Vastrm (YC S12) Promises The Perfect Fitting Polo
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I'm 6'5" 220+ lbs. If I can't find a tall size, I have to get a XXL which is made for chubby guys, not tall thin (well not as thin as I used to be :-) ) men.
A good fitting shirt is the hardest thing to find. Pants already come in a variety of sizes (length + waist) so it's not as big of an issue.
I don't feel inclined to buy a polo, however. I care about comfort, brand, and fit - in that order. I have never had a problem with one of the default sizes in practically every brand. Perhaps there is a bigger market for fitted polos though; I'm sure the Vastrm guys know more than I do!
Nearly every girl I know shops for clothes over the internet and I also assume they would be more inclined to want a perfect fit - but I'm sure women's clothing is more logistically difficult to create. Hopefully they work on adding women's clothing, anything, before expanding their men's collection.
I'll be interested to see how this goes.
One thing keeps bugging me though. Home page, slide one, white polo. I don't think that shirt fits right. It looks like it's too narrow either across the chest or in the shoulders and that is causing it to pull up on the buttons in the center and creasing the front of the shirt and the bottom of the buttons. Maybe I'm just being a know it all programmer with no fashion sense, but I don't think I want my polos to fit like that.
Leaving a logo off the polos basically makes any sort of viral growth impossible. Of course the plan could be to sell shirts exclusively to wealthy people that like the "lands end" look. That doesn't strike me as the best approach.
One thing I like is the approach compared to someone like an Indochino who gets you to take your measurements and then their tailors take liberties with the measurements you provide (accounting for your lack of skill) leading to unpredictable results.
I'm curious who the target for this is, specifically. I personally know that fit is everything, but I'm not sure if most (male) style conscious consumers will gravitate to such a product, especially at this stages. I struggle to tell if this is targetted at an "every man," or those who just can't find anything that fit (those who are in odd proportions of the spectrum)
Vastrm is intriguing, but prices do not seem to compelling. They seem right inline with custom dress shirts. Plus, with Polos I feel like there is more room for error, e.g. with stretch fabrics that hide imperfect sizes, unbuttoned collars that hide imperfect collar sizes, fairly limp collars that do not show details
For instance, half of your fabrics are horizontally-striped, which I would consider both an immature look and stylistically unsound (with vertical stripes considered 'slimming'). I associate Lacoste with consumers who try to compensate for style sense with money - like the 'Rock and Republic' of polos. The Lacoste shirts cost $90 apiece, but even their "!" slim-fit line still are cut like squares. I don't think this is your crowd who cares about fit.
Consumers in the $100-200 polo range are used to higher quality items rather than striped/branded items - e.g. the Ralph Lauren Black line is in that range, and the whole line focuses on Italian cuts and fabrics with no visible branding.
If I were in your position, I would offer less fabrics and of higher quality with marketing to target more of the Tom Ford-wannabes. Something along the lines of "Fit Frames Quality." You could offer almost a luxury fabric menu in basic colors that really tells a story of the piece of cloth, helping people to become more viscerally attached with what they wear. With a current slogan of "Be Unique," I think you are skirting the fact that people willing to go through the rigmarole of customization, test shirts, then the custom manufacturing process are pursuing a display of flawlessness. The advertising fails to capture this desire for perfection - you are selling choice, when I think that you need to highlight the intersection of fit and quality.
Furthermore, monogramming is a must-have feature.
We source some of the highest quality cotton available. We use essentially the same quality that you might see on a Cuchinelli, Zegna or Kiton polo - which retail for $250 - $400 at Niemans or boutiques. We sell our polos, private label into some high end boutiques for $175 and $195 (retail)- using the same fabric we offer online. I agree, we need to do a much better job at marketing and branding though. And I really liked your comments about creating a visceral attachment to the garments. Stay tuned for that and please stay in touch with us! Are you in marketing?
On a bit of side note, I'm excited to be meeting Daymond John from Fubu and Shark Tank tomorrow!
Are you guys currently hiring a developer to do the HTML5 version of the site? :)
Affordable, rapidly produced and perfectly fitting clothes would be a dream.
For things like that they're great too - we needed an obscure combination of color and features which surprisingly didn't exist ready-made. (Ivory, French Cuffs, Slim.)
You might find a side-market for groups. e.g. the MSL/Curiosity team's EDL event polos.
Edit: It was actually Dragons Den (Season 2 Ep 6 I think)
For dress shirts/buttondown or suits/pants, I haven't found any of the online vendors to be as good as W W Chan in HK or Shanghai.
What does that have to do with anything?
Because it doesn't say "waist", see.
I have the fashion sense of a homeless man..
EDIT: Finally loaded, and the site is a giant SWF file? Seriously?
58 requests ❘ 1.70MB transferred
Getting a shirt that will fit well ranks much higher in most people's priorities than using only HTML-based webapps.
cache:vastrm.com = "get adobe flash player"...
Fail.
Doing it because people on HN bitch and moan that the technology: The wrong reason
I'm all for dumping flash for the right reasons (and, personally, I wouldn't have built it using flash). Dumping it for the wrong reasons, though, is an unnecessary distraction that doesn't build business value.