March 10, 2005
good for you?
Hugh MacLeod
Hi, I'm Hugh.
My life is committed to drawing little illustrations that spread messages, inspire people, help businesses kick butt & support causes.
Gapingvoid is based upon the science of how these cartoons work.
If we can help you or your business, please email us here.
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Archive for March, 2005
rusty the cowboy
Once there was a cowboy named Rusty.
It was Rusty’s job to go around branding cattle, and boy was he good at that. Nobody could brand a steer better than Rusty. And he made a good living from it, visiting ranches, branding the cattle. The guy never had to worry about how he was going to pay for his next horse or a silver-studded saddle.
But one day something happened. The cattle genetically mutated. Suddenly each rancher’s cattle were so unique and different from other ranchers’ cattle, you could tell whoses cattle was whose, without needing to mark them.
Suddenly it was looking like Rusty was out of a cushy living.
But no! He became a post-Cluetrain branding evangelist! Suddenly he could make even more money, turning up to ranches in Italian suits, Powerpoint slides in tow, getting the ranchers all fired up about how great and fantastic their new cattle were.
Ker. Chiiiing.
March 9, 2005
businesses
So… businesses…
Savile Row business. Check.
T-shirt business. Check.
Book deal thingie. Check.
Hughtrain consultant business. Check.
Anything else?
Wine business. Think I’ll go sell some wine.
I’ll write more after the weekend.
gapingvoid suit buyer
I know, I know, “Metablogging is dead” yada yada yada, but I thought I’d show you this e-mail English Cut got this morning:
Hi Tom,
I have been interested in having bespoke suits/coats made for a while now (I am very slim and off-the-peg fits are near-impossible to find), but have been unable to rustle up the knowledge required for me to walk into a shop on Savile Row and ask for one (without feeling embarrassingly ignorant). The English Cut website has gone a long way in educating me about bespoke, and therefore I’d like to come to you(as someone familiar) as a first port of call.
I’d imagine your waiting list is absolutely huge by now, so I was wondering how long it would take before I could get a meeting arranged?
I live in London and can meet at Savile Row if that suits (no pun intended…).
Additionally, I won’t be ordering twenty-eight suits (as some of the clients Hugh talks about on gapingvoid have done!), but probably would start with just a jacket. But on the basis of that, and how I feel it values up, you can expect my custom for a good twenty, thirty years hence.
Thanks for your time,
Jason P.
This is the first documented case I know of an regular gapingvoid reader offering to shell out cash for one of Tom’s suits. Thanks, Jason!
Jason and Tom have an appointment this Saturday on Savile Row. Rock on.
But I’d say it’s a pretty textbook case of The Hughtrain and “Smarter Conversations”.
Re. The twenty-eight suits. I mentioned in the comments recently about some of the larger Savile Row customers walking in off the street and ordering four suits at a time. Say, two pinstripes, a navy blue and a charcoal grey.
Oh, but they want one set of each, in each of their seven houses. Easier to just buy seven sets than to do all that packing.
I know. It’s sick. But I kinda like it.
[KER-CHIIIIING:] Tom’s arriving in London as I write this. There till Monday. If anyone fancies a [KER-CHIIIIING] new suit while he’s there, zap him an e-mail and he’ll meet you on Savile Row.
collezioni
Collezioni, an Italian fashion magazine, wants to interview Thomas.
They look like a good magazine, but knowing very little of the Italian fashion world, I don’t know much about them.
Anybody know anything? Is it a big magazine? Are they good?
t-shirt suggestions requested
As mentioned earlier, I shall be making t-shirts available shortly.
I’m making them all limited editions of 200. One design, 200 shirts. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. I won’t be reprinting the design.
I’ll start with 4 designs, so 800 shirts in all. I’ll add a new design only when one of the four runs out. So there will never be more than 4 designs available at one time.
I’ll start with one “hughtrain” design, one “blogging” design, and two “alientated urban whatever” designs.
So I’m wondering which designs to start with. I’m very open to suggestions. If you have an idea, please don’t e-mail me with it– just leave it in the comments below.
And feel free to include the URL, if you think that would be helpful.
Thanks.
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.
