Show HN: MTailor – Get measured by your iPhone's camera for a custom shirt | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: MTailor – Get measured by your iPhone's camera for a custom shirt

mtailor.com

70 pointsmpenn81 comments

I'll admit, I was one of the most skeptical people trying it out. I thought that there's no way an app would be able to properly measure me by simply twirling once. I went through the process because it was super quick and I liked how I could customize my shirt the way I liked it. Words cannot express my astonishment when I received the package in the mail. The shirt fit so nicely and the quality was incredible. I wore it that same night, and then again the next day. Def worth trying out, especially if you dislike shopping like I do.

Strangely enough I get the same from £1.75 T-shirts off Amazon and they fit better and last 4 years longer than the expensive Gieves and Hawkes (tailored) shirts I had a few years ago...

I think this is all YMMV territory and subject to mystique like wine tasting, watches (jewellery class watches) and crazy expensive HiFi products.

We have definitely found that more expensive doesn't mean a better fit. Because every person is shaped differently, what fits great for me will almost certainly not fit as well on someone else. And being more expensive doesn't solve that problem.

We use over 14 dimensions for each of our shirts, so that every person who orders from us has a great fit.

If you can find off-the-rack shirts you love at a lower cost, I think that's an awesome option. However, I can say personally I've never found anything off-the-rack I like as much as my custom stuff (both pre-MTailor and now while doing MTailor), because it fits better, especially in my shoulders, waist and the length of the shirt.

T-shirts are generally stretchy, so they don't need to be custom-made to your body size.

From personal experience: I can buy ready-to-wear shirts, but the armholes are slightly larger than necessary, and there's always excess fabric around the waste, which means it bunches up when tucked in. Some places have choices of regular/slim/extra-slim, but even extra-slim is a bit baggy for me.

When I wear a well-fitting shirt (either custom-made, or one where I've used my sewing machine to take in the sides), the shirt doesn't look better. _I_ look better.

Where are the shirts made? Are you planning to go into pants, suits, jackets, etc.?

As a business decision, the $69 price-point seems a bit high. That sets it at elite, rather than mass-market. The problem with elite is outside of SFO and NYC, you'll get a lot less viral word-of-mouth growth. In most of the world, elites do talk to each other, but they talk to non-elites a lot more, and when they do talk to elites, the topic is usually not clothing.

To give a concrete example: I am C-level. As such, I could afford it, but most people I know would not be able to. The only people I could mention it to would be VP-level or C-level, most of whom are colleagues rather than friends. This would limit word-of-mouth from someone like me to perhaps 2-3 people tops, rather than 20-30 (so in practice, 0 rather than 2-3, since it would come up in conversation for perhaps 10% of the people I know). At $69, I also won't buy it on a whim. At a price point competitive with Eddie Bauer, or even Men's Warehouse, I would, just to see how well it worked. If it worked well, I'd switch to it. If I did buy it, at $69, I also expect quality. I wouldn't buy a second one until I see how long the first one lasts. That means repeat business won't come until you probably run out of runway.

Custom-tailored pants, in India or Africa, cost $10 for the fabric and $3 for the labor (and are fantastic). Even with a generous mark-up, you ought to be able to have a slow but inexpensive process that competes with middle class mass-market goods (not Walmart and Target, but certainly EB and Men's Warehouse).

The shirts are made to our stringent quality controls in China. We're definitely planning to expand into other types of clothing. And since we take all your measurements, you'll only have to get measured once!

We get what you're saying about virality. We wanted to make shirts of a quality that we were proud of and after getting many samples we decided that we could make very high-quality shirts for $69. We hope that we'll be able to bring the price down with time.

FYI - the salesman in me has to say that if you have any doubts, you can try us risk-free because of our very generous return policy. We're happy to accept a return or remake your shirt for any reason (not just fit).

"you'll only have to get measured once!"

Unless you get fat.

Or if you get really fit :-)

You consider a $69 shirt elite? I've paid about that for every non t-shirt that I own. Hell, even my t-shirts are about half that, but that might be a function of my size.

Shit, my ex-wife would pay $150-$200 for what I'd consider to be a basic blouse without even flinching.

I would just say here people have very different expectations for what a nice dress shirt should cost.

There's everything from $13 ones at Walmart to $70 - $90 ones at J. Crew and Brooks Brothers (MTailor price point) to $300 Armani shirts (and above).

