As a fashion designer, you should have an avenue to showcase your designs — whether for people to book you or for them to make a custom outfit appointment.
And what better place to showcase your designs than through a website?
“But I don’t have any clue on how to make a fashion designer website…”
That’s where we come in.
Here, we’re going to teach you how to do just that in 6 steps. Plus, we’ll be using beginner-friendly platforms, such as Bluehost and WordPress.
So are you ready to learn?
Let’s go!
Video Tutorial – How to Make a Fashion Designer Website
Are you a visual learner? Here’s a video tutorial on creating a website with BlueHost and WordPress:
The 6 Steps to Creating a Fashion Designer Website
Here are the 6 steps to making your fashion designer website:
- Plan your website
- Get a domain and hosting
- Set up WordPress
- Choose a theme
- Add pages
- Play around
Okay, let’s look at the details.
Step #1: Plan Your Website
Creating a website might seem a bit too overwhelming for most people, even if they have user-friendly tools at their fingertips.
Well, to prevent that, we always recommend planning your website first before getting down to the technical stuff.
Let’s see how you can do that.
Planning Your Website: Know Your Customers
The branding and design separate a fashion designer from the rest of the pack. It’s not enough that you have a set of designs but cannot communicate this to your target audience.
So let’s start with answering these questions — who are your target audience? Who are the people who are going to wear your designs?
Knowing the question to that will help you create your brand. This way, you get an idea of how best to talk to them, what tone to use, what color palette is appropriate, and what style you wish to create for your website.
Planning Your Website: Create a Brand
Now that you know who your customers are, it’s time to look inward and create your brand as a fashion designer.
You can skip this part and scroll to the next section if you already have one. But if you are still struggling to know your brand, this is an excellent place to start.
Your brand is the concept that people remember you with. But what makes a brand relatable is its story. This story can be about your vocation as a fashion designer or the why of your brand.
Once you have that, you can now create a brand logo with the colors that best define your brand. Remember, the fashion industry is very visual. Hence, a brand logo and your colors are a must.
Planning Your Website: Identify the Assets that You Need
As we said, the fashion industry is very visual. So your website should always be in its best appearance. Otherwise, people will not appreciate your work. If so, they might not even stay on your website.
What separates a fashion designer’s website from many other websites is that it has to be organized and stylish at the same time. It should always be true to your brand, from copy to media.
With that said, it might be in your best interest to hire a copywriter and a graphic designer for your images and videos.
Speaking of media, you’re going to need a lot of photos of your designs – whether worn or not. Of course, it’s always best to have someone model your work so that people can visualize your creations on themselves.
If you don’t have a team that handles these things, this is where you decide to reach out to professionals to help create the content and the copy that you need for your site.
Step #2: Get a Domain and Hosting
Now we’re getting into the more technical stuff.
Before creating a website, you first need to have a domain name and a web host.
The best way to find the web host that fits your website’s needs is by knowing what factors are important to you. In the case of fashion designer websites, these will be heavy on photos and videos, so it’s best to look for a web host that offers a lot of storage.
A web host that’s also known to have fast loading speeds will be a great option. Since you have a lot of files, this may affect the overall speed of your site.
To combat this, look for a web host with a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that helps speed up your site’s performance.
We choose Bluehost because it can offer all that. On its most basic Shared Hosting plan, you already get 10 GB of storage and a free CDN.
Bluehost is also a partner of WordPress, making it easy for you to build your website with WordPress features.
Getting a Domain and Web Host with Bluehost: Picking Your Plan
We love Bluehost because it has a lot of hosting types and plans.
Since you’re only starting, it’s best to go with a Shared Hosting plan that is affordable and scalable. Bluehost’s basic plan is only $2.95 a month if you purchase for 12 months.
As you go up the tiers, you’ll be able to get more freebies with your plans, such as higher storage, Yoast SEO Free, regular backups, and so much more.
At the end of the day, the plan that suits you will be the one that is within your budget and can give you amazing site performance. So take the time to look through the plans carefully.
Getting a Domain and Web Host with BlueHost: Register Your Domain
Already picked a plan? Then it’s time to register your domain.
If you don’t have any name in mind yet, you can always start with your brand’s name unless it’s hard to spell.
The reason behind this is that your domain name will act as a search keyword. Make it more complicated, and people will find it hard to find your website.