March 8, 2005
branding is dead (cont.)
Earlier today, the “Branding Is Dead” debate continued over lunch:
Hugh: Branding is dead.
Friend: You really think that?
Hugh: Yes.
Friend: Why do you believe that?
Hugh: Because it’s better than the alternative.
Friend: What’s the alternative?
Hugh: Necrophilia.
savile row is the new geek chic
Very Cool. Thanks to Slate columnist Clive Thomson for rightfully pointing out that yes, Savile Row suits are indeed the next thing in Geek Chic:
After all, suits have many of the things that geeks particularly appreciate: Intense levels of engineering, an obsession with structural elegance, physics, totally wicked gear that’s used to create them, topographic geometry, and materials science that burrows right down to chemistry and — these days — nanotechnology. And when it comes to ties, my god, you’ve got the most awesomely realized application of knot theory on the planet.
I’m trying to imagine Robert Scoble in a suit. Ain’t happening. Joi Ito wears really nice suits, though.
[ALSO:] I should have some t-shirts out in a couple of weeks, I think. So I’ll probably be the first person in history selling both bespoke Savile Row and potty mouth t-shirt designs. Go figure.
March 6, 2005
ok, this is starting to get silly…
From USA Today, the largest American newspaper:
Do not underestimate the pleasures of a really well-made suit. Thomas Mahon is a bespoke tailor (that is, a fellow who makes suits to order) on London’s Savile Row, and if anyone can convince you to at least consider investing in one gloriously perfect piece of clothing in your life, this is the guy. Even the non-clotheshorses of Hot Sites were fascinated by his description of the Savile Row culture, by his analysis of what makes a bespoke suit worth the frankly flabbergasting price tag, and by his tips of what to look for in a suit if you really must buy off-the-rack. Educational and entertaining as well.
Awwww… what a nice little mention. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.
It’s looking like this “blogging tailor” virus is far more deadly than we predicted. Sure, it’s fabuously exciting for me and Tom, but Jeeze Louise, Tom’s already staggered by the amount of work suddenly in front of him. And we’ve only just scratced the surface.
Actually, I disagree with USA Today. $4,000 is pretty darn cheap, considering what you’re getting.
A suit takes about 100 hours to make, so figure it out to $40 an hour; including the cost of the cloth, sundries, not to mention the cost of travelling around, train tickets, rent etc etc.
$40 an hour for the best craftsmanship of its kind in the world. I know third-rate web developers who charge 3 times that much.
authentic voice hell
Nice wee post from Evelyn Rodriguez about the Nike brand losing its edge.
Starts off with Colleen, a recovering copywriter, posing the question:
What happened to Nike *after* its heyday? Did they stop listening? Stop deep listening?
I so well remember clients begging for “Nike work.
So Evelyn, being the “Authentic Voice” uber-goddess, implies to us the obvious (at least, obvious if you read Evelyn a lot, not so obvious if your head’s still stuck in the 1990s).
Nike lost their authentic voice. And with that, lost their brand.
Though I have nothing but warmest respect for Evelyn and her ideas, I see a virus about to happen, and it’s not a nice one.
I see loads of second-rate Evelyn wannabes reading her blog, getting fired up, then going off and setting up shop as “Authentic Voice Brand Evangelist Consultants” or whatever. I can already hear “Be your brand’s authentic voice!” echoing painfully in the corporate hallways.
The thing is, the “Authentic Voice” meme is very simple to understand. I get it. You get it. We all get it, already. So why bother hiring the ersatz Ev at $2000 a day?
You’re right. There is no reason. Cheaper to download the PDF.
The Nike product slipped, then the Nike brand. Not the other way around.
It’s childishly simple: Authentic Voice only really comes out when your product is the best in the world, or failing that, world-class. Once Nike ceased to be as good as they could be, their words started sounding empty. Hello, Inauthentic Voice.
metascoble
Robert Scoble (Man, I haven’t written about him in days– I must be losing my touch) responds to my recent “Metablogging is Dead” post.
I don’t disagree with Hugh. I’m trying to catch the Hughtrain. Metablogging is definitely out of style, as Hugh says. I’ll try to only do that kind of stuff over on our book blog. Of course, does talking about this here mean a new kind of metablogging? Notmetablogging? Hmmm.
