TOJ - updates on the debacle, complaints, news about other ventures, whatever.

[Renalan]



Perfect...just when it starts to cool down.

Just as planned, right?

 

[sexonfabric]



People who ordered at the deadline should be looking at 12 weeks minimum. So at the earliest about September 1, depending on how popular the jacket you ordered was.

You think? I'm approaching 13 weeks on my baseball...I'd imagine it was busier come deadline day?

 

[willy cheesesteak]



was there ever a toj varsity done with suede sleeves?

Close: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

 

[89andy]

are you guys sizing the DR's shorter than Motos? Getting scared I might've sized the moto a bit long now lol.

 

[Dbear]

should just go w/ what they recommended. personally don't think they look good cropped on most people.

 

[otc]

Well obviously the mailman can and went and didn't drop off a jacket (though it could still happen soon).

I ordered a couple of days before the cutoff so maybe I got lucky and squeezed into a production run that will get it too me before september

 

[CHRK33]



You think? I'm approaching 13 weeks on my baseball...I'd imagine it was busier come deadline day?

In a similar boat, as I ordered my gray bball jacket on May 3rd. Not so patiently waiting.

Anybody receive their gray bball jacket yet and if so, when did you order?

 

[brad-t]

it will come when it comes

 

[CHRK33]



it will come when it comes

Fair enough...I can still wait impatiently. Not bitching, just asking around to pass the time.

 

[pronxs]

just read this.

a thought: drew, what would you do if a big name brand (like APC, etc) approaches you and design a one-time collection? you can do anything you want, with all the resources they have.

 

[impolyt_one]

sorry for the tracking number delays guys, been dealing with some personal stuff as I came back from Seoul. gonna send them today so that they beat most of the packages, though some should've rolled in by now. We are still working on stuff. There was a huge number of orders in the last week of May until the very last minutes, so keep in mind that we're not on the normal time frame anymore, just working as fast as we can. We aren't gonna rush things out and sacrifice the quality though, they have to be made the same exact way til the end. Otherwise it loses its point.

 

[impolyt_one]



just read this.
a thought: drew, what would you do if a big name brand (like APC, etc) approaches you and design a one-time collection? you can do anything you want, with all the resources they have.

What is the collection? Just some leather jackets? Some of them look a lot like your neighborhood friendly designer's...

Anyway, that is the age-old question - "what could I do if _________?" - and there are myriad answers to that.
If someone threw me a bone and said, here's a bunch of money, make nice clothes to sell, make them attractive enough to buy so that we make some money back - then that's easy. I don't think it works exactly that way, but then again, in some of those scenarios, it does work similarly I guess. APC seems to have that experimental itch, that desire to make nice clothes without having to stuff the bank on everything - sometimes it truly is just for fun. Sometimes, those things aren't even really appreciated that much, I mean, do you guys really care about the APC quilts or APC Madras by Jessica Ogden? APC has the jeans to make them a little money and they turn out a staple line of clothes, and then some fun stuff. I can appreciate that, but it's not necessarily even what I want to do - they always have a lot of filler still, I don't do filler just to have filler.

As you guys know, there's a bunch of stuff I've always wanted to make - most can't be justified in my position, there's a lot of time and money needed to make things happen sometimes. Clothes are a creation, and can involve several sub-recipes within a master recipe. At my scale, my kitchen is too small to turn out tons of those sub-recipes like a big kitchen with seemingly unlimited resources can. Say I wanted to make something in an exact fabric - well if I was big, I could just design the fabric and order it up, at big expense that will be recouped through sales. If I want Riri zippers to please the internet zipper experts, I'd have to order them up 6 months ahead of time hoping I'd get all the specs and lengths and executions and spare parts correct in one order, and then spend many thousands there. They'd please, but I can do things my way and not sacrifice the important things. At my level, I've got to go out there and parse through some choices, sometimes compromise on what it is I want in order to achieve a certain quality and feel. I usually have to give up color choices, and patterns are just a pipe dream often times, but I'd do something in a different color if it meant staying with the material content I want. I can't open a box of crayolas and point to a color and hope the exact color and quality of leather/kind of leather I want co-exists in one in-stock leather. Sometimes I hit the jackpot and get ahold of things like that whisky and red/greens/blue/graphite calfskin from Italy, but those are rare and I have to cherish them.
To be sure though, having larger resources would make for a bigger variety in the material pool alone. The scale of TOJ sales is actually there to support it, but the model is not set up so that I can invest tens of thousands into making something and exact way and then casting my dice to make sure everything sells out. That's the old retail model, and I think parts of it are broken. There's other models of retail nowadays, but I wouldn't want to do them that way either really - just my philosophy coming into play. Which kind of restaurant would you rather eat at - one where the food is all pre-made quite far in advance, and then set out like a buffet for nameless people to look at and graze on? Or a restaurant where people want to know your name so that they can make your order to your liking? To me, one suits personal style more.

There's a ton of upstart fashion designers all the time, a lot of them just want to make print tees, whatever, I dunno - but one thing is for certain, a lot of them just want the riches and to be famous, as if making clothes and the fame and fortune were supposed to go hand in hand. I almost feel that the distraction of that takes away from the product sometimes. It's often like the restaurant/bar business (haha, let me go on once again) where there's a glamorous allure to be in that business for many, but the reality of it is that these businesses require attention to certain areas to become great, and most don't do this. That's why so many restaurants/bars are ******, people have too many selfish reasons for having their businesses and don't care at all about the work they attach their names to, or they themselves actually think it's good stuff and that's what they want to offer.

In any case, the broader question - if I had more resources, would TOJ be better? Yes. Not even commensurately, probably exponentially.

 

[sexonfabric]

I'd be less interested if the UK summer wasn't so dire that jackets are a necessity, lol. Could do with some outerwear right about now, which sucks for late July. Couldn't even wear the baseball due to the daily downpours.

 

[mike1445]

I ordered at closing and I could care less how long it takes. To put in an order here you already know it is an unorthodox build-to-order business model, not Zappos.

 

[SeeYouInFour]

I could care less how long it takes.

I find that attitude rather impressive