New Kiltmaker?

[Mattg]

I'd suggest cranking out 1 or 2 initially and test the waters that way. A few good reviews from members and friends can drum up some more business and give you a good feel for the market. If all goes well, open the gates and go for it. Best of luck!

And ya know, if you're unsure of it, just send me a couple kilts and I'll test 'em for ya

[Southern Breeze]

Any chance of an X-Marks discount?

[David Thornton]

Know your costs, price accordingly, over deliver and underpromise. You'll be back here in a year reporing that you have had to hire some help.
PK isn't making his version of the casual (I'm still on the notice list if you get back right?) I think there is room.
I have a degree in econ if you need someone to bounce ideas off. I do not know the legal environment in your area though.
David

[Moosehead]

This is not really a quick decision for me. I have always made one thing or another. In fact, as an artist I have pieces on permanent exhibit at a number of prominent museums, including the Smithsonian and Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels . So, this past year and a half in marketing/publishing has sucked. Working from home has been great, but the work is just not me. If I can fly things, and make things, all is copacetic with the world.

As mentioned in another thred (about francophones and kilts), I mentioned the lobster season is about to start. I've been asked to crew with one of the guys here and it is very good money. Enough that I can quit this rat race, fish for a couple of months and be set to start this new venture.

As for legalities, a little expansion: my wife is a status Indian (registered Indian for you guys down south). We live on the Rez. The company in her name, means everything is tax exempt. No income tax, no tax on received goods. We would only have to charge tax (sales and GST) to Canadian customers, and only the sales tax for orders from PEI. No taxes to pay, no tax to collect, means not charging as much. Have to take advantage in business.

I'm also considering traditional cut in heavy poly/cottons, cottons. Not looking at getting into all the accesories, just those that I can/have made for myself.

XMarks discount? Damned right!

Keep the comments coming please, all are appreciated.

[HeathBar]

I think it would be great to have another professional kiltmaker on board. Sure it might be competition for the others here, but you might offer us something that no one else does. It sounds like you've thought this through. Perhaps you should make up a batch of the products you are wanting to offer and let some of the members give them a test run. Discuss with them in a private forum the positives and negatives of your products.
Just be realistic in your production output. Keep us informed.

[Alan H]

Think about it, and here are my experiences.

I machine-stitched up a canvas kilt, incorporating a few features I'd seen on one of my USA kilts, and adding a few things. It took me 19 hours to machine -stitch that kilt. I'm now nearly done with my first hand-sewn wool kilt, a 7-plus yarder. It will take me nearly 65 hours to complete.

I can imagine that I could, with practice, a little more than halve those numbers.... In other words, for a semi-custom casual kilt in a solid or pleated to stripe, I'd allot 8-9 hours. For a mostly- handsewn wool kilt, 30 hours.

Polyester Viscose tartan sells for around $25 a yard.
Polyester-wool, in the few tartans it's availalbe in, sells for about $35 a yard.
Wool, worsted sells for around $50 a yard or a bit more.

Do the very, very, very basic math.

A four-yard casual kilt takes 2 yards of tartan. That's $50.
It will take me 8 hours to machine- stitch up the casual... if I pay myself $10 an hour, that's $80 . The kilt will cost $130 DROP-dead minimum.

Let's say that I work five days a week making these kilts. I take three weeks of vacation a year. That's 49 weeks of work, per year.

I'm making $80 a day, or $400 a week for a 5-day work week.
49 weeks times $400 a week equals an annual income of $19,600 a year.

I don't know about you, but I know that for darned sure I can't live in the Bay Area of California, making $20,000 a year. There are places in the USA (these are USA dollars) and Canada where you can do just fine on that sort of income, but the San Francisco Bay Area isn't one of them.

[Alan H]

All right, so sez I, I'm going to make handsewn custom tartan kilts! Allrighty-then!

Do the very, very basic math...

Making 6-8 yard kilts takes 3-4 yards of material. That material, "to the trade" is going to cost me around $40-$50 a yard. Let's go with the 8 yarder. OK, so that takes 4 yards of 60-inch wide tartan, or $160-$200 worth of material.

