There is a difference between making noise and attracting consumer interest intelligently through education about the craft, the art and the user satisfaction that follows. Some do it better than others.
I agree with a good deal of what you say here and especially the above since there are a few SR houses doing a fine job at communicating responsibly.
But I have seen a strong uptick in the last year or so in complaints about shoddy work and rushed (and equally shoddy) service from young men who have heard the SR siren’s song, made the leap and wound up with a mouthful of shattered teeth as thanks. That tells me that the houses are creating more demand than they can handle. That is bad business in any business. And that means they are not communicating well.
Some appear to think that a drive for customer acquisition necessarily leads to a decline in quality. Interesting notion, but I tend to think that the causal relationship might exist elsewhere.
I think it is rather too much customer acquisition that directly leads to the inability of firms to deliver at appropriate quality levels consistently.
We know what goes into making a quality bespoke garment. It is not something that can be made industrially or on a large scale. By definition, it has to remain artisanale to remain genuine. If bespoke stops being genuine, as Frank and Chris warn, it risks losing its cache. If it does that it loses old clients and new ones.
A few years ago, SR made it clear they wanted to attract the young financial wizs in the city to bespoke. So they hired fashion writers, advertised like fashion brands and set about the task to rival fashion. They succeeded. These young guys now come and order a dozen suits that SR can’t make. Bravo. If I only had a
lingot for every time I heard this refrain, ‘Look I tried bespoke from a great firm and the clothes did not work at all. I am going back to RTW, at least I know what I am getting and am treated well.” It is better not to have that customer than damage your trade’s goodwill by selling to him.
Yes, there are factories making excellent mass produced garments in America and Italy. I have visited them and they are first rate operations. But they are not making hand crafted, benchmade, custom clothing.
In the days before RTW, the factories must have been similar to the large ones we see today. There are rows upon rows of tailors sitting at sewing machines, others doing some hand work and others finishing on a well designed assembly line. But alongside those factories, there were the smaller, more quality operations on Savile Row. Even though they were bigger and produced more garments a year than today, they were not factories in any sense of the word. They were ateliers. And they were set up to deliver more garments at the quality levels consistent with their place at the top of the market. That is simply not the case today.
Bespoke cannot compete with fashion. And fashion cannot compete with bespoke. They are two different business models, with their own cost structures and distribution methods. Fashion has zero product cost and high marketing costs. Their supply, at consistent quality levels, is like water running from a faucet. Open it when you need to, close it when you need to. And the distribution channel for these general commodity products is well founded and efficient.
Bespoke has large infrastructure, materials and productions costs in house that cannot be easily outsourced. To maintain margins were they need to be they cannot spend a great deal on marketing unless they want to operate at a loss. The supply of materials and finished product at consistent quality levels is uncertain and difficult. Bespoke has no established routes to market except inefficient traveling tailor schemes that lose more new clients than they gain. (Tough love but that is the truth.)
You cannot put a niche, high value product into generalist distribution. To do so you have to change your value and cost model and enter the lower value levels. That is what some of us fear is happening.
From personal point of view, I am indifferent since I am not their customer. But I do think it is a shame we lose the cache of the institutions.
Cheers
Michael
