, money. There was $370 in her account. “And I made a $400 sale two hours ago,” she said, meaning she had been in the red that morning.

In April, after the Fashion Trust U.S. awards, she estimated her debt to be about $90,000. Her creditors include factories that are starting to get mad, she said, but also people central to her team, like the designer Andrew Curwen, who is owed a few months’ worth of invoices.