Idea: Custom On-Demand Clothing. How, or Why Not? | Hacker News Reader

Idea: Custom On-Demand Clothing. How, or Why Not?

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16 pointsJabavuAdams15 comments

Because most people can recognize when something looks good, but they cannot actually create something that looks good.

Doesn't matter. People always think that their own designs are good.

There isn't a service that can do what you are asking for, yet. The big difficulties lie in the vast differences in body sizes, measuring systems, and other variables that fashion companies have to deal with that the LuLu's and Zazzle's of the world don't.

Some companies offer customization, but very few to the level you describe. www.Propercloth.com just recently launched and they allow you to have custom shirts made. They even provide a Rosetta stone to compare shirts sizes from various manufacturers, but no one will take specs like the ones you provided and create a garment. at least not in an automated, cost effective way.

If this is an area you are interested in check out my blog (www.replicatorinc.com) it is focused on mass customization and on demand manufacturing. When a company like the one you are interested in launches you'll read about it there.

My friends and I have been looking into textiles lately to make our own designs for simple striped shirts. From what I've gathered, you need to first find a place that will make your fabric design, and then send the fabric to a place along with a pattern to have it turned into a shirt or whatever. I imagine the hardest part of clothing design is in finding cheap, quality suppliers and keeping a reliable relationship with them.

Our situations and goals may be totally different; nonehtless, here is another approach:

1. find recycled clothes at dollar-a-pound thrift-esque stores or simply ask your friends for their old goods.

2. reverse engineer existing clothes into patterns by de-stiching them, or make your own patterns through trial and error.

essentially: you can learn to sew if you want, it just takes time to get good (like any skill). it's quite fun. the biggest expense is the initial sewing machine, though reuse and craigslist and community centers can solve that, too.

My advice is to take the long view and keep your expectations reasonable.

Start small: add pockets to pants, patch knee holes, add a hood to a jacket, add dinosaur plates to a hood.

Hack clothes together: sew together squares of fabric to make pant legs or a shirt. recycle a pants top that already fits your waste so you don't have to muck with zippers and crotches yet. you can use pants tops to make the tops of shirts with. my last project was weaving together two pairs of jeans that I'd cut into horizontal and vertical strips.

Finally, make clothes from (recycled) scratch. my husband made my wedding dress from recycled jeans--it's the best formal wear I've ever had. I'm still working up to this level of skill, and he's still working to get to the next level. He's making a long winter coat now.

If I turn these into instructables soon I'll post back. Good luck and have fun expressing yourself.

Most of existing on-demand stores for books, shoes etc. offer you only few choices. You can't really decide every detail of the product. The process of designing in a restriction free system can't be done by checking boxes and insering measurements. It has to be either a dialog between the designer and the producer or a detailed sewing pattern, together with drawings etc.

I think this idea is only limited scaleable - I presume it is not much cheaper to produce one unique item or 1000.

On the other hand, I could see something like threadless emerge for designs in general: They'd partner with "real" designers and produce small series of each piece and sell it until it's gone. Something in between etsy and threadless.

yup. I was just about to suggest etsy. i particularly recommend <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5400084">stormcloudbringrainbows</a>. i know the guy, and he meets with people regularly to take measurements. he'll work with you on the design if you're interested, but as far as i know not many people actually are other than vague ideas.

i started sewing my own clothing a year or two ago. i recently got past patching and hacking on recycled clothing, and i'm definitely still learning. it's a great way to express oneself, but you have to take the long view. at first it's crap.

i can see why someone would want an intimate process with a real designer and sewer to make quality clothes sooner. i applaud that instinct. consumerism is taking people's souls and craftmanship.

I've always wanted a service where I could submit my measurements and preferences and just have a whole wardrobe generated for me. In particular, I hate buying long sleeve shirts because if the sleeves are the right length, then the torso isn't! Medium? Large? What ever happened to centimeters?

I think if you took a Netflix sort of approach, you could actually have a wide selection of sizes and styles. Manufacturing a wide variety is expensive, but those processes are already accustom to changing (with the style trends). The real issue is retail space.

The service you're asking for is traditionally provided by tailors.

This is rather common for dress shirts and suits. There are also online stores for dress shirts where you can submit measurements and have you shirt send to you a few weeks later. Check out http://www.tailorstore.com for an example.

However, measurement is a tricky issue: It's sounds simple but, in fact, it takes some experience to get it right.

For a long sleeve shirts, you probably have to go to a local tailor. The core problem here is to find a good one.

You may like to check http://www.styleforum.net to find sources for these kind of services. The streetware section is probably your best bet.

I'd like to see the rare but useful types of clothing become more available. Like long sleeved shirts that attach to your fingers to keep them in place but leave your hands free ( example http://www.boxofmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/prince... ) I don't know of any place to buy shirts that do that, nevermind having enough selection to get the other qualities I want, and custom clothing is way out of my budget.

i thought this was mainly an issue of demand and economies of scale...

out of ignorance, how high is the demand for custom clothing?? and i have a feeling marketing efforts would be directed at keeping this demand low so that manufacturers can take advantage of their economies of scale to mass produce clothing..

My husband works in the fashion industry so I think I can provide a reasonably good answer as to why on-demand clothing isn't particularly feasible.

The way the industry works is, there are a few (much fewer than you think) vertically integrated companies that makes all our clothing. Let me illustrate what I mean by vertically integrated by explaining what my husband's company does.

Basically, they make stuff such as men's shirts under every imaginable label from lower end such as private label at J.C. Penney to mid-market brands like Nautica to up-market brands like Thomas Pink. They own the process completely, from growing the cotton to making the fabric to putting the shirts together in Asia to shipping into warehouses in the US to saying when the shirts go on sale. Other than labels providing a license (e.g. Calvin Klein granting the exclusive rights to make shirts under their label) and Macy's providing the floor space (Macy's being the same company as Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor, Filene's, Marchall Field's, etc), they do everything.

As you can imagine, when you have a few companies covering every fashion category sold at practically every store, you have almost perfect efficiency. The cost savings for vertically integrated, economies-of-scale companies like my husband's are enormous to the point where you could never get anywhere close to the low, low prices they are able to charge.

So what you are left with is selling your custom stuff at price points that put you in the same category as designer clothing (often accompanied by free alterations) and custom tailoring. And why would someone buy a slightly customized cheap shirt/jeans/whatever when for the same money, they can buy an upmarket designer item, or have it tailor-made?

I am not saying you can't have some niche categories where you do customization. Cafe Press does pretty good with t-shirts. I just don't think there is a positive answer to your question, "How can I give my designer friends the ability to do low-volume production cost-effectively".

Sounds like he wants a dressing gown, or maybe a slanket.

The Left Foot Company have been doing a similar thing with shoes for a number of years, you get your feet scanned in one of their shops, and then choose styles on the website and they are made to fit your feet, robotically. Except, they got to try them. ( https://shop.leftfootcompany.com/2007/Process.aspx )

I don't know why it's impractical for an etailer to be an etailor, but I guess the current system of basing clothes sizes on a couple of measurements which vary between brands and styles would have to become much more specific before it would work well.

There are many sites that already do this. Since custom is much more expensive and prices still need to be competitive, most sites don't very well. If you search google for "custom online __item__", you'll have thousands of hits.

Custom shirt maker - http://www.adrienlemaux.com/

Custom dress maker - http://www.dressbydesign.com//

Sounds like he needs a sewing machine and a few lessons.

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