Having spent a lot of time in in-person custom shirt shops, our $69 shirts are comparable in quality to shirts you would buy there for $125 and above.

I'll be honest, I wasn't even aware dress shirts were sold at Walmart. Just my thinking on this is you're about average, and your comment seems to back that up. I don't think of J. Crew and Brooks Brothers as particularly "elite," but that might just be me.

I don't argue that there isn't a big market below the $69 price point, but as jsmthroway is saying, there's a large market at our price point, and up to now, it's almost exclusively off-the-rack. We think we can provide a high quality custom product where previously the only option at that price was off-the-rack.

And obviously we'd go even lower if we could.

There is a large market. How are you planning to reach it?

If you cannot go lower, I'd consider a partnership with an existing brand. You'll have to have an insane marketing budget to compete with existing clothing brands without viral.

If you can partner with Brooks Brothers (established in 1818, and part of American preppy folklore), J. Crew, Men's Warehouse, or similar, you'll have an easy time breaking in, although a much harder time getting most of the profit share.

Right now we have been spreading a lot through word of mouth, which has been awesome. We have also been playing a lot with advertising.

Unless you're planning to raise very substantial amounts of money, advertising might not be the most effective tactic. It's worth perhaps playing with, but not doing more until you've seen it work. You're a small business. You've got a highly unsegmented market. In unsegmented markets, advertising is mostly about brand building. That works well if you're Coca-Cola, but much less well for small start-ups.

Word-of-mouth can work well, but you've got to understand your customers, the networks, and the levers you can tweak to change rate-of-growth. I was suggesting price/quality/margin as one of those levers -- you want to be appealing to as many customers within your customers' networks -- but there may be others if that one is unappealing.

Of course.

Compare the market caps of Walmart, J. Crew (which was recently purchased), Brooks Brothers (from a sane P/E ratio), Armani. Heck, try a TJ Max or similar (to avoid companies with major non-clothing businesses -- which, coincidentally, J. Crew does have).

Most people on HN are in the elite.

I'd suggest trying any of the wealth calculator apps, and figuring out which percentile you're in. And please post here once you've done that. Or, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...

Median household income in the US is $51,000. That's household income, not individual income. That's what a family of four gets. Take away taxes, and you're at 37k. Assume $1000 mortgage, and you're at $25k. Car insurance, gas, etc. brings you down to perhaps $20k. Four cell phones? $19k. Internet, property tax, utilities, etc? $17k. Food? $14k. Health care? Putting kids through school? Retirement savings? Once you add in all the bare necessities, you won't find many people spending $70 on shirts, let alone $150-$200.

To run with your numbers. A $200 basic blouse, times 40 items of clothing purchased per year by your ex, is $8000. Family of 4 brings that up to $32000. Perhaps $24000, if you consider kids clothing costs less, or perhaps more, if you consider it wears out quickly, so you buy a lot of it.

Typically, the biggest expenditures are housing, health care, car, food, and similar. Clothing is waaay down on the list.

Wow. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't condescend me by trying to explain my own wealth percentile, as if I'm completely oblivious to being showered in money (as you're implying), when I've simply made a remark about the average price of an item of clothing. That was quite an insulting comment to get through, and I hope you realize that even if you didn't intend it.

I'd also challenge your assertion that the majority of the HN audience is elite, as that's a bit of projection, but that's not a fight I'm prepared to get pulled into right now.

I've spent my entire life at just about every notch on the wealth spectrum short of having seven figures in the bank (and I came from stretching $10 for a family of three over two weeks), and I would consider myself upper middle class at this very moment, yet one constant for me has been the price for an average article of clothing even if the purchaser had to save up for it.

I don't think I have to. You've said enough yourself a few posts down:

> I'll be honest, I wasn't even aware dress shirts were sold at Walmart.

You're figuring for 40 items of clothing?

Someone might buy 1-3 nice shirts and take good care of them and they'd last a long time, provided they didn't buy a shirt with a trendy design that will be useless next year.

I was responding to:

> Shit, my ex-wife would pay $150-$200 for what I'd consider to be a basic blouse without even flinching.

That's a different persona than the sort of person who buys 1-3 nice shirts and takes care of them.

