March 23, 2005
nice one, tony
I’ll keep saying it until I sound like Tom Peters!
China, and India, and Korea, and Brazil, and Russia are looking on, and will kill any company that tries to be a “they”. Because “they” will be better and less expensive.
Dege & Skinner, one of the more prestigious Savile Row tailors, has a new line of “half price” suits, around the $1500 mark. The patterns are measured and the cloth cut in London, but all the sewing’s done in China.
Gieves & Hawkes, another great stalwart of the Row, is forever trying to milk its Savile-Rowieness in order to sell more lines of manufactured pret-a-porter to the tourists.
In other words, they’re trying to beat the big labels (and, if you will, the Chinese manufacturers) at their own game. They will lose.
What matters on Savile Row is the tailors of the hardcore variety. So what really matters, long term, is finding and training decent apprentices.
Savile Row: Forget the big labels. Forget the Chinese. Worry about who’s teaching your apprentices.
That’s our long-term plan with English Cut.
YES!!! When I left school,I wanted to be a milliner — but no milliners were taking on apprentices, so therefore the local Technical and Further Education colleges pulled the courses as the teachers retired… so now we either buy cheap Chinese hats or “crafty” hats or — pay a HYYYYUUUUUUGEE price for something that, frankly, is NOT the equivalent of “Saville Row”. You can tell the economic rationalists — they’re the ones in the cheap Chinese sewn suits.…
“Worry about who’s teaching your apprentices…”
good lesson for anyone, no matter the business.
imagine if a trade school (of any kind) was a
pre-requisite for the university system.