Parsons Teen Vogue: My MockUp

As I am learning various interesting production techniques in my online certificate program "Fashion Industry Essentials" by Parsons Teen Vogue I am also able to learn new stuffs like making a mock up of a bag and fastening the bag with various items. In short this course is also helping to build my knowledge about crafts and design. So, today's assignment by Parsons Teen Vogue is to create a bag using light card stock, muslin or any kind of fabric. Then after creating the bag I must calculate my cost of total raw materials used, total wages (hours multiplied by estimated profit) production cost, profit and therefore determine an estimated retail price, which can be done by asking a friend to tell me what would they pay for the bag and therefore he or she should come up with estimated price.

So, here is a table describing what I have used to make my mock up tote bag.

Mock Up Of My Bag
Light Card Stock	2.50
Rubber Bands	2
Glue Stick	1
Stapler Pins	0.5
0.20 Hours @ 10	2
Total Production Cost	8
30% Profit	2.4
Total cost Plus Profit	10.4
Estimated Retail Price	22

Above table shows the list of prices for the items that I used for making mock up tote bag. I multiplied the amount of time it took me to finish making the bag (2 hours) by the amount I expect to be paid per hour if I worked for retail store, which is my total wage expected.Therefore the total cost is all the materials cost plus the wage, $8.  I also assumed that I would be making 30% profit by selling the mock tote bag. Therefore I multiplied the total production cost by 30% to find out my total profit, $2.4. My total cost plus profit is higher ($10.4) than my expected wage of $10. However the estimated retail price which I have found by asking a fashion forward friend is much higher, $22. Therefore my friend thinks this item can be sold at a much higher price of $22. Therefore every time I sell each of this tote bag would give me a profit of $11.6.

Here is a picture of my mock up tote bag. I would love to hear your estimated retail price, therefore the amount you would like to pay for the tote bag.

The mock up section of parsons Teen Vogue gave me the opportunity not only to learn about production cost of fashion business but also to understand the most crucial part: the designing of a product. Without learning how to design a product, understanding the production cost of any business would be a difficult task.