I have not finished developing the best way to explain this project. I would appreciate any suggestions. Use the comment form to the right.
SittingOnARainbow.com (SOAR) Project
Read This First - results in a better understanding of all aspects
As an engineer I like to make things. SittingOnARainbow, in the end, produces beautiful apparel for many markets for many women and a few men.
- The only method for accomplishing quality on a continuing basis requires integrating, using cooperation, the entire supply chain.
- The only way to attract and retain the best designers is make products meeting their quality standards.
- Modern automation supplies highest quality standards at the lowest possible cost.
- Our computer customer (retail and wholesale) friendly software attaches loyalty to our products.
Control the production for a long-term business viability.
Owning and/or controlling the supply-chain is the key to success in a modern world. Several methods from outright ownership to cooperation contracts are available for a successful operation.
The future requires communication and cooperation environments, not indiviual apps.
Working with big box retailers needs to wait for the first 2 or 3 years of a project's production. The risk is far greater without a planned growth policy. Even though we are looking at new ways of production and client ordering methodology, after a few years of the custom experience certainly helps with the mass, big box market and profitability.
We prefer to build on quality and customer service over long periods of time. Managing quality throughout an integrated supply-chain is the modern way to make profits.
Rule 1: Always create excellent quality whether for expensive apparel or off-the-rack for the working women. Being able to produce quality attracts people who would want to make nice things. It feeds on itself.
Rule 2: Try not to be too stupid to ignore Rule 1
Assume modern machinery, some of which I design, will change apparel production. Things are never going to be the same.
Hire the best without regard for cost. And be influenced by hollywood productions as they could afford the great clothing we see on late night TV.
Include the agents, certainly, everyone in the operation should be a quality you could give a promotion to anyone.I'm using a franchise-like structure to maintain control. Be aware the word "franchise" has legal implications. I'm not sure we fall under "Franchise" yet the structure for controlling quality is unrivaled.
It may look more like a "Fuller Brush" or Amway style of levels.
Each Region will eventually have a central office and a bunch of agents/computer-designers while providing all support in the region.
Regions might be American Pacific Northwest, Florida, California, Chicago, etc. International regions will be determined.
Timeline Estimates
Honestly, formalizing a strict timeline at this point. SOAR is a very technical implementation and the many parts have to come together for a full business.
Building upon sales of any sort is a good idea: Don't wait for everything to be perfect, get the sales of some sort!
I'll have more to say on timelines soon.
Most likely, the rest of 2026 will be about finding the right software and hardware, locating a group of applicable people, and, finally, selling something.
I'm quite sure it will take a couple of years, at best, for everything to work.
Remember this is a cash cow for many years after getting past the setup stage.
Project Overviews
Short Overview
SittingOnARainbow.com, through modern communication and production, brings great fashion, great fashion designing software, while using more complex modern manufacturing capabilities at lower cost to women of the world who love looking good.
The only method for accomplishing quality on a continuing basis requires integrating,using cooperation, the entire supply chain.
The old method, segmenting every point of transaction - like manufacturers, shippers, distributors, stores, etc. - having a different goal and qualtiy. Makes the whole suppy chain too mucxh work. As an engineer I like control over every aspect of the product life.
Following a franchise methodology, quality alone will make branding easy. The national and regional groups will guide every agent and designer both in sewn apparel and knitted apparel. Each group will use websites and internet communications as needed for training, etc. The National group will maintain the libraries of designs.
We will be creating software so the final customer can be involved in custom designed products.
Several manufacturing operations, in several countries, will work closely with many designers in their various geographic areas.
For the first three years only custom apparel will be available. I'm sorry if that is where you, and too many others, look at starting. After this period is used to understand a mass market will apparel be made for the average person.
Long Overview
The first basic idea for SOAR is custom wear for the well off, office workers, and anyone else thinking custom apparel is also a long-term investment. Then with a couple of years of experience with custom wear products, then quanitity brands can be introduced.
Custom wear will involve sewn apparel and knit apparel.
Special software will be developed to allow the customer to be involved with the design. This invovlement creates its own audience. We'll have plenty of people who help the uninvolved ccusotmers.
Modern manufacturing is as different as sailing ships to steam ships and the effect on societies is just as great.
Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, described geographical differences as a competitive advantage. Today, you are never sure where people are working, creating, producing, or living. For instance, automobiles are made throughout the world with pretty much the same quality. Soybeans seem to grow everywhere.
