We were lucky to catch up with Marifer Gomez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marifer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge to profitability with crochet is being able to find customers that want to invest and plan for a custom order. In an era where you can get a multitude of outfits for under $20 delivered directly to your door, it can be difficult to find people that not only want to plan months in advance at times and invest more in one single piece. That is why I focused more on making smaller items and selling them in person at local events.

Those same events lead me to the people that do want custom orders on top of the sales I was getting from them. Figuring out what does sell and what I wanted to make was difficult. There were times I had ideas that simply didn’t sell or it took years to finally sell. Other ideas like beanies which always sell, I refused to make for a while because it was boring and time consuming to make. I do still make them sometimes but I try to use colors that you don’t see everywhere. Ive also had seasonal ideas that are incredibly popular for just one season. Thats the thing with fashion design, its constant adjustment and new ideas every season and I do it because I love it, it’s not for everyone but it is for me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Marifer and I crochet custom clothing. FER is not only the name of my brand but what my family calls me. I am a slow fashion business that focuses on making custom crochet pieces and ready to wear pieces that I sell at local events. I learned to crochet at the age of 12 by my grandma then advanced my skill through youtube. I try to set up my morning weekday schedule like any day job and crochet for a certain period of time usually 4-6 hours. I also have to make sure I take consistent stretching breaks, although I have had days where I go hours without stopping.

I am most proud when someone connects with one of my designs. They almost always purchase said item and I always feel like it was meant to be. Even better when I get tagged by them and I can see how they choose to style/present it.

I hope people can feel comfortable reaching out to me so that they can tell me exactly what they want knowing I will be the one making their custom piece.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built my audience on social media by vending at local events with ready to wear crochet pieces while also promoting that I make custom crochet. People are able to see in person the quality of my work then follow me on social media to see my past projects and finally are able to plan and message me for a custom order. It especially helps to keep it local for me because it’s easier to organize fittings for larger orders. I knew going into this I wanted to create slow fashion, which can sometimes mean slow growth as well.
The best advice I can give to anyone just starting their social media presence is to be consistent and never give up. Even if its slowly growing, the best thing you can do is be consistent. Most people are not going to be overnight successes and even the ones that look like they were, aren’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t take a break when needed. Also don’t be afraid to collaborate with others when it comes to posting, it’s a genuine way to expand both your audiences.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The beginning of the pandemic I, just like millions of others, was let go of my restaurant job. I knew I wanted to do something with fashion design and that was time to get back into it. I went from scared to mad to relieved to thankful. I started to connect with my neighbors which led me to making my first custom crochet order, the star top. I didn’t learn to crochet during the pandemic, that I learned by the grandma at the age of 12. What I did learn was how to crochet bigger items. I started an instagram account and got together with my new friends/neighbors to organize photoshoots. I was even able to get a few customers through social media. It’s exactly what I always wanted to do. I didn’t think it would be with crochet, but I happened to fall in love with it. I feel like I started at the perfect time because a year later everything opened up and I got to start vending in my community and actually getting to know the people that live around me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: fer.collections_

Image Credits

Marifer (Myself)