I think talking about blogs is fine, I think finding them interesting is fine, but you have to remember the secret of French cuisine: Never let the sauce overwhelm the dish. What’s true with cooking is also true with blogging. And yes, Robert grasps this about as well anyone I can think of.
the death of metablogging
Let’s face it: The era of “Metablogging” is well over.
Much of what fuelled Metablogging (i.e. “blogging about blogging”) in the last few years was the rather quaint & somewhat endearingly pathetic, semi-tragic, sophomoric hope that if you write about blogging for long enough, somebody will magically appear out of the woodwork and give you enough cash to live comfortably on. Forever! Yay!
Whatever. The more interesting era of the blogger who “actually does stuff” began a while ago, even if the metabloggers were slow to catch on. Joi Ito is a good example. As is Mark Cuban. As is Tom Mahon. As is Fred Wilson.
A lot of “A-Listers” (a term that seems emptier by the day) are metabloggers. The more of them that disagree with my thesis, the happier I will be.
more seth goodness
“The ever-worsening curse of the cog”: Another gem from the master of lucidity, Seth Godin:
The end result is that it’s essentially impossible to become successful or well off doing a job that is described and measured by someone else.
Worth reading the italics twice, I think.
The only chance our country (your country, depends where you live), your economy and most of all, your family has to get ahead is this: make up new rules.
People who make up new rules continue to be in very short supply.
Does anybody really think being a cog is still viable? I don’t know anybody who does.
Also, here he writes about his (justifiably) favorite new phrase: “Yak Shaving”. It’s worth a read.
March 5, 2005
“smarter conversations” explained
“Open surgery on a jacket shoulder. Notice the soft wadding, which I and a few other top tailors use, as opposed to the far more common ready-made shoulder pad.“
The charming little photograph and caption above first appeared on a recent English Cut post, as part of a much longer article.
When I first saw it, my reaction was probably no different than anyone else’s; that it was a friendly, informative, tasty little morsel. Which it is.
Then earlier today the following thought hit me like a freight train:
Let’s say you’re a very successful New York gentleman. Let’s say business has been very good to you in the last few years.
Let’s say one way of enjoying your success been wearing nice clothes. Let’s say in the last couple of years you’ve been buying yourself lots of them from your favorite Manhattan store e.g. Barney’s, Sak’s, Bloomingdale’s etc, it doesn’t matter which one.
Let’s say the amount you have spent since 2001 would actually be say, forty to fifty thousand dollars– not a lot by Savile Row standards, and maybe not quite as much as some of the guys you share an office with, but certainly a princely sum by most people’s reckoning.
And let’s say your Cousin Suzie, an avid sewing enthusiast, sends you a link to English Cut, knowing you have a wee thing for suits.
So you check it out. And you see the tasty morsel. The Real McCoy uses wadding, not shoulderpads, huh? How about that? And so you read on…
What’s the first thing you do after you’re done reading? The first thing is you rush over to your closet, and check out to see if your suits also have the wadding, instead of the far inferior shoulderpads.
And you find out right away. They don’t. They all have shoulderpads. Every last one of them.
And then you realize, the store that sold you all these suits, that you gave $40K of your hard-earned money to, somehow forgot to mention the shoulderpads. They spent a lot of time convincing you how top-rung they were, how totally superior their suits are, but failed to mention the shoulderpads. Just somehow slipped their tiny little minds.
And suddenly, you feel you’ve been treated like an absolute schmuck. Suddenly you feel yourself resenting the hell out of the department store, the one with the famous name on the door. The one all the journalists kill themselves to get access to. The one that has been basically taking you for a little ride these last four years.
And maybe, just maybe, you drop Thomas over at English Cut an e-mail.
When I mention “Smarter Conversations” in The Hughtrain, this is precisely what I’m talking about. This is why I keep on harping on about it. This is why if the business you’re in can’t handle the “Smarter Conversations” angle, you should be extremely concerned.
This is why I chose to work with a Savile Row tailor.