I know plenty of people who are not c-level who easily spend $69+ on shirts. In fact, I would argue that most people on wall street are expected to pay $50+ on shirts. $250+ would be c-level IMHO.

Data point - Brooks Brothers does $750MM in revenue[1]

[1]- http://www.insideview.com/directory/brooks-brothers-inc

That is a true statement, about Wall St. Less true about C-level, until you hit pretty big companies. A typical C-level or VP-level earns between $200k and $500k, typically towards the lower-end of that (obviously, Fortune 500 would be millions for CEO -- I'm basing this on companies of ~100 employees).

I don't know typical Wall St. income, but the friends I have there are around $300k. You can cite Google and Apple employees too as spending $50+ on clothing. That's all the elite.

Median household income is $51k in the US. That's 1/3-1/6 of a single salary at Google (and most have working spouses as well). It's perhaps 1/6 of Wall St. That translates into many times that difference in disposable income.

I appreciate the appeal of making products for people similar to yourself, but if you think that makes for a good business plan, compare you $750MM in revenue to TJ Max with $18B in revenue, Gap at $13B, Ross at $10B, etc. If you look at relative prices, that's probably about 100x as many items of clothing sold.

Miles Penn here, cofounder of MTailor. Feel free to post any questions -- happy to answer them!

How does the "measure with your iPhone" thing work? That seems to be the most error-prone part of the entire process, yet you claim very high accuracy? That would seem to imply that you can somehow get accurate measurements out of the camera?

My cofounder and I spent over a year developing the measurement technology -- it's a ton of math / machine learning. The process is also easy to do (you don't need to stand as still as a statue or anything).

We also really stand behind that 20% number. We brought 4 professional tailors in and 35 people, and we were 20% more accurate than the professional tailors. If anyone wants, I can go into more detail on the calculations of us vs. tailors.

Please, do tell. Is there a whitepaper or blog post somewhere about how this technology works? Also, do you suppose you could get better results from a consumer depth-camera, such as the Kinect?

No white paper or blog post explaining the behind-the-scenes stuff (kept proprietary for now, but we may write something later).

Yes, the Kinect would probably be more accurate (it was one of our original ideas), but it wouldn't have made a very good business. No one would have been able to easily use it in his home (not many people own a Kinect, 3rd party apps for xbox aren't big and when I have seen a Kinect, it doesn't capture your whole body).

We found that our accuracy is more than sufficient for shirts (we've shipped a bunch already and gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback). Accuracy is just 1 aspect of a great looking shirt though; style is also really important, and we've spent a long time refining that as well.

Realized I didn't actually explain the measurement process. You put the phone down by leaning against a wall (or chair or something else), stand ~10 feet away (so your whole body is in frame) and do 1 spin. The software takes care of the rest. The app walks you through in much more detail how to do it. You also need to be in contour fitting clothing, so it's recommended to be at home.

Any reason to have it that way rather than shirtless? (My guess is that shirtless would be more accurate, but that you guys decided the privacy tradeoff was not worth it for the minimal accuracy gain.)

When you do it in the app, it does say that shirtless and briefs or boxer briefs are OK. I assume that fully nude would also be OK, but I guess they didn't want to go there. ;)

As trevyn mentioned, we have both options -- shirtless or a contour fitting shirt. We've found there's no accuracy difference.

You can't wear a normal, loose t-shirt or shirt; that unfortunately destroys our accuracy.

I just tried it. The UX is truly amazing.

Thanks! We have worked really hard to make the measurement process easy to do, testing with dozens of people for months.

Ok, some more of the statistics on the 20% number.

We had each tailor measure each person across 17 different measurements. Across those 4 tailors (on each person and each measurement), you could see a standard deviation. So then we also looked at the standard deviation of the average of those 4 tailors vs. the MTailor software's system. Our standard deviation was 20% lower.

Happy to go into even more detail if people are interested!

Looks like a really cool product. Are you thinking of moving to android? Don't mean to nit pick but you are mixing up accuracy and precision. If your standard of deviation is 20% lower, then you are more precise then professional tailors. Accuracy denotes some distance from some "true" value. Accuracy != Precision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision

Definitely planning on Android (but not for a few months).

You're definitely right about precision vs. accuracy. The phrase never polled as well. Maybe if we'd run our surveys in the statistics department it would have been different. :-)

Regardless of what polls tell you, calling precision accuracy is inaccurate.

