Controversial Transparency

I’ve been thinking a lot about my pricing lately. When I think about the amount of effort that goes into finalizing a style, the time spent in tailoring, and the expense in experimenting with different colours and fabrics, I think my prices are too low. But then, I never wanted my brand to be in that high-end and almost unaffordable league, so I guess it’s up to me to be smart about my fabric and tailoring choices to deliver a unique product that’s still affordable.

The definition of affordable, however, varies from person to person and from income to income. I understand that completely- we all have different reference points after all- but what does upset me is when people cannot imagine why my garments would cost as much as they do (my prices range from Rs 800 to Rs 2,600). This post is my attempt to explain why a well-tailored garment made from handwoven, natural fabric cannot be sold for cheap. Well, at least not be yesteryear's standards of cheap.

Most designers follow a simple equation to help them price a garment. There are more complicated ways of doing this by taking into account hidden costs such as rent, sales staff salaries, etc, and some designers have a wholesale price and a retail price but at its basic level, this is the standard equation.

Cost * Profit Margin = Price

Usually, only direct costs are taken into account. This includes the cost of fabric, notions (buttons, thread, zips), and tailoring charges. Let’s take a look at each of these direct costs.

Fabric: It’s no secret that natural fabrics are more expensive than synthetic fabrics. Add to that the process of small scale yarn dyeing, and weaving- that’s a lot of skilled labour right there! Many people seem to be under the impression that labour in India is still really cheap and that handwoven fabric should not be that expensive. The farmers and weavers who work for cheap can’t survive with today’s standard of living; has no one read the news stories about farmers and weavers in Andhra committing suicide? Just so that everyone is on the same page (and in the same decade), here are some figures to get you up to speed on what quality labour costs these days.

One metre of handwoven cotton can cost anything between Rs 80 to as much as Rs 450 per metre. This is dependent on the quality of yarn, the amount of yarn, and the tie-dying work done on the yarn (ikat is obviously more expensive because of the labour involved before the weaving itself). Additional textile crafts like extra weft (jamdaani) weaving add to the cost.
If the cotton is real khadi (and by real khadi, I mean the yarn should have been spun by hand) and handwoven, then it can cost anything between Rs 150 to Rs 350 per metre. I know, it’s such a steal it’s not even funny.

Handwoven silk can cost anything between Rs 200 to Rs 800 per metre. This is dependent on the weight of silk, the quality and type of silk, and special weaving techniques like jamdani or ikat.

Tailoring cost: A really good tailor can cost anything between Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000 per month. A good tailor has control over a sewing machine, can give you a good finish with concealed zips, darts, and French seams, and he knows how to change the machine tension according the fabric so that you don’t have a beautiful satin silk garment puckering at every seam.

Oh, and even a good tailor can take up to half a day to tailor one garment if that garment has a lot of darts and pin-tucks or pleats.

A good pattern maker (and it is the pattern maker, not the tailor who decides the fit of the garment) can cost anything between Rs 12,000 to Rs 30,000 per month. I’ll say less about this because clearly there are pattern makers and there are pattern makers. This cost really depends on what kind of garments you want to make and how much time and effort the designer spends explaining her vision, concept and style.

A good cutter (whose job, literally, is to cut out fabric in the shape of paper patterns that the pattern maker generates) can cost anything between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 per month.

Notions: Invisible YKK zips cost anything between Rs 35 to Rs 90 per zip, depending on the length. Shell buttons cost anything between Rs 3 to Rs 20 per button, depending on the type and size.

Now that’s a lot of information to help anyone figure out how much it costs to make a range of garments in cotton and silk. And these are only the costs for the direct input into each garment, mind you. Not factored into the direct costs are the time spent finalizing a pattern from sketch to final product, the time spent grading patterns to different sizes, the production manager’s time spent making sure everything gets done in time and without tailoring errors, sales staff salaries, rent, electricity, phone, and of course the cost of machinery.

Yeah, don’t even get me started on the hidden costs of running a business.

One Solution to the Tailor Crisis

Last week I was supposed to launch my Monsoon Collection in the store. I had the pictures from the photo-shoot ready to mail out along with my press kits, I had started telling customers at the store to lookout for our new collection on September 6th, and I had planned a trip to Ahmedabad and Jaipur later this month to meet with suppliers after I launched the collection in the store. I had a big problem though: the clothes weren’t ready. In the last month one of my tailors has taken indefinite paternity leave, one has left to join a more lucrative job closer to his home, and another left to move back home to be with his wife and kids where he will take up a job as an auto driver.

I have spent the last two weeks calling everyone I know in the garment industry, but everyone tells me that their situation is similar: it’s tough to recruit new tailors, the existing ones don’t show up for work regularly, many of them prefer to work at a small tailoring shop where the hours are flexible and they get paid per piece (which means no one to question quality as long as they are churning out sari blouses by the hour).

