Detroit Garment Group's DGG Fashion Incubator  at TechTown in Detroit will allow serious Michigan-based designers at high-skill levels to create collections, with access to industrial machinery and design software, plus monthly educational workshops, and mentors for guidance in a variety of areas crucial to the success of a fashion brand, from legal and finance to marketing and sales.

The greatest need of our fashion community is business-related education. It is common for college-level fashion programs to not include any type of business education. Designers graduate with the means to only work for others. They know how to design, but they don’t know how to become entrepreneurs. Most of the local fashion designers we interact with want to remain in Michigan and launch their own lines, but they don’t know the first thing about sourcing, pricing, branding, etc. Our incubator, which hosts 10 designers at a time, for a one- to two-year period, will overcome those limitations, giving the designers the know-how to successfully launch a take a brand from concept to sales and delivery. 

The first designers-in-residence have been announced, and they start working and learning at the incubator on November 2, 2015.

We are seeking $40,000 to fully fund the incubator. We have brought in approximately $20k so far, which has allowed us to launch, but we still need funding to finish outfitting the incubator and provide all the educational programming the designers in residence will utilize throughout the year. 

Learn more about DGG at www.detroitgarmentgroup.org. We are a registered 501(c)(3) public charity, cultivating education and economic development opportunities for Michigan's fashion community, as well as cut and sew manufacturers of all industries.