March 9, 2005
demand was never an issue
Like many respected trades out there, the biggest problem Savile Row had over the last 50 years was in their marketing.
They thought they needed to advertise to a flashier audience. They didn’t. The customers are already buying, and they don’t give a damn about flashy.
There was never anything wrong with the customer end of things.
The people they really needed to sell what they did to wasn’t rich establishment clients, or, like their second-rate designer-label cousins, get their named bandied around the pretentious and worthless celebrity media machine.
The people they needed to advertise to were young kids, 15 – 16 years old, from modest family backgrounds.
They needed to advertise to these kids, because apprentices have to come from somewhere.
And it’s a tough, 10-year process. Fifty years ago Savile Row wasn’t competing with universities, and glamorous careers in finanace and marketing for their best young talent. But now with college education being the norm, they are.
Lack of business is not Savile Row’s biggest problem. Lack of suitable apprentices is. 5 – 10 years from now, when the current batch of “master tailors” retires, there will be few people to replace them.
It’s a great opportunity for English Cut, as Thomas is the only person under forty in that league.
We’re already starting to get e-mails from people who have noticed this talent depletion; who are seeing the writing on the wall for their current tailors. Sure, it’s good for our business, but it’s worrying nonetheless.
Want a guaranteed, respected income for life? Forget corporations. Forget Madison Avenue. Go into tailoring.
I think this is what I meant by a parameter lol!
It is a parameter. All businesses have them. Surprise, surprise.
in my experiences of working with young people you are right to say that tailoring is not one of the professions that they desire to go into.
could this be an opportunity for english cut? how about getting involved in developing attractive apprentice programmes for young people or creating a bursary scheme funded by english cut? how about a scheme to promote and raise the profile of tailoring directly targeting young people? or if you really want to be bold (and i know you do) linking with certain youth agencies who are working with challenging young people and developing tailoring schemes as a diversionary activity (which will also have obvious benefits for their personal development etc.)?
obviously, if a few of these young people decide to take it further there would be no conflict of interest as in 20 years time when these young people are at the stage english cut is now you will either have an empire that can absorb such competition or both be living the high-life with your blogging fingers and scissors well and truly hung up…
DK
Tom is teaching a university “masterclass” in London tomorrow for precisely that reason. That’s how you meet apprentices these days
Developing and mentoring talent (aka labour) has been an important element of modern management theory for at least a few decades now. Sounds like a lack of apprentices isn’t the only thing Saville Row is missing…
Of course it has, Stephen.
But since when has Savile Rowe been anything other than an anachronism?
I can name one or two very high powered-tailors that were completely ruined in only a few years once the MBA boys got their dirty mits involved…
Sure, they’re famous brands with concession stands in airport lounges and department stores.
But their clothes aren’t much good anymore…
I have no doubt that this is true, Hugh. And it is a damn shame when the people that are bought in to take an organisation “to the next level” often just end up pimping it, or worse.
One of my regular trains of thought revolves around the “Pursuit of Balance”.
It is a very broad subject, but applied to this topic, the question has to be: Why is it apparently so difficult to stike a balance between the best of modern management techniques, and the core, proven values and processes of a business that has a been around longer than most of us have been alive?
I think that anyone who can master this discipline of Balance has a future as bright as any Bespoke Tailor.
Not a particularly original thought, I’m sure, but one that intruiges me nonetheless.
Stephen: Modern management is dedicated to the proposition that bigger is better. Economics of scale make manufacturing more profitable, therefore every manufacturer should be big.
Savile Row is just one of many examples showing that artisanship doesn’t scale. Hugh said elsewhere that it takes 100 hours to make a bespoke suit. Any guesses how long it takes to throw together even a good machine-made suit?
By modern management standards, artisanship is a dumb idea precisely because it doesn’t scale: the artisan’s revenue potential is limited. The values that are important to artisans (and their customers) either don’t register with modern management at all, or aren’t important enough to offset that negative.
The interesting duality is that anyone who can afford a $4000 suit probably shares much of modern management’s belief system. Yet he buys bespoke suits at least in part because they are “inefficient” and therefore the supply is limited.
On further reflection:
The other way to look at it is that artisanship is mostly immune to the market pressures that modern management is concerned with. You can’t be outsourced if you are the very best in the world at what you do. That idea seems to me to be the very foundation of what Hugh has been saying for lo these many months.
Katherine, will you marry me?
Katherine has it dead right of course, but the 1000 pound elephant in the room is what are the implications for other businesses. Since excellence isn’t scaleable, will all buisnesses revert to artisanship?
John: No. (IMO) Mass production will continue for the same reasons it always has. Not everyone wants the very best quality of everything badly enough to pay for (and wait for) it. I’m sure plenty of Thomas’ customers drive handmade sports cars, but I’ll bet plenty of them drive mass-produced BMWs and Mercedeses, too.
I do think that being an artisan will be a more viable career option for more people, since the Internet makes it so much easier for small businesses to find their customers. (But then I’m biased, being self-employed myself.) I think we can expect the Industrial Revolution-induced death of craftsmanship to reverse itself to some extent.
The biggest implication for business may actually be the brain drain. If being a self-employed artisan is a viable alternative, why would anyone want to work in the insecure race to the bottom that traditional businesses have become? (But again, I’m biased.)
Katherine: You are right when you say “Modern management is dedicated to the proposition that bigger is better. Economics of scale make manufacturing more profitable, therefore every manufacturer should be big”.
However, I don’t think this is the way it should be, and there is evidence everywhere that it is changing.
The focus has to be on sustainable profitability. Combine this with the idea that the most valuable asset a company can have is its processes, and you have a way to enhance the bottom line of the Artisan-Business without corrupting it’s core values.
It would seem to me that these companies don’t really need a marketing guru, they may just need some help with the long term strategic planning.
I also completely agree with your observation about the immenient brain drain in the corporate business world.
Katherine: We’re in agreement — but I wonder whether the proliferation of blogs and other internet methods of promotion that will emerge from this trend will be self-defeating. As Seth might have observed how do you make your blog remarkable to promote your remarkable service/product?
Stephen: Yes, but some might say strategic planning becomes redundant in a rapidly changing world and the reality is that the boards of companies spend less than 10% of their time discussing marketing/customer-facing issues so a guru (eek) might be useful.