a jacket thought or two

[CameronTaylor]

Why is is that I can (and did ...once) go down to Express and pick up a fine dress jacket for a little over one hundred bucks but a Prince Charlie or Argyle jacket is twice or three times that much ?
Another thought is to take me Dad's old KofC tux jacket and see if it can be altered. That's all for today.


CT - curiouser and curiouser

[Warlock]

The tux should be fairly easy to alter.

[arrogcow]

I have wondered this my self (and asked here) on many occasions. The only conclusion that I can come to is that there is no money in kilts. Now I'm not talking about the individual kilt makers (sole propriator), but the box stores that hire kiltmakers, and marketing people and other staff. For instance, I took one kilt maker just now, and they will sell any tartan 8 yard, hand sewn, 16 oz kilt for $431.87. Now many of our esteemed kilt makers here have said that it takes 20+ hours to hand sew a kilt. A decent wage ($I'm going with $15.00/hr) means that the cost of a labor is at least $300 (leaving $132). Now I know kilt makers can get tartan much cheaper than us mere mortals, but just dividing the $132 by 4 (double width tartan) leaves $33/yard,or about 1/2 what I have ever seen tartan sell for. And still there has been no pay for the marketing, phone people, web site, utilities etc. So either, these companies are paying slave wages, or non kiltmakers are being taken to the cleaners on the price of tartan, or these companies make their money somewhere else.

While there are people like many here that are making kilts a more daily/casual item of clothing, most people that buy a kilt are still wearing it only for formal/heratage events, and a such want all the accessories. Jackets that cost 4 or more times the price of a non kilt jacket, make up the profit that is actually lost on the kilt. So do the $200 sporrans, and $25 flashes (I mean really do a set of flashes cost more that $3 to make?).

So that is why your jackets is so much.

Adam

[Chef]

I would say there are four factors. One is that kilt jackets are more complex than a standard jacket and second is a numbers game. I would be willing to bet that the average mens clothing house runs more copies of one jacket in any given colour than all the kilt jacket manufacturers run in total. Third as arrogcow said most kilt wearers use them for more formal affairs they want to buy what they feel is quality. Lastly (and this also goes with my second point) I just don't think there is enough total volume to get lower cost manufactureres, who take small mark-ups but move high volume, to get involved. In other words I don't think there will be a Walmart equivalent of kilts any time soon.

[Nanook]

Why is is that I can (and did ...once) go down to Express and pick up a fine dress jacket for a little over one hundred bucks

Hardly. Sure you can get some glued together bit of polyester fashioned to look like a "jacket" in some 3rd world sweat shop but no "fine dress jacket" for $100 USD. Good tailcoats (evening wear tend to be fashioned to lower grades than sports coats) start at around £500 or so.

A nice jacket takes what 2 meters of fabric? Leaving off the workmanship (and the cost of the other materials) what do you think 2 meters of "fine" woolen fabric costs? Given that a fine hand-made dress coat takes, on the average, of between 10 and 15 hours-- a good sports coat more than 15 and upwards of 20 hours-- of labour there is little possibility of selling one for $100 USD (even using slaves in sweatshops).

Today a fine bespoke sports coat costs upwards of £1500 (and some of the best hand-made ready to wear such as Brioni, Kiton or Oxxford more).

Marks and Spencer used to have sometimes some reasonable (sometimes even nice) coats at attractive price points but none under £150. OK coats, wearable for kicking about but not "fine" or even "good". I suspect that one needs to plan to spend upwards of £500 (and some willing and skilled tailor to tweak it) to get anything good on a budget.

but a Prince Charlie or Argyle jacket is twice or three times that much ?

A reasonable (and I'll not speak of "fine" since I really don't quite know anyone making "fine" Prince Charlie type coats) coatee and vest made of good grade Barathea can be had for under £200-£300. Not well made but nobody expects anything well made in these. For the workmanship they can even be good value-- better even than M&S. I got an inexpensive Scottish made Argyle jacket and am, in fact, quite amazed just how nicely its made. Its front was not fused (or glued) and the machines were reasonably well guided. For bespoke day jackets Haggarts of Aberfeldy make some wonderful tweeds at price points well below some of the standards of Saville Row.

[ozone]

at jhiggins.net they are a reasonable price. Dont know about the quality...but they look nice nonetheless. Anyone buy from them before? I agree all above in that it's a volume thing in terms of price. Compare a handbuilt ferrari to a lotus elise (the lotus has better performance characteristics but is a 10th the cost).

[Panache]

Why is is that I can (and did ...once) go down to Express and pick up a fine dress jacket for a little over one hundred bucks but a Prince Charlie or Argyle jacket is twice or three times that much ?
Another thought is to take me Dad's old KofC tux jacket and see if it can be altered. That's all for today.


CT - curiouser and curiouser

CT,

Ask the questionn "How many of you men are likely to go down to Express and purchase a nice looking jacket for $100?" Likely a whole lot of "Ayes" will be heard from sea to shining sea.

Now ask "How many men are going to head down to Express looking for a kilt jacket? (sound of crickets)

If you are going to sell a million of a type of jacket you can afford to invest in more streamlined production, get better volume deals on materials, etc. etc. The price of the jacket can go down because material costs go down and you make up for a higher markup by selling such volume.

Now if you are going to sell a fraction of this you obviously aren't getting the deals on materials. Your costs go up and to make it worth your while to produce the thing in the first place you need a higher markup.

There are options out there. You are exploring one of them. You saw the formal jacket I wore to the Burns' Night Supper. That was an old tux jacket.
I saved money by converting it (and love that I have something that is unique).

Cheers

[Tattoo Bradley]

Yep, as the others have gotten at. Simple economics. I too wish kilt jackets were a wee bit lower cost. But, what can ya do eh?

[Nanook]

CT,

Ask the questionn "How many of you men are likely to go down to Express and purchase a nice looking jacket for $100?" Likely a whole lot of "Ayes" will be heard from sea to shining sea.

Now ask "How many men are going to head down to Express looking for a kilt jacket? (sound of crickets)

I'd hope for reasons that they know better. Men who go through the effort to wear (and own, in contrast of rent) kilts, I'd hope, have more a sense of style and elegance.

Cheap schmatte coats don't dress down the highland outfit but toss it into, at best, the domain of theatrical clothing. With a limited budget I'd even suggest that one will be better dressed with a reasonably good jacket (if need be second hand or re-cut), well-made (and polished) Goodyear welted shoes and a (mystery fibre) $25 USD Sialkot kilt (some are even made of wool or at least smell strongly of sheep) then a good bespoke kilt paired with Chinese shoes and polyester fused coat.

[RockyR]

One more cost that hasn't been discussed above (although I agree with what Panache said)... Where it's made.

When you have Nike making shoes in China, their costs are much lower than a competing company making shoes in the US. Same goes for jackets made in Scotland vs. Pakistan or China. Cost of living has to factor into it.

If the workers are paid $15 / hour and it takes 3 hours to make a jacket (pulling numbers out of thin air), the COST for LABOR is going to be $45... add into that material cost (more expensive materials used in making higher end jackets), overhead (rent, marketing, electric, employees, health care, etc).

If you have a company in China or Pakistan paying $5 / hour (that may be high), the labor cost is 1/3. If the material is cheaper, that factors into it as well.

Is there a reason things cost that much money? You bet... it's the "intangibles" that you DON'T see that add to the costs. If you're going to support a culutre by showing pride in it's national dress, wouldn't you want to support them in other ways which they actually BENEFIT from?