Fashion For Profit: A Professional's Complete Guide to Designing, Manufacturing, & Marketing a Successful Line

Fashion For Profit and the other accompanying books by Frances Harder are a professional's complete guide to designing, brand development, costing, manufacturing, & marketing a successful business. Creativity is essential but it isn't enough. The passage from initial concept to the ultimate consumer involves many steps. Fashion For Profit is a roadmap that clearly marks each step. Frances Harder's books are detailed in depth text on how to start your own apparel related business. They have been reviewed and validated by experts from each specific crucial area of design, product development, finance, production, through to sales and marketing. Frances Harder's books have been adopted by some of the best fashion schools in the US to familiarize students with many of the complicated facets of the fashion business beyond designing a line. But whether you are a student or starting your own business you will find information in Fashion For Profit and the accompanying books will help you avoid costly mistakes.

Frances Harder is the President & Founder of the Fashion Business Incorporated (FBI), which provides vital business development and job retraining to the US apparel industry: Fashionbizinc.org. The FBI s training center is housed in the heart of LA s fashion district in the California Market Center. The center has a state of the art computer lab, seminar room and general office space. Since its inception in 1999 the FBI has grown to become an important resource for apparel manufacturers. Additionally, all the training developed at the FBI has been recognized by the state of California s ETP program, which allows manufactures and employees to attend training and receive state sponsorship. Additionally, in 2009 Microsoft provided a grant to fund a professional job retaining program, which was developed to assist displaced workers find new job placement. Frances has self-published a series of books dealing with starting a fashion business: Fashion for Profit is an extensive text that covers the A to Z of starting an apparel company, Costing for Profit, Brand Building For Profit, & Forms for Profit all address additional valuable information when starting an apparel company. Coming soon: Retailing for Profit, which will be available later in 2010. Frances has her own consulting firm: Apparel Business Consulting and consults on product development, branding, merchandising and production. She also presents seminars at industry trade shows both nationally at MAGIC, ASR, LA Textile week, NY Textile show, Vegas Textile show, and internationally at Hong Kong World Boutique. As of Dec. 2009 Frances was voted for six consecutive years by the California Apparel News as one of the most influential within LA s fashion industry. October 2009 she was invited by the German government to be part of a global delegation on sustainability and the creative arts. February 2007 she was invited by the French Government to participate in a delegation to visit France to discuss copyright issues that affect both branded labels in France and the US. In November 2007 Frances was invited to present at Shanghai University about the certified job training she has developed at the FBI. She was recently invited to be a member of the US Department of Export Council (DEC). Frances s past professional experience included having her own name under license in Japan, designing a line for Pricilla Presley for Home Shopping, product development for the Royal House of Brunei and extensive European professional experience both as an educator and designer. She left her position as a full time Associate Professor at Otis College of Art and Design in LA in 1999 to found and direct the development of the Fashion Business Incorporated.