What it’s like to run your own small fashion business

Unlike most kids who are groomed to go into the family business, I decided to follow my grandparents’ path to start my own fashion business: Soeng Signature.

Named after my maternal grandmother’s maiden surname, Soeng Signature is a tribute that honours her roots as a seamstress. As one of the only few grandchildren who took up sewing from her, I have always dreamed of running my own business selling secondhand clothing but with an upcycled twist. It was something that I experimented with in my university years, but it wasn’t until her passing in 2017 that I decided to consider taking it seriously.

First I started an Instagram account for it and decided to start posting mood board images off of throwback Instagram accounts that featured supermodels and celebrities on the red carpet to grow a following from followers who were hungry for nostalgia and the Y2K era. Then slowly, I experimented with selling upcycled jeans from vintage denim on the account.

My experience in retail was minimal. Apart from my sole internship at local multi-label boutique Tyan, I’ve only had my hand in selling clothes to my university classmates where I listed designer goodies on a Facebook group for Loyola Marymount University students to sell their goods. Ditto with cleaning out my closet on resale sites like eBay, Poshmark, Buffalo Exchange and Depop after university as I wanted to make money and clear out closet space as I was moving out of New York City. It was a healthy start, but my insecurities about having to run a business by myself got the best of me until Covid happened.

At the start of 2020, I designed a website for Soeng Signature from scratch on Shopify. I had zero experience in graphic design, coding and designing a website. At that point, the only thing familiar to me was WordPress, where I was constantly writing on my fashion/lifestyle blog Lapis and Layers. I was planning to sell festival-friendly clothing as I wanted to market my goods to the Coachella crowd who were willing to splurge on cute clothes for the festival. Then, the pandemic happened and I had to pull the plug as sales were non-existent since no one was about to be travelling anytime soon.

After a year and a half of putting my business on pause, I decided to refresh it. I updated the look of the site and tweaked it to add more features, product tags and categories. However, this time I entrusted the redesign to my cousin as she was an expert at graphic design and photography. With these added improvements, I was pleasantly surprised by the sales I received when I relaunched on Black Friday.

Being a secondhand dealer is a modern millennial dream. As a ‘90s millennial, I came of age to Sophia Amoruso, the founder of Nasty Gal who pioneered the idea of “girlbossing” your way with a trunk of vintage clothes. Lucky for me, I received mine from generous donations from my friends and family — unwanted branded goods that were curated by them. Channelling my inner Miss Amoruso, I had to ask myself: “What did she do to curate all her inventory?”

Since almost all my items consisted of goods dating from the ‘80s to the ‘2010s with the majority from 2000s. Together with my cousin and our mothers, we sorted through 20 boxes. During the unboxing process, we found tons of items that were mouldy and/or stained. Singapore weather is great for our skin, but not so great for clothes. Thankfully, despite some mild flaws, most of the apparel was still in great condition to be sold.

Sometimes, we had to throw some things out completely like footwear. My production manager, who acts as a quality control inspector and footwear expert, bent a pair of vintage Chanel sneakers. The rubber soles snapped in two, deeming them “too old” and not fit for reselling. I learned from him that regardless of brand, the condition of the item is key.

In a fashion business, your inventory is your asset. Since I’m still starting out, I have yet to find a distinct brand identity. However, having a diversity of goods has done a lot to help me discover myself as a seller. From Emanuel Ungaro jackets, and runway Chanel skirts to a BAPE x KAWS hoodie, it’s quite a mishmash of personalities. It reminded me of how you experiment with style as you age, from going through an emo phase of band tees and Converse in your teens, to then suddenly being a young adult, transitioning to knee-length skirt suits and G2000 blouses for work.

Together with my cousin, we came up with our inventory sheet. Then, we listed and measured all the items and filled in our listings with descriptions and prices. As the majority of my items are pre-owned, I pulled up FarFetch, Tradesy, Vestiaire, Depop as well as the designer’s website to accurately access how these pre-owned items could compare to retail and vintage prices.

As a precaution, I would do extra research on individual garments to make the descriptions as detailed as possible, especially if it was listed as a runway piece. It’s so much fun to research your own goods, but it’s the most time-consuming task.

Curating the clothes to wear at shoots can push me to overthink at times, but something that helps me centre my thoughts is to create a colour palette and work around that. Similar to an Instagram feed, sometimes you need to edit through your drafts and see what you can toss out/keep. I’ve had my days when I thought that a garment or accessory could work for a shoot, but I ended up not using it. Out of the entire process, shoot days are my favourite as I get to play dress-up.

Like vetting a boyfriend, I had to vet a manufacturer to ensure that the quality of their shirts and the quality of their prints are excellent. Prior to selecting my current manufacturer, I visited a t-shirt production factory to try on their samples. Having to feel the samples was important to me as I needed to visualise how anyone could work, sleep, work out and lounge around in my tees if the cotton didn’t feel comfortable on my body. Thankfully, I managed to find a local vendor whose quality has won positive feedback among my friends and family. 

Apart from producing original designs, I like to upcycle garments as I feel that it’s the future of fashion.

Sustainability is a double-edged sword, yet I am a firm believer in bridging that gap via upcycling as it helps to lower production costs in the long run. A seasoned upcycler since I was 12, I love to create new shapes out of existing garments. Recently, I found a pair of pre-loved Theory wool/lycra pants in my warehouse and decided to cut them up into a crop top. It certainly was a risk, but who doesn’t love a good challenge? Although I took sewing courses at home and at LaSalle before Covid, upcycling means having to use my body as a mannequin as the pattern of the existing garment is cut to one area of the body. It can be frustrating at times, but I truly appreciate the amount of work and thought put into it after the product is done.

I am not the perfect boss as I still make errors. Being my own boss is all about trial and error more than anything else. While I am aware that I can never be certain about outcomes, what I know is that I can control the process as I create. Though there are days when I feel mentally and physically drained, I have to remind myself that no effort has gone to waste.

While there are days when I thought that what I did was not good enough, I remind myself that setbacks do happen and that I need to give myself time to learn and fix my mistakes. Flexibility is key to really being your own boss as you need plenty of room to perform your tasks well. Although I wanted to give up doing Soeng Signature at times, I have to remind myself that building a company is never easy. After all, I am a believer that all the rewards will pay off and I hope that I can continue to give my best shot to make it to the top.

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