How fashion designers can make money through computer-aided design — Expert

The fashion industry has high return rates, with up to 28.8%, and most of these returns are due to size and fit issues.

Estimates suggest a 10-15% loss on the original value per returned item. Beyond the returned item itself, retailers lose money on processing returns, including shipping costs.

In bid to reduce these losses, Henrietta Agboola organised a workshop under the Tech Meets Fashion series to teach fashion designers about computer-aided design for digital pattern making.

The workshop aimed to inform, inspire, and empower players in the fashion industry to embrace new and enhanced methods and practices that technology provides.

The first workshop was held on April 7th, 2024, where participants were introduced to digital pattern-making software and the opportunities in digital pattern-making in different industries, including the apparel industry.

With computer-aided design, pattern makers can save time and add precision to the creation of patterns, improving the fit and reducing returns.

“Patterns are the building blocks of garment manufacturing, and getting pattern-making right will greatly reduce poor fitting and hence returns on clothes purchased or made for a customer,” she told TRIBUNE ONLINE.

According to her, she created the Tech Meets Fashion series of workshops as a corporate social responsibility initiative of Fashion and Art Academy, the skills transfer division of House of Henri, to address the knowledge gaps she has seen in the Nigerian fashion sector.

The workshop concluded with an interactive question and answer session with Henrietta Agboola.

Future workshops in the Tech Meets Fashion series will cover other transformational technologies shaping the global fashion industry.