Both suits and dress shoes have bespoke service, and bespoke tailoring is the main foothold of this article.
Let me start with two phenomena. One is that last year and this year, the business of the vast number of tailoring shops in China fell sharply. It may not be too much to use the word “waist cutting off”. The other is the top bespoke shoemakers all over the world basically cannot fulfill their piling up orders, while the sales of Ready To Wear shoes are not so optimistic, and John Lobb has a discount page in official website.
Why is there such a phenomenon?
It can be described in some very short words, such as macroeconomics, consumption degradation, polarization between the rich and the poor and so on.
But I want to talk more deeply.
The business model of most tailoring stores in China is to choose a back-end factory, yes, most of them use factories, and a few use workshops. Then they may not even have their own pattern, just use the factory version and then open the door to welcome guests.
Such mode solves some problems still, such as fit. Although most guests have no concept of fit, most of the time, they are better than ready-made clothes, at least the sleeves and bust are right.
If the front-end, that is, the tailoring shop and the factory cooperate tacitly, don’t underestimate the ability of the factory, which may be the top level or even handle very special body shape.
Such stores face the biggest impact in the face of the economic downturn. After all, the clothes are not cheap, most of the customers who come to the store are demand-oriented customers, mainly business or weddings.
The longer-term threat to such shops is that factories also have the impulse to contact customers directly, and with the progress of technology, whether front-end service personnel are needed or whether this proportion will decline, the answer is likely to be yes.
Let’s think about the difference between ready-made clothes and bespoke.
The most reasonable explanation is that the development cost cannot be shared with volume. In other words, the difference between industrialization and personalization. Let’s look back at the customized stores of the format I mentioned above. They are actually a combination of the two, and the proportion of industrialization is not low. Of course, I have not denied the direct connection between people, emotional value, etc., but the risks that this format may suffer from the general trend.
Capitalism in its natural state must be Matthew effect, polarization, and the intermediate is the most unstable. It is said that the spindle distribution of social wealth is the best, with the largest number of middle classes and very few top and bottom classes. However, first of all, when China opened his eyes to see the world after the reform and opening-up, that world was not in normal condition, just because the world war caused by the Nazis made the west know how devastating the extreme gap between the rich and the poor was, and the hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union also made the beautiful side of the socialist concept more exposed and thought. Only in this way can there be a vast middle class in the west. You go and have a look again today. Over the past 30 years, the gap between the rich and the poor in the world has been widening, and the middle class has returned to the bottom in large numbers. I don’t have to deliberately mention the domestic situation, everyone is in it.
The same is true for intermediate customization, where we believe that the bottom layer is the direct connection between garments and factories, with the highest value/cost performance. The top floor is a store that provides unparalleled emotional value. As a consumer, do you also think that you are more willing to pay for these two?
Another format of custom-made shops is refined polishing products. Their pattern is unique, using its own workshops and adopting a high degree of manual production that the factory cannot provide. In the current economic environment, this format has not been greatly impacted, because its own production capacity is limited, and even if the wealth of the customer group shrinks, this amount of money for making clothes (which is not small money for most people) will not affect it.
But what are the risks they face? It is a long-term wave of clothing leisure and young people’s preference for suits.
Does the suit have tenacious vitality? I totally agree with this, and I think it comes from two dimensions. The first is its business nature, that is, the necessity of some occasions. And this is undoubtedly going down. Another point is its style attribute. There are actually very few styles that men can choose. Therefore, as a style of wearing, western-style clothes will inevitably exist for a long time.
However, if you just want a suit, why do you need to choose bespoke tailoring? Even if the house has a unique pattern, it doesn’t mean that Kiton and Brioni don’t, and big brands also come with brand bonus, although the price has also risen greatly.
At this time, I think bespoke has to return to the essence, meeting the unique needs of customers. I can’t buy it, so I customize it. This logic may lead to no more communication. For example, I saw a Cosplay cloak set made of luxury fabrics at Hiiwen & Liiyuan. For example, Lancer took the lead on this road and designed and produced some eye-catching clothes for customers.
My judgment on the two tailoring formats is in the medium and long term. In the short term, as long as the economy can get up, ordinary custom shops will definitely rebound. In the short term, customized stores with top product will still be unable to fulfill orders.
From my short-term and long-term judgment, can practitioners form their own style of play? I think so.