[Speaking of New York:] Tom’s actually coming to Manhattan in early April, if anyone fancies a new suit.
no futzing around
Working with English Cut over the last few weeks has taught me three things.
1. The Hughtrain actually works.
2. The better your product, the better The Hughtain works.
3. If your product isn’t world-class, you’re in big trouble.
Less than a week ago, a chap who had never bought Savile Row suits before stumbled across English Cut, really liked it, and sent Thomas an e-mail, stating he’d like to meet up.
The guy had previously spent a lot of money on designer labels, Armani and whatnot, but reading English Cut had confirmed a nagging suspicion in the back of his mind that designer-label wasn’t the real deal. Fair enough; most designer-label is a complete ripoff. And the more you know about suits, the more you believe that.
Tom met him on Savile Row yesterday for an hour or two with his tape measure and cloth samples.
Before the meeting was over the chap had ordered over $15,000 worth of suits, and had paid the full deposit.
Contrary to popular belief, blogging is not just for failed writers, aspiring journalists and whiney teenagers. Tom and I are doing many things with English Cut. Futzing around is not one of them.
some links:
[SERVER MELT:] English Cut got linked by Memepool. Thanks, Chaps!
[I LOVE THIS ONE:] “Innovation doesn’t have to be sexy.“
[THE RISE OF THE ARTISAN BLOG:] Since English Cut launched last January, I’ve started paying more attention to “Artisan” blogs. Frankly, I think it’s one of the more saliently obvious blog applications out there. A new favorite one of mine belongs to the Lincoln Sign Company. They make signs for stores and stuff, but it’s really high-quality. Really “bespoke”.
[WONDERING:] I’m trying to remember the last time I saw somebody link to an MSN Spaces blog. Nope. I can’t. I saw one or two the week they were released, but then they dropped off the radar screen like a lead balloon.
Is it just me, or does the very fact that somebody is writing on an MSN Spaces blog make you kinda want to go up to them and steal their lunch money?
revenue entitlement mechanism
Just in case I didn’t mange to convince you to check out Cardboard Spaceship yesterday:
That is why, if your marketroid has come to see the customer, AKA the consumer, as being a kind of revenue entitlement mechanism that will cause units to be shifted in a predictable and mechanical fashion, then give them a smack upside the head and see if you can get their brain working again.
Your customer is nothing other than a revenue entitlement mechanism. Yep, sort of like the job your dad pulled strings to get you after college.
March 2, 2005
cheapest or best
My old high-school buddy, Hamish, is a high-end SAP consultant, specialising in financial software. He is also smarter, funnier and a better writer than me. Here’s his latest offering:
Other than that, the people who give you money, are customers. They have no obligation of any kind to continue to give you money. If something better comes along then your ass is toast. Now, I agree that some classes of relationship are not going to change as easily as others. Would you bother to change your utilities supplier, if you could? Would you buy different brands of clothes? Would you like to eat different food every day? But if all you have is inertia to protect you, then you will find that one day the numbers on the marketing spreadsheet do not come out right, and your job is gone. The world moved on, and forgot to buy the right number of units for you to make your forecast. You have no automatic right to revenue. None. (OK, OK, US Military Contractors, but let’s stay in the real world…)
In the comment section I pipe in:
If I was 20 years younger and going to college, would I, like our peers did back in the 1980s, be studying “media” or advertising? Considering film school, law school or an MBA program? Would I hell.
First, I would save my parents serious cash by opting out of university, and attending instead a good local technical college. Then I’d spend a year after that, maybe going to night school studying English, English Lit and creative writing.
Upon finishing my studies I’d hang up my shingle as a high-end plumber in an affluent part of the world, like Conneticutt, Austin or Santa Barbara.
And I’d immediately turn my recently acquired English-language skills to writing a witty and informative blog about plumbing. And wait for the phone to start ringing off the hook after an initial start-up lull of… what? 12, maybe 13 mintues?
Hamish and I have been talking about how the world is changing for years, long before either of us discovered the web.
We are now moving into a world where you have two basic survival choices:
1. You can be the cheapest.
2. You can be the best.
There is no middle option.
Cheapest or best– theoretically there’s nothing wrong with that equation.
But we live in a world where most of us don’t want to be either.
