What’s a $4,000 Suit Worth? - Page 7

Originally Posted by celery 

This is all true, but it is a huge leap for an artisan to make. I'll myself as an example, I make leather bags one by one, cut, hand-stitched and finished by me. I'm the whole team, sitting at a table (upgraded from living room floor) doing the work. At most, I could probably crank out 4-5 bags per week. And that's if they're simple to construct. I can usually do 1-3 bags.
Working in small batches increases your unit cost as I can't buy leather hides in bulk (first of all I don't have the capital to buy 1,000 hides or anywhere to store them). Same for brass fittings, thread, needles, dye, top finishes, etc. So if I were to ramp up my business, I'd still be constrained by my own ability to produce, it's a fairly fixed rate. So my only hope is that my quality continues to improve (until it plateaus) and that I gain enough demand through word of mouth that higher prices can be sustained.
And this part is important, once you pass a certain threshold of price, you begin to compete with different people. My first year I essentially worked for free and ended the year in the red (I'm supporting myself through traditional office job means) just so I could get traffic. It wasn't too difficult to sell product because my prices were very cheap compared to even non-luxury items. As my prices rise, I know that once I get into a certain zone, I will be competing against some very good and well known brands - can I hang in that arena at all? Probably not right now, so I won't go there.
That's where the artisan finds a hard spot. Mr. Frew might make really exceptional things, but if he continues to raise his prices, it becomes a question of who he's competing against. If he's competitive and has orders in the $4000 market, that doesn't mean he can compete against really big players who can factory produce items at the same price. Kind of a weird balancing act, you move when you can.
Basically, building a brand is a massive feat and not as simple as opening a store on Madison Ave. You need recognition, and to be seen as a status indicator - hence the success of branded items. So it would take a huge investment to create an operation similar to what you speak of, and he would be bottle-necked by production once again. He could toss out some of his values and split into mainline / diffusion line and have off the peg suits made in China for $1,500 to pay the bills while continuing his bespoke work, but it's a dangerous route to take.
Once that happens, if he finds success in it, it becomes very tempting to drop the quality altogether and just mass produce everything (you've seen it happen many times - it's an old story). It's a shame we (society) don't nourish artisans as much as we should.
Personally, I know that slow, one at a time, hand constructed production isn't the path to riches. But I do it anyway, just because I want it to exist. I may eventually give it up, but I hope to have a positive impact in a sea of mass manufactured disposables.