Title - Wardrobe Tags - writing draft
I want a wardrobe of nice clothes that fit well. For most of my life, I’ve avoided buying clothes for as long as possible. Why? Because it’s incredibly hard to find anything that fits well - let alone find clothes that I like that fit well. When you try on 30 items of clothing, and only one of them fits, and you don’t like the one that fits, motivation for buying clothes fades pretty quickly. So I’ve always told myself that if I can ever afford it, I’ll pay someone to make clothes from scratch that fit me like a glove. Recently, I found a new resolve, and decided to test my assumption that fully tailored clothes was the only way to achieve my goal. I called the best tailor in a 100 mile radius of home. I asked for their advice on how to build a wardbo do this cost-effectively. It was such a difficult conversation. It began with an underlying assumption that I wanted to get a suit or suit jacket. I want all of my clothes to fit well - not just a suit. I asked if I could buy ‘off the shelf’ clothes and have them adjusted. Yes, I could. How much? It depends - it’s really hard to say without seeing you. Well, I live at least an hour’s drive away. I have young kids. I’m moving house. I can’t come and see you for weeks. So I looked for alternative tailor’s or people who could adjust clothes for me. I realised that I wanted someone with the technical skill to adjust clothes but also an eye for design so that they could work backwards from a vision of what fit would look good before making adjustments. I couldn’t find anyone of that description. All of the local options were either high street tailors that mainly sold suits for weddings, or old ladies with an interest in sewing and knitting. In the end, I asked my mom if she could help. She has a sewing machine and the skill to adjust clothes. I don’t know if she knows or is interested in fashion and what would make clothes look good. So I’ll do the research myself and direct her. In the meantime, I’ve done some research, and ordered clothes for a springboard wardrobe. Of the clothes I’ve ordered, about 75% don’t fit and need to be returned (i.e. too small and not enough material to adjust), 15% need to be adjusted, and 5% fit fine as they are. As I reflect on this, I can’t believe it’s so bloody difficult to get nice clothes that fit. Yes, it’s partly due to my body shape, which is far from average. But even if someone with a more common body shape wanted nice clothes that fit well, they would probably need some guidance to choose the right clothes, and then someone to do a good job of adjusting to make the clothes fit well. I’ve not been able to find an end-to-end service that makes these things easy. I’m sure they do exist. High-end tailors, style consultants, or something like that almost certainly offer an integrated styling and tailoring service. But what about someone like me that wants to do this on a relatively small budget? I think it would be fairly easy to create a valuable, remote, