How to Start an Abaya Brand

Not design. Almost everyone starting a brand has a clear idea of what they want to make. What stops them is the gap between a reference picture and a garment somebody can buy.

That gap is usually three things. Minimum orders in the hundreds, from factories set up for volume rather than launches. Suppliers who want a technical pack the founder has no way to produce. And the cost of finding out a design cannot be made — or cannot be made at the price it needs to sell at — only after paying for it.

The 8-piece minimum exists for exactly this. A first run can be four designs at eight pieces rather than one design at eighty, which is the difference between testing a brand and betting on one. The brands that survive their first year are almost always the ones that found out early which design sold.

We will not quote you a margin, because the right one depends on your market, and anyone who gives you a universal number has not thought about it. But two things are worth knowing before you order.

The first is that fabric choice moves your cost per piece more than quantity does at these volumes. Moving down a tier changes your landed cost far more than ordering sixteen instead of eight.

The second is that the cost of the garment is not the cost of the business. Photography, packaging, delivery, returns and the ads to get the first hundred customers are all real, and founders routinely budget for the first and not the rest. Ask us for a landed cost per piece including your labels and packaging, so at least that part of the maths is firm.

Yes. We supply wholesale buyers in many countries and deliver worldwide in 10–15 days, so your location affects shipping time and your own import arrangements, not whether we can work together.

Ordering is done over WhatsApp or email, which is how nearly all of it happens in practice — you send the design, we talk it through, and the pieces ship to you. There is no need to visit, though you are welcome to.