I'd love to know more detail, if you can share it without spilling the secret sauce.

From the video, we build a full 3D scan of you (lots of math / machine learning here). Then we essentially take a digital tape measure to your 3D scan.

This isn't iPhone related but perhaps others will find the project interesting:

http://openfitlab.com

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kylemcdonald/9150428195/in/poo...

Is there an easy way to send these measurements over to a company and have them create clothing for you? I briefly went through the site but it looks like this is mainly for home tailoring.

No, not that I can tell :/

The thing that i'd most like to see in the web site is pictures of the shirt styles on people rather than just fabric swatches.

Yes, the website is definitely a work in progress. Most of our efforts have been focused on improving the app, but totally understand!

Right now, you can only see our selection in the app. The website right now is essentially a landing page to drive you to the app (where all our functionality is).

Where can I even see fabric swatches without downloading the app?

just some dumb ideas:

for people outside the US, you might sell the measuring app?

I'd love to print my patterns and take them to my own tailor...

besides if you could provide advice in what is the best shirt for my body shape, neck length and face... that would be appreciated too.

We have definitely thought about licensing outside the US. However, we should be able to figure out the logistics of shipping shirts internationally in the next few months, so we should be shipping worldwide soon!

When you say advice, do you mean for off-the-rack shirts, or shirts you would buy from us?

Just curious how long delivery takes. I made a test order 7-10 days ago and am holding off going to norstroms.

It takes ~2 weeks to make your shirt and another 1/2 week for delivery.

Just checked on your order, and it should be finished by the 6th and hopefully get to you by the 8th (may be the following Monday though).

This looks very cool - enough that I finally created an account to ask you a question. Can you tell me a bit about the production process for the shirts? Are they made in the US? If overseas, what kind of assurances do you have about working conditions, etc in the factory? If you can vouch for decent working conditions, it would be a big selling point for me (and, I think, for many others).

(In Australia) there's conflict between VERY cheap clothing vs "work conditions".

How much more would you pay? 10% 20%?

cpayne, I don't quite understand your question.

Since we don't make VERY cheap clothing, squeezing pennies by using harsh working conditions hasn't been something we've wanted to pursue.

This question might have been to me - I try only to buy reasonably ethically made clothing, and figure on paying up to a 50% or so premium for it. I buy a lot of Patagonia and Ibex, but dress shirts are a problem (suits would be too, but luckily I don't have to deal with that very often). I do think that new models of manufacturing have the potential to ameliorate some of the ethical problems as well, by shrinking the supply chain back down so that retailers actually have some idea of what's going on in their factories. Everlane is an example of what I'm thinking about, but I didn't love the shirt I ordered from there, and they only have S/M/L sizing.

I feel honored about your account creation :-).

Our shirts are made by hand by professional manufacturers in China. We work with them closely to ensure that every shirt meets our high standards and is what a customer would love.

Since we make higher end custom shirts which require skilled labor (custom vs. off-the-rack), we focus on quality rather than squeezing out every penny on the manufacturing side. I hope that helps.

The reason we can offer high end custom shirts for $69 is that we cut out the expensive measurement process -- a tailor normally spends at least 30 minutes with you for measuring, while we do it with software. We also have fewer returns (since we're more accurate) and we have fewer mistakes (software vs. writing by hand). Additionally, we sell direct to consumer, so there's no retailer markup on top of us.

Great idea. What is the best way to get in contact with you?

Miles and I are on HN or you can shoot us an email at support@mtailor.com - one of us will get to it there.

Can’t seem to find your contact information here on HN so I have just shot you through an email to your support email.

Just placed an order after loving the measuring experience, here are some thoughts and questions.

* I would have felt better if it had said something like "we believe you're a 38" chest with a 15" neck circumference" so that I could eyeball whether or not what you've done really worked.

* Definitely would love to see the fabrics on people! Shows how good your product looks.

* I would LOVE an option for a third collar button as well as for a pocket button. If I'm getting a bespoke shirt, I want it the way I like to wear a shirt!

* To order again, I'll need a statement on your work conditions.

Thanks for placing an order, and thank you for the feedback!

We don't actually process your measurements in real time, which is why we couldn't say what your measurements are when you finish.

For fabric selection, we're working on nice photographs of real shirts made (just takes time and money) -- it's actually the #1 complaint we get.

