Cake Clothing Blog

I’ve decided that what I would like todo with this blog is write a book about my experiences with developing a product in the Orient and marketing it. Eventually turn it into a book on how to develop and market a clothing line.

My experience over the last three years has been crazy. Working with China has been really difficult and I am still wrapping my head around it.

It started three years ago when I met Mimi at the Magic show in Vegas. She owned a label manufacturing company in Toronto. She had a sister factory in China, where she manufactured clothing. We soon started working together. I visited her factory in Markham. It was really impressive. She had really good clients like Calvin Klien. I thought she would be a trustworthy resource. Turned out she was not.

Not long after I started working with her I became frustrated. Her and her partner took a really long time to develop the first samples. When I did receive the samples they looked nothing like my specs. She also rarely returned my phone calls. After I saw the first set of samples I was so disappointed and upset I jumped on a plain to China to try to correct them before the season began. There I saw the Chinese slums for the first time. I think that most people would be better off going through life without seeing this part of the world.

This is the first time I met Raymond. Mimi had hired him as her apparel agent. There were 4 people involved in this project. This was 2 too many. At this time Raymond and I started talking prices and soon released Mimi was ripping us both off. So on top of being non-responsive and late on deliveries, she was also charging me double what she should have. As well as underpaying Raymond.

Well this season turned out as you would expect. Basically I overpaid for late product that looked nothing like my designs. Half of what I ordered I did not even receive. I also did not order anything for my store from other manufacturers because I was relying on my products to sell instead. I lost so much money that season. Not to mention the battle that began between Mimi and I.

She had developed a set of my samples to sell without my consent. I took her set back with me when I left China. After this she was ready for a fight. The amount of manipulation and lying I had todo to get my product through my doors was exhausting. When I finally did receive the stock it was pretty much dead-stock. As soon as I received the inventory, I had my lawyer contact Mimi to tell her that any further contact would be considered harassment.

Mimi knew Raymond and I had decided to continue working together without her. For months after that she harassed Raymond, constantly threatening him to sue him for “stealing” me as her client. This was my first introduction to working in the Orient. From then on I knew this was not going tobe the experience I had hoped it would be. Why I did not stop then I will never know. Oddly enough, it never even occurred to me to quit.