The interesting thing, the greater high speed communications become, the more products can be localized.
SOAR will have designers all over the world feeding into the system for production: A hundred production facilities for thousands of design experts How this works will be thoroughly described later on.
The result? Better dressed women with clothes worth keeping for the long term. Resulting in happier women.
Eventually the system will be integrated in the Manufacturing Villages Project. Why? The difficulty of running any business in the future is too complicated for a single entrepreneur. To make the creative person successful, Manufacturing Villages will provide the back-office services freeing the product from drudgery.
You'll see how cooperation produces increased wealth and better products.
End Results
Goals
Goals
- Provide more stylish apparel for making women look great
- Set up designers throughout the world in various areas for localized fashiion
- Build centralized modern manufacturing in several countries
- Create custom apparel for the people who can afford such luxury
- Build brand names
- After a few years make apparel for the masses
- Make customers happy
Project Scope
I started this project as a way to bring manufacturing back to America. Sewing and apparel always migrate to the lowest cost areas capable of quality work. So one of the end results will be poorer countries a way to make money. Quality figures much more than least expensive.
Many designers representing the tastes of various geographical areas, such as the Pacific Northwest or Florida in the USA. Obviously, the French would like their own style. WE would end up with a design team for each area. Everyone doesn't need to look alike.
With our modern methods enable women's apparel fitting better with many variations available through our methods. Even the big box people can order many more fitting styles.
We will produce a profit at every level of designing and manufacturing.
The manufacturers will eventually be part of a manufacturing village, another project to bring modern manufacturing and living conditions to people in small towns across the world, which is certainly better than everyone living in crowded urban areas.
Technology
An end result is, of course, better manufacturing. As I am an engineer, I always seek better manufacturing, not only for apparel, but also for manufacturing in general.
Technical improvements always many people to do more meaningful work than spending all day doing repetitious work. Although a frozen pizza producer in Italy still puts the peperoni on by hand on purpose. Everything else was highly automated. This was on an hour documentary, shown every week for a year, on different factories, mostly food production. We could not feed our populations without automation.
As the project progresses, I'll have more and more about the technology and the machinery we need to be successful.
Technology is one of the few influences capable of changing the world. Now is the time for a transition from Adam Smith's world to a modern, instant communication world.
I want to say we will not be the only company utilizing modern manufacturing. We'll try and be friends with all the manufactures out there throughout the world.
Basic Philosophies
Products
Product Philosophy
Only two factors determine your products
- Continuing quality
- Determining the current path to customer desires while maintaining loyalty
The first requires someone with an "eagle eye" seeing, certainly noticing everything.
The second requires someone with the gut feel usually resulting in a rapidly created successful design.
That's it: Hire someone who misses nothing. Hire someone who rattles of good designs anytime.
Customers
Customer Philosophy
- The customer is not always right: Learn to say no when necessary.
- We don't need every consumer as a customer: No one is that good.
- The only thing the customer needs to be is happy.
- The best and least expensive customer is a loyal customer. You've already spent the customer development money on loyal customers.
- Always do research, mostly involving asking women questions.
- Are 100 years ago customers different from today's customers?
- Sell to people that can afford, and liking, of course, your products
- Customers are one part of the supply chain. All parts are important for a happy customer.
Distribution
Distribution Philosophy
Distribution is hard as we found out with over 25 years in eCommerce and our own fulfillment center.
International delivery is naturally difficult.
The internet is the base philosophy.
Workforce
Workforce
Better you work than me.
Branding
Branding
Creating several families of brands serves well for custom apparel loyalty. It also adds to the attraction of the big box people.
Designing
Designing
Hiring exceptional designers and supporting their need with tools and structure to express themselves is the issue.
Along with creative people designing new stuff, a golden trove of ideas is available from Hollywood on demand: The hundreds of movies with fabulous costumes and sets. And you get to see the apparel in the movies moving just like real life.
The legal decision for apparel design? If you don't copy down to the buttonholes, the design is an inspiration. If you are not watching a movie for ideas, go to a museum.
Basically, three types of designers are required.
- Sewn apparel
- Full body knitting and other various knitting
- Other stuff like jewelry, handbags, decorative products
In order to keep products from too much similarity, designers will have geographic area responsibilities. An area might be the Pacific Northwest, New England, Northern and Southern California areas, Florida and the southeast, Texas and southwest.,
Designers will be supported by regional, central national offices and international offices where knowledge of the software and libraries are maintained.
