TRINI
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2006
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STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.
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I applaud the author's effort and spirit. A more interesting take, however, would be to show that bespoke tailors don't earn much money from their work, and part of that is due to 1) the handwork involved in good tailoring and 2) the process of conducting multiple fittings. That's essentially why MTM is much more profitable. You don't have to constantly alter the jacket until it fits perfectly.
From there, he could have discussed the differences in scalability even within the realm of bespoke tailoring. For example, someone cutting from block patterns and having salesmen going all around the world measuring and fitting clients is going to have a lot more scalability than someone who cuts rock of eye, and has to do all the fitting himself. Thomas Mahon and Edwin Steed make some of the best garments in the world, but it's a shame they have the least scalable/ profitable business models. Everything is essentially done by them - from the measuring to the cutting to the fitting, etc. That problem is inherent in their cutting method - rock of eye - versus things such as using block patterns or drafting formulas (things which you can more easily adapt to the model where you have someone else fit the client).
Again, great to have something like this published in The NYT, but it was also disappointingly superficial.