Let's say that I can turn out a custom product in 30 hours. Barb and Matt Newsome can do it quicker apparently, but I have my doubts, personally, so I'm sticking with 30 hours. If I pay myself $10 an hour, then that's $300.

In other words, DROP DEAD minimum, this kilt is going to cost $460-$500. Why should someone buy a $500 kilt from me when they can get one from Scotland for the same price? And remember since I'm paying myself $10 an hour to stay competetive, I'm still only making $20K a year.

Let's say I know that I need to make $40,000 a year to "make a living". That's pretty darned tight here in the San Franciso Bay Area, but you can live on it. What would my kilts cost if I had to make 40 grand a year?

40,000 a year translates to about $20 an hour, plus or minus a few dollars and assuming three weeks of vacation. Well, they'll still take me 30 hours to stitch up, right? The cost for the material is still the same. 30 hours times $20 an hour is $600. Add on the $180 for the material and my custom-sewn kilts are going to cost $780.

.........and nobody will buy them.

Upshot is, I have no freaking idea how on earth our kiltmakers are making a living at this. The numbers are really sobering.

[Southern Breeze]

Upshot is, I have no freaking idea how on earth our kiltmakers are making a living at this. The numbers are really sobering.

They hire Santa's elves during the off-season.

[David Thornton]

Like I said, know your costs. Just don't forget to pay yourself what you need. If you can't, back off and do it as a hobby.

Moosehead may not need to make another $40K a year. Maybe creating something has value in his life. I have a friend who moved to Argentina. Found a knife maker producing an incredible knife, easily $300 in the States. I asked his daughter if I could buy one, told her to make sure the family made enough money. Cost me $17 USD.

Moosehead, every two weeks someone is on here looking for that perfect summer kilt...that's a market. Or a custom length on something else...another market. Bottom line, figure out what you want to do, survey for market appeal at the cost you will have to get, and go for it if it makes you happy.

I for one truely enjoy seeing entrepreneural spirtit.

PM me if you are serious.

David

[Barb T]

My advice is to stick to one or maybe two things and do them really really well. That way, people will want what you have to offer.

And be realistic about pricing. Personally, I think it's crucial not to undervalue what you sell. Getting a lot of orders is meaningless if you have to kill yourself to fill them and still aren't making any money at it.

If you are making a really high quality traditional kilt, charge what it costs to order a top notch kilt from Scotland, and don't try to match the cheap kilts from Scotland. You can't compete with online cheap from Scotland, and you'll kill yourself trying to.

Charging $250-300 for labor plus the cost of the tartan for a hand made traditional kilt is roughly the cost of ordering a good kilt from Scotland and is probably what the trad kiltmakers are charging in your area. But, if you charge that much, you have to have a really nice product. That might mean practicing a lot until you can make something that's indistinguishable from one of those high quality trads that someone would order from Scotland.

I actually do make a trad kilt in about 20 hours unless it's really big. But, it did take me 40 hours the first time I made one. So, don't underestimate how much time you would have to spend on each kilt if you wanted to make a high quality trad kilt.

What about offering a kilt that takes less time to make? If you start down the road of doing more and more machine work and making it less and less of a hand-sewn traditional, people will expect it to cost less and less. And you might ask Steve Ashton some day how long it takes for him to make a Freedom Kilt. It's a lot longer than you think, and he can charge what he does because offers a beautifully-made, well-engineered, and distinctive product. You guys probably don't know it, but Steve has a scientist's curiosity about what makes a garment work and an engineer's persistence in analyzing how to make a garment better. He has arrived at his current kilt design by persistence, experimentation, and a relentless attention to detail and perfection. So, moral of this story I think is that people pay for quality, and aiming for quality, rather than quantity, is not only personally satisfying but also good business in the long run.

Luckily for you, you're in Canada and don't have to pay duty on tartan ordered from Scotland, so that will save you some $$. You're also lucky that you don't have to pay income tax!

Well, enough ruminating. I have to go teach class. Topic today is climate change on Mars. Fun stuff!

Barb