Since we are starting with custom made apparel we will soon find out what is popular and profitable.
If you wondered about men's apparel, we expect women to buy it for their men.
Designs that sell pay a royalty.
Profits
Profits
If you don't make a profit you are not serving anyone.
Technology
Technology
Stay in the front wave of technology
Demographics
The common demographic: desires to look good, stylish, and comfortable.
Demographics for celebrity studios are more related to the celebrity than anything else. All channel demographics have disposable income for clothing.
Researched Demographic
Here in NYC, during Fashion Week 20 years ago, some minor TV channel ran the runway shows with the designer making comments. Those days are gone. So is the fashion of those shows.
Research is not just about fashion: the production aspects require curiosity. I'm an engineer current on manufacturing as one person can be.
I've owned an eCommerce company with fulfillment and warehouse facilities for 25 years. We are experts with Amazon.
I also know how society is changing and how SOAR should fit in perfectly. This is a well-researched project. If you think I'm wrong somewhere, it's possible but not probable.
Executive Women
Executive women need and can afford custom apparel. Here's what concerns their apparel requirements. How we achieve these parameters varies in style, but not in quality.
Our apparel is intended for daily wear, presentations, and standing out on a panel discussion stage.
- Feel the confidence of custom apparel
- Developing a stronger presence whether in person or computer confrence.
- Listeners will want to hear your views and opinions
- People will want to connect with you
- Your appearance is important to being persuasive
- The confidence for minimizing anxiety
- Custom apparel says you are ready for promotion
- Looking impressive cuts the small talk
Office Women
Work in an office?
- Office workers have their own requirements, which I have found to be serious and unaddressed.
- Being warm in a cold office. A difficult issue as cotton is easy for maintenance. Wool is warm but needs dry cleaning
- Being functional for office work, like pockets and collars while easy to put on and take off.
- Companies may subsidize apparel if the company logo is embedded.
Celebrity Brands
Quality is the issue here. Next is what products.
Authorized products olny.
Uses the celebrities media reach for sales.
Sports Apparel
A limited demographic for custom sports apparel like golf could mean this is not a large enough market to exist without the other demographics.
Fashion
Either events like sports or fancy fundraisers. Maybe just impressing your friends.
- Wearing the current fashion
- Using our accessories
- Large choices of styles in our libraries
- Work with an agent who thinks about fashion like you
- SOAR machinery produces new ways of fashion for designers
- Customer input at a high, yet cooperative channel
National Design Support Center
National Back Office Support Center
Major Product Lines
All three product lines are extrememly flexible enough for many sub branded lines.
Sewn Apparel
Far from the past's methods of stacking fabric for cutting, our methods will cut single layers of fabric with computer-controlled lasers with new methods of keeping all the parts placed for the sewing step. Incorporating other high-speed machinery means short runs of many different sizes and shapes can be produced efficient and profitable as the best of the old methods. Both the individual custom production and mass production benefit from modern automation.
Sewn apparel, certainly a way to achieve great apparel, allows for great variety of styles, seasonality, comfort, and, of course, great customization.
Sewn products have through the centuries always moved to the lowest cost countries. I don't think that will change. Both China and Viet Nam are the current winners. In 1900 Connecticut, in New England, USA, usurped the British. And so it goes.
Planning for custom fabrics with our own mills is rather exciting. What does a wool/Alpaca blend feel like?
Knit Apparel
Many years ago my friend's mother was a super knitter producing the most beautiful sweaters - but only for her daughters. I don't know if we could or would stop people from hand knitting.
The special whole body knitting machines are made by Shima Seiki in Japan. Fortunately they created a small industrial grade factory accross the Hudson River in New Jersy. I visited the facility twice and did research on all the main equipment and the pariferals needed for a final product.
This stuff is great and is really underused in its capabilities to crank out beautiful designs in exotic materials. Everything is computer controlled.
Setting up for knitting is probably more expensive than sewn production. I think the ROI is excellent.
Click here to see knit things at ShimaSeiki.com
Accessories
Jewelry, baubles, belts, pocketbooks, cameos, broches, etc.
The idea is matching the accessories to the garment. Both beautiful and useful accessories.
I have researched this field and have to dig up the business plan for MagicIntensity.com, making "good luck" jewelry charms with mineral stones, not gems. Easy enough to manufacture all kinds of things, including Bakelite accessories.
