Project 02
NOIREX
A clothing brand I built from scratch — finding a manufacturer, learning materials and production techniques, using AI to communicate ideas to vendors, and building a following before the first drop even landed.
I had no contacts in apparel manufacturing and no idea where to start. I spent weeks going through directories, cold-messaging factories on IndiaMART and Instagram, and getting ghosted by most of them. The ones that did reply quoted minimums I couldn't meet or sent back samples so far off the brief it wasn't worth continuing.
Eventually I found a vendor in India who was willing to work at a smaller scale and actually engaged with the design properly. Getting there took a lot of back-and-forth — quotations, sampling rounds, revised measurements — but it taught me how production actually works when there's no middleman doing it for you.
First sample arriving from the vendor
Part of figuring out manufacturing was understanding what I was actually asking for. I went deep on fabric weights, GSM, and cotton blends. Fleece-backed cotton was the move for the hoodie — heavy enough to feel premium but not stiff.
The prints were the part I was most deliberate about. I didn't want flat screen printing. Puff print gives the graphic dimension — it raises off the fabric and catches light differently depending on the angle. Getting the vendor to execute it correctly took several rounds of samples. The first came back with uneven raise and inconsistent edges. The final version landed the way I'd pictured it.
The finished puff print — text raises off the fabric surface
One problem I ran into early: it's hard to communicate a design vision to a manufacturer over WhatsApp. Words alone don't work — either they interpret something differently or you realise mid-explanation that you haven't thought it through yourself.
I started generating AI mockups to show vendors exactly what I meant. Colour placement, graphic positioning, hoodie silhouette — all laid out visually before any physical sample was made. It cut down revision cycles significantly. The same mockups ended up becoming the Instagram teaser content, with the product intentionally blurred out to build anticipation before the reveal.
Ghost-mannequin mockup used to show the vendor the back design
The Coming Soon teaser — AI mockup used as the first public reveal on Instagram
When the final samples came in they were close to what I'd drawn up. The flat-lay shot of the back text was one of the first photos I took — seeing "Inspired by the fear of being average" properly printed on the hoodie made the whole process feel real.
Flat lay of the finished hoodie
I ran the @noirexclothing account myself from the start. The approach was to build tension before anything was available — teaser stories that hinted at the product without showing it fully, then a gradual reveal as samples came in.
The first post hit over 1,000 followers without any paid promotion. I designed each story and post in-house, wrote the copy, and timed drops to match when the audience was most active. It was the first time I'd run a brand account with real stakes attached to it, and it showed me how much the framing of a launch matters — not just what you post, but in what order and why.
- Cold outreach to manufacturers — IndiaMART, Instagram DMs, rejections and all
- Fabric selection: GSM, cotton blends, fleece backing
- Puff print production and the sample revision process
- AI-generated mockups as a vendor communication tool
- Running a brand Instagram from zero — content, copy, timing
- Building a following before a product is available to buy
- The gap between having an idea and holding the physical thing