The rule of thumb is to make your domain name as simple as possible, without special characters.
Adding words such as “design,” “fashion,” or other related keywords to the fashion industry will help make your domain name easier to find on the Internet.
Once you have a domain name, you can go back to Bluehost, select a plan, and start registering your domain.
Getting a Domain Name and Web Host with Bluehost: Sign Up for an Account
After registering your domain, you can proceed to create an account.
Bluehost will only ask for your basic information and the package you wish to get. Like most web hosts, Bluehost will give you a discount on their monthly fee if you get a 12-month subscription.
As you can see from the pictures above, there is also an option to include some package extras for a small fee.
Since you’re building a fashion website with a lot of files, we suggest you get the Codeguard Basic as an add-on. This software allows you to create backups anytime.
Once you’ve picked the added features to your plan, just input your payment information to finish creating your account with Bluehost.
As simple as that.
Step #3: Set Up WordPress
Once you’re granted an account, you can start building your website!
As we said earlier, we recommend starting with WordPress as it’s one of the most user-friendly CMS in the industry.
And if you’ve gone with Bluehost, you won’t have to install WordPress separately. Each Bluehost plan already has it pre-installed. All you have to do is log into it.
To do that, go to your Bluehost account’s homepage, and click the WordPress login at the top right corner.
This redirects you to the WordPress homepage, where you can access tools and features directly.
Step #4: Choose a Theme
Remember what we said about branding and fashion designer websites being very visual? Keep those in mind as we create the design of your site.
Let’s start with the theme. The theme is like your overall design of the website. It includes the color, copy, font size, and font style of your content.
This is where branding comes in.
Now, to get started with the theme, go to Appearance > Themes.
This brings you to your library of themes. Right now, there aren’t any themes available because you just started.
To create or use a new theme, click the ‘Add New’ at the upper left portion of the page.
Search for the theme you want by starting with the keyword “fashion.” Pick from the available themes that fit your brand.
There’s a high chance that you will find a theme you like, but it just doesn’t have the right colors or font style. The good news is that you can always customize a theme.
Click on the theme that you like, and Activate it.
Once it’s available in your library, just hover your mouse over the theme of choice and click ‘Customize.’
Here’s a snapshot of all the elements that you can customize in each theme.
You can change the background image, widgets, template, and of course, the colors. Always remember to keep within your branding guidelines so that people can have that association with your brand.
Step #5: Add Pages
When you’re done customizing your theme, you can start adding pages.
The difference between designing pages and designing a theme is that, for the former, you already include all the media files and the copy that each page needs to have. In the latter, you’re just doing an overarching creative direction that the other pages will follow.
To create a new page, hover your mouse over the ‘Pages’ feature on the left side and pick ‘Add New’.
Every page will have the same blank layout with a few text blocks. Fill up each block depending on how you envision each page will be.
For example, if you’re doing a homepage, you don’t want to have a lot of text there. Instead, you want to have a captivating cover photo with your brand’s name and caption (if any).
It should also show a glimpse of your designs. Make sure that when you have pictures, they will lead to other web pages on your site.
Don’t forget that each page should have a good number of photos. Fashion designer websites always have a lot of photos. Of course, to balance it out, have some text with minimal words.
Step #6: Play Around
The last part is the designing of your web pages. Here, we encourage you to explore WordPress features available to you – plugins, tools, and photos.
Sure, Bluehost has a large library of stock photos, but we say use your photos so that they are more aligned with your brand. Besides, your designs should be the main attraction, not some generic stock photos.
If you want to see the list of the web pages your site has, hover your mouse over the ‘Pages’ feature and click ‘All Pages.’
Here, you’ll find the title of the page, the description, and the date you last made edits to it.
Don’t forget to check the mobile version of your website. With more and more people using their smartphones to access websites, we recommend looking at what your site will look like on a phone.
Fortunately, Bluehost automatically adjusts your site to fit mobile and tablet screens, as seen below:
Finishing Your Website
Et voila! You now have (or know how to make) a fashion designer website.
If you think about it, the steps are easy, perfect for designers who don’t know how to program or don’t have a web developer on their team.
The only thing that might make this process difficult is branding and design. But don’t worry, as long as you have an idea of who you want your customers to be, you will be fine.
Good luck in your fashion endeavors!