As a young fashion designer in Philadelphia, Donielle McKeever got a crash course in the laborious process of turning a sketch into a piece of clothing. She had to find contractors and manufacturers that could create patterns, adjust those patterns to make different sizes, and sew each skirt or blouse or dress. McKeever often had to use different factories for different types of clothing and place minimum orders far beyond what she was confident she could sell.
The process was so complex that at times she wondered if she was being taken advantage of, even unintentionally.
McKeever eventually started her own clothing factory in New Jersey, then moved on to consulting when she had her son, now 5, helping designers with production and development.
In January, McKeever put all this experience under one roof to open ThreadTech, a factory and fashion incubator housed in a 7,000-square-foot space in an old cotton mill in East Boston. McKeever considers it a “one-stop shop” that provides designers with everything they need to go from concept to distribution. No more hunting down multiple contractors to take on different parts of the process. No more hiring one factory — likely overseas — to make pants, and another to make shirts.
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