We can definitely do a pocket button. We may be able to do a 3rd collar button. If you would like those options, please email support@mtailor.com, and we'll see what we can make for you.

What kind of statement would you like? As I stated previously, since we make higher end custom shirts which require skilled labor (custom vs. off-the-rack), we focus on quality rather than squeezing out every penny on the manufacturing side. Don't know if that's what you are looking for though.

That statement is wiggly and doesn't actually tell me anything about your labor policy. Does your organization fall under the requirements of the City of Portland Sweatshop Free Procurement Policy [1]? It's one of the best ways to tell if an apparel company uses unexploited labor. If you do not fit all the criteria, where do you come short and why?

[1]: A direct link to the relevant document for apparel companies. http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=218026

I've just received mine and I was surprised how perfect the fit was.

Of course, it should be expected considering the measurement process and everything, but when you receive a box from someone you have never met and the shirt inside happens to be made exactly for you, it still feels special :)

I'm curious, are you making custom patterns based on the video data, or just extracting standard measurements and then doing traditional shirtmaking?

Also, please add a solid black fabric! :)

We are making custom patterns! We use over 14 measurements for each shirt -- everything from chest to shoulder slope.

Solid black has been a big request -- we ran out but are working on getting more :-).

Very cool!

There are a lot of similar "custom men's dress shirts" services around now days (though good job on the cool tech!), but none of them offer fashionable men's long sleeve shirts, in styles such as those mass marketed by Rag and Bone.

As someone with insanely long arms, who already gladly pays $200 per shirt for off the rack, I'd gladly pay for a service that offered custom tailored men's fashion shirts.

Any thoughts of moving towards that market?

As someone who loves getting tailored shirts, the MTailor process was unreal. A couple minutes in front of an app, and a few weeks later I got a shirt that fits really nicely. This is a startup I really want to succeed, because if they do, I never have to go shopping at a brick and mortar again - just order online and everything will be tailored to my fit.

I'm curious - do you source your fabric within mainland China mainland, or import it? I live in Beijing, and have found the selection and quality of fabrics at tailors in Beijing quite lacking (compared to Hong Kong tailor shops, or compared to ready-to-wear shirts from Charles Tyrwhitt).

Mostly from mainland, but we only put fabrics on the app that I've felt personally thought were good enough.

Since you cannot feel our fabric, if you don't like a shirt from us, we'll remake the shirt with a different fabric or refund you (no questions asked, no hassle).

I'd love to use this - guess it's not available outside the US? I'm in London.

Sorry, not yet! We've had problems with VAT / taxes, so we're US only (and we'll ship some shirts to Canada as well).

Then, I'll definately get some more before I head back to France!

Can you be more specific on what problems you've had?

As a non-EU company, you are under no obligation to collect VAT & import duties on shipments to the EU. These will often be collected by shipping agent on behalf of the recipient's tax authority, otherwise it is up to the individual to declare their liability.

To claim this as a reason not to trade internationally is a disservice to your potential customers and to your shareholders, and frankly reads as "we have no idea what we're doing, so we're not going to do it, just in case".

If you're really not sure, pay for some basic tax and legal advice who will tell you there's nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, you're loosing potential revenue and future referrals. (Assuming reasonable standards of product quality...)

I spent some time looking into it. Quoting a customer in Europe 1 price (pre-VAT) and then they need to figure out how to pay the extra VAT separately didn't sit well with me. So I want to figure out a way where the customer wouldn't get a 2nd bill when his shirt arrives. This started to get complicated, so I unfortunately have not been able to get to the bottom of it yet.

If you have any advice on how to ship to EU and pay the taxes on my end (so the customer doesn't pay something separately), please let me know!

This might be a good starting point: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPort...

It seems like it's possible to prepay VAT if you're shipping from Hong Kong, but not if you're shipping directly from China.

Thanks rahimnathwani. I had already looked at that -- the fact that they don't link to where you go to sign up for that arrangement didn't look promising for happening in a timely matter.

We also currently ship all our shirts to the US for a variety of reasons (including quality control).

Give us an update, when you start shipping internationally. I'm definitelty interested enough to have bought a shirt to try - if available.

Please consider a female version!

Definitely in the pipeline! We had to start somewhere, but we plan to expand into every article of clothing for men and women.

this looks pretty cool

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