Or, they could leave the tailoring profession altogether for more lucrative jobs elsewhere.

There is a dearth of quality labour in India but the economy is growing and every business needs people. Salesmen at Lifestyle barely speak English, let alone understand what products are stocked there, but I am willing to bet they get paid more than the average tailor. Plus who wouldn’t like to work in a large air-conditioned mall rather than slog at a sewing machine? Large banks need “office boys” and chain supermarkets need cashiers and helpers at their stores, so all the large export factories who need tailors at reasonable salaries have moved far out of the city, where the job options are agriculture, manual labour at a factory, and now tailoring.

I met with the principal of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) two weeks ago. AEPC was set up by the government to train and supply the garment industry with manpower at every level- tailors, cutters, pattern makers, and supervisors. The principal said they are finding it hard to recruit tailors because being tailor is no longer a very lucrative option compared to other jobs that are available in the market.

I took that as sign (one among many) and my solution has been to increase my average salary for tailors. Obviously moving out of the city to attract tailors who live in villages isn’t an option for me, but then again people are hopefully buying my clothes because of the style and the fit – my profit isn’t determined by price alone unlike for many export factories. I hired two new tailors from AEPC (we’ll train them up to our quality standards and I can only hope that they stay as we give them a raise for every stage of improvement) and I gave my existing tailors a finder’s fee for using their network to find new recruits and that resulted in another two tailors. Now I am back in production for my monsoon collection.

Here is a preview of what will be in the store on October 5th:

Leaving during a crisis

Sales at the store have been climbing over the last few months. I guess it’s a combination of word-of-mouth finally kicking in, the press releases, and the emails I sent out to announce the summer collection. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, my quest for good quality tailors has still not been very successful and things have reached a point where not being able to replenish stocks is getting in the way of sales.

I’ve tried every method possible: contacting everyone I know in the garment industry, placing ads in all the major Tamil papers (expensive and futile), and I’ve even gone around tailoring shops in a few neighbourhoods asking them if they know someone. I’m going on a 10 day trip at the end of this month, and I’m worried that production is going to come to a stand still when I’m gone! Also, having only a few tailors means that I always give priority to alterations and customer orders, but that has slowed down the pattern development process. My pattern maker has not been able to show me what he has developed for the monsoon collection because he hasn’t been able to allocate a tailor to stitch a sample. I know, not a good time for me to take off for a couple of weeks…

On a slightly different note, I’m wondering how other stores and clothing brands handle alterations. I keep telling my sales staff that our goal at Brass Tacks is to help customers find what looks good on them. So of course it’s only fair that we offer to do an alteration if something doesn’t fit very well. After all, I have a size chart because everyone has to work from some standardized measurements, but I don’t expect the chart to apply to every woman.

Simple stuff like a reduction in length, releasing a waist dart, or making a fresh piece with a wider shoulder or a smaller armhole is not time consuming. However some alterations are tedious, especially if it requires many stitches to be removed. Sometimes it can take an entire day to rip out stitches on a silk dress (it takes longer for delicate fabric) with a side seam zip, and then re-stitch it (all this just for an extra 1/8th of an inch ease on each side). Maybe I wouldn’t be thinking about this so much if I didn’t have a shortage of tailors. I’d like to provide great customer service, and having a happy customer walk away with something that fits her well is worth the time spent on the alteration.

Truth of the trade

Everyday I keep telling myself that this weekend I am going to organize my life better and make more time for myself to do the creative work that I enjoy. On the outside it may appear that designing, looking through fabric swatches, and researching textile crafts is all I do, but in truth actual design work ends up occupying only a small percentage of my weekly schedule.

There are daily issues like paying bills, checking inventory, going through production schedules and goals, discussing patterns with my production team, and attending to customers at the store. And then there are minor crises every month or so. Last month a wall in the store needed to be re-painted because of a leakage in the building, and this week I fell ill with a viral infection only to recover and find out that two tailors have left.

I’m told very often by other people in the garment industry that tailors are a “breed” or a “clan” by themselves and that it is very normal at every factory for tailors to have low levels of attendance and for turnover rates to be high. My production unit is tiny. A couple of tailors’ departure reduces my production to just five or six garments a day. If another few tailors leave my production will come to a grinding halt.

Why do tailors leave? It could be because someone else offered them a higher pay, because they found another job closer to their home, because you hurt their ego by pointing out their mistakes, or simply because they have problems at home (like in the case of one tailor who left three months ago without a phone-call and came back last week to ask if he could join again).

Anyway, it’s a part of the business I’m going to have to accept unless I’m willing to pay everyone more than any other company could possibly offer. Most tailors come from poor families so they need to do what’s best for themselves. As for me it’s back to making phone calls, in search of a good tailor.