Posts from the ‘Out & About’ Category

You’re Giving Us A Bad Name…

One of my favourite things to do is window shop – particularly at sale time. Not in the traditional sense of the idea, but with a fashion industry hat on.

I love looking at what didn’t sell and thinking about why. Estimating cost price for garments and determining whether the retail price is even vaguely reasonable.

In my latest round of window shopping at Myer and David Jones (department stores are best for this kind of outing) I was absolutely shocked and – let’s face it – appalled at the calibre of garments being passed off as “high end designer”. It’s not my business, interest or intent to bad mouth other labels, so I’m not going to name and shame anyone here. What I will say is that when I’m evaluating a garment this is what I look for:

1. Longevity of style – is it very very seasonal? Is there anything about it that can be reused in the future, or has been reused from previous collections in terms of cut?
2. Origin of manufacture - I don’t have any major issues with offshore production if it’s certified fair trade (beyond the whole ‘supporting your local economy’ argument), but it’s a very clear fact that the cost of production in significantly reduced when it’s done in developing countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan, even Romania etc.). There’s no arguing this. Additionally, production in these countries means substantially higher ‘minimum’ orders are required, so the cost per garment is lower again. Before I started Bento I once got costings to manufacture t-shirts in Mexico. They were $3 apiece, INCLUDING fabric!
3. Materials used - many people believe if something is (for example) 100% silk, then it can reasonably be compared to all other fabric that is 100% silk. The fact is silk, like cotton, wool, cashmere, linen, and every other fibre comes in varying degrees of quality. In the case of silk, it can be treated in many different ways and these different treatments change the price point. Many fabrics not only come in different qualities, they also come in different weights. So that ’tissue tee’ you got sold on for being ‘soft, lightweight, breathable, etc.’ is actually just cheaper than its heavier counterpart.

Given all this, I was pretty horrified by a diffusion label tee I found in a department store that was $80 reduced from $249 which was made in China from a Cotton/Polyester blend fabric. It did have a rather gorgeous print on it though.

During my excursion, these were the labels that really stood out for me as being worth the cash:

Jayson Brundson
Ellery
Dries Van Noten
Ginger & Smart
Chloe (main line)

Importantly though this outing drove home for me the fact that we probably don’t charge even nearly enough for Bento items, and that if all those other labels can achieve such success charging completely outrageous prices then I’m sure we can do very well too.

How do you decide whether something is ‘worth it’?