WannaHug
Meet WannaHug, a purpose-driven clothing brand inspired by founder William Hardcastle’s experiences living and working in Seattle. Moved by the city’s wealth disparity, William created a brand that combines high-quality apparel with philanthropy, empowering customers to make a difference with every purchase.
The Designer: William Hardcastle
William Hardcastle is the founder of Wanna Hug, a purpose-driven clothing brand that emerged from his time in Seattle. While working as a commercial diver, William and his wife were deeply impacted by the stark contrast between the city’s wealth and the needs of its underserved communities. This disparity inspired him to create a brand that not only provides high-quality clothing but also empowers consumers to make a meaningful impact. With every purchase, customers can choose a donation, enabling them to contribute to positive change at no additional cost.
The Problem & Opportunity
Design and create high-quality apparel that customers want to buy while generating a profit and enabling the brand to donate crucial items to those in need, such as socks, beanies, and pillows.
The Goal: Design high-quality apparel that customers will want to buy, be proud to wear, and feel good about supporting.
The Obstacles
William wanted to create a unique brand model focused on quality and transparency but would also generate profit and make philanthropic goals possible. He had high expectations for the brand and the process and encountered financial constraints, timeline adjustments, and several production hurdles along the way.
The Project
William had several concepts that he was working with for his brand. He needed to focus on the primary items that would drive demand and revenue while offering additional items that were available primarily for donation purposes.
Timeline
William worked with MADE over the course of three to four months. During the project, Heather helped him finalize the designs of his apparel and build comprehensive tech packs to prepare him for manufacture. At the end of the project, he had seven garments ready for release by the year-end.
The Process
Illustration Stage
Heather helped William narrow down his ideas and get the concepts onto paper. His final design choices were a hoodie and lounge pants as the primary revenue drivers.
Create Renders
Next, MADE created renders to display the hoodie and lounge pant designs on realistic 3D virtual models. This process helped William choose fabrics that best suited his concept and looked the way he’d envisioned.
Sewn Samples
Once William finalized his design and fabric choices, MADE created professional patterns for each garment and sewed samples for William to test with real people. The testing phase is essential!
Tech Pack
With development completed, it was time to create comprehensive tech packs for each of the designs so William would have everything he needed to successfully find a manufacturer to make his product. His primary goal was to find a manufacturer with excellent communication skills.
Outcomes
Without Heather’s help, William felt he’d be lost trying to break into the industry as a new designer. However, because he had the support and guidance of her expertise, he learned a lot of lessons about product development and avoided expensive setbacks. He also gained much-needed confidence in the process of getting to manufacturing and what to expect.
Wanna Hug now has seven garments in production and is due to release them all by the end of the year.
William learned several valuable lessons through the product design and development phase, including:
The importance of realistic timelines, thorough planning, and cost control.
How to balance quality with cost efficiency and prioritizing necessary features over nice-to-have features.
How to maintain momentum through passion, persistence, and effective relationship management.
How to budget for a new product: his estimated start-up costs were $1,500-$3,000 per garment to do everything properly, with an overall investment of $50,000.
Conclusion
William was very grateful to have worked with Heather on his design. He knew from our website that MADE Apparel Services would support him every step of the way, from his original concept to fully preparing for manufacture. Thanks to Heather’s help, Wanna Hug was ready for manufacture and first sales in less than a year!
Do you have an idea to improve a product? Have reference images ready to go? Book a consultation with Heather to discuss pattern-making. Not sure where you are in the process? Check out our “How It Works” page for answers.