One thing: we make modern accessories, not your grandmother's diamonds which she probably rarely wore. These are really nice items at proper pricing.
And we can sell sets of accessories to change the garments appearance with each set. Buy 'em all.
Sales Channels and Agents
Agent Definition
Agents assume the role of interfacing with the customer. For this reason, agents need to be well trained and make good money.
Agents work with Computer Designers for many reasons more than just computer manipulations. Agents can be certified computer designers too.
Agents help by providing these and more for the customer:
- Choose the basic style
- Colors
- Proper fitting
- Accessories
- Fabric
- Provide 3D prototypes on computer avatar
- Decoration
- Interface with production
- Communications with customer's friends
An agent's main job is customer interface. In many cases the agent will be too busy to do the computer manipulations so cooperation is a good thing with the computer designers.
Agents work with many different Computer Designers with different specialties.
How many customers can an agent help decide what is best and then work with the production people to produce a good fitting and attractive garment? And how much income for what services?
Depending on the time needed, the charge for agent assistance could be substantial. Some agents can charge for a subscription while others may have a regular schedule 4 times a year.
Agents are required to take webinars for credit. Many may specialize in a particular style or even specialize in certain decades.
Agents need knowledge of both sewn and knitted apparel.
Computer Designer Definition
Gold boxes indicate a specialty in sewn silk. Green could be knitted specialties Red could be antique reproductions And so on
A Computer Designer Office can be from one person to a dozen or so. Depends on how many agents are supported and which channel.
Most likely each Computer Designer Office has one or more specialties. Agents would keep a list of their manufacturers.
The basic job is supporting the agents: whatever that means.
Studio Dedicated to Individuals such as Fashion Celebrities
Many celebrities are known for their style. If, on the other hand, you look at their websites you may be appalled at the simple and not very interesting products.
SOAR will create or support a studio producing really good products. Check out Taylor Swift's website representing one of the great musical producers and performers of this century. She really needs much better products. And that is what this channel is all about.
One user will be appointed "Agent" and can contact the regional center. The internal agent should have expertise on apparel making. If necessary SOAR will send an agent when setting up until an internal agent is hired.
Potential clients
Taylor Swift
Martha Stewart
Tara Lipinski
Johnny Weir
Snoop Dog
Designing
Pre-approved designs
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Pre-approved designers
...
Pre-approved themes
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Approval Process
Approval Process for celebrity
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Custom Apparel Through Retail Agents
Direct Internet Sales
Create a website and make yourself a brand.
Brick and Mortor Store
These used to be called "Dressmaker Shops", so small stores probably will work fine again.
Custom Office Apparel Through Office Agents
By having an agent working in small to large office makes ordering new products easy. Some offices have dozens and dozens of potential customers.
I believe the companies like the idea of an in-house agent as a perq for the many women who feel cold in an office. Which means we can sell many, many custom sweaters.
This channel is only for office beurocrats, not executives. Very different product lines.
Depending on the office, agents may be part-time work before, during lunch, and after hours.
Custom Sports Apparel
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Custom Executive Apparel
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Brands
Brands include all three product lines and can be distributed through all channels.
- Some name concerning movies/TV shows
- by year
- by designer
- by theme
- by performer
- by studio
- Styles
- Art Deco
- Art Nouveau
- Geographic by country
- Fabrics
- Great designers
- From the past
- Current
Marketing
Starting
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Growth Stage
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Long-term
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Competitive Advantage
Product Advantages
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Design Advantage
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Structure
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Quality Control Methods
Franchise Control
Daily feedback automatically to Central Services.
Auditing
Every year of all assests
Libraries
Get a library card
Manufacturing
Automation
Automation of course. Not an issue.
Location
China South-Hong Kong
China Center - Shanghai
China South
Supply Chain
abc
Equipment
At the appropriate time I will implement new machinery for both quality and lowest cost production for SOAR custom and mass quantities.
Richard
Import Taxes, Sales Taxes, Local Taxes
Import Taxes
Impoprt taxes take many forms, including tariffs, shipping taxes, limits on quantities, etc.
Figuring out all the issues while your products wait on the docks is not a good habit.
Sales Taxes
All 50 American states have different laws, regulations, and different ideas of how to raise revenue.
Local Taxes
Local taxes.
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Financial
Investing in SOAR
Put your money down.
Ownership
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