How to start a clothing brand: Aziz Musa on a premium jalabiya label for the UK

When someone has clearly thought an idea through, Aziz feels a responsibility to reply, and to make the reply an episode others can use. His view of ideas is blunt: none is good or bad on its own. Execution decides.

The follower has a British-Sudanese background and wants to sell a premium jalabiya, the long robe Sudanese men wear, to two groups: Sudanese people in the UK, and anyone who likes clothing from other cultures. He asked how to position the brand, how to tell the two groups apart, and which channels will reach them.

The two groups, Aziz says, are completely different. For a Sudanese man, a jalabiya is not just something to wear. It is an experience. But someone who wants a really good one goes to a tailor, often one who has worked in the same spot for 40 years, as his father did before him.

The tailor measures, and the customer decides every detail: two large pockets here, a small one for keys, the buttons, the collar. Egyptian cotton makes a difference, but in Aziz's view fabric is the smaller part. So for this group, a "high-quality" jalabiya sold only in standard sizes is, as he puts it, impossible. For the second group, ready-made can be high quality in every sense.

Every online seller faces the same problem: how do you sell something the customer cannot touch? Aziz points out that Amazon began with books; HistoryLink records that it launched on 16 July 1995 as an online bookseller. A book is the same book wherever you buy it. Aziz calls the space between what you see online and what arrives at your door "the perceptual reality gap". For books it is close to zero; for clothes it is wide.

Good photography, video, buyer reviews and clear size charts all narrow it. The Sudanese customer needs more, because for him the measurements are the quality. So the founder's first question: will he make each jalabiya to order, or sell fixed sizes?

If he makes to order, Aziz suggests an app. Apple's Measure app already measures a person's height instantly on supported iPhones. An app could take a full set of measurements from one photo, let the customer choose colours, buttons and pockets, and have the jalabiya tailored to that.

Someone might object that two jalabiyas would end up identical. This is the central idea of the episode. Buy two that match in every detail, one from a size on a website and one you specified yourself, and you will feel differently about the second.

"Don't imagine that high quality comes only from the product. It comes from how the customer feels."

His practical advice: ask the Sudanese community what high quality means to them. Then find a tailor through a friend anywhere in the Arab world, pay for an hour of his time, and ask about every decision he makes while measuring, so the app can carry that knowledge.

For the second group, quality rests on the brand's reputation, the fabric and the way the product arrives. A Sudanese buyer may be happy with a jalabiya in a plastic bag if it is exactly what he ordered. A British buyer expects a box lined with good paper, a card telling the history of the jalabiya in Sudan, his name on it, and string around it. The unboxing experience carries much of the feeling of quality.

Aziz links it to buyer's regret, the feeling of wishing you had not bought something by the time you get home. Marketing works to stop it, and the box helps because you see it before the product.

Every advertising channel, Aziz says, lets you filter. For the British audience, target people who like music from other cultures, or who travel more than three times a year. The Sudanese audience will select itself, and for them price is not the main issue: this is the real thing.

Post content everywhere: TikTok, Instagram, X, Snapchat and YouTube. For paid media, start with Meta rather than Google. In his estimate very few people in the UK search Google for a jalabiya, while Meta can find likely buyers without much data from you.

Sudanese customers influence each other. When two or three men wear your jalabiya to Eid prayers, word spreads. But Aziz notes from his own family that while women buy much of what a household needs, a man buys his own jalabiya, and may be quietly pleased and say nothing. So give him a reason to talk, such as a discount code for his football and fantasy football groups.

The community is close-knit in cities such as Cardiff and Manchester. Aziz suggests a discount for doctors, whose word carries weight whatever the subject, plus Sudanese influencers in the UK and Sudanese singers who play concerts for the community. But one bad experience after a sale will damage your chances with all of them.

Aziz closes with two warnings. You will spend money before you succeed, and growth will be slow because the audience is small. Do not expect hundreds of orders in the first week; you may get none in the first month. It may then take off suddenly, perhaps, he suggests, in the last week of the following Ramadan, if the first buyers are happy. His advice is patience, patience and patience.

Before you start, define year-one success. Is it 50 jalabiyas, 100 or 1,000? Work out your spend, margin and delivery costs, then halve your expectation, and halve it again. If it works in the UK, the same system can go to the US, Canada and the rest of Europe. To check an idea before spending on it, listen to the episode on how to test a business idea, and see how we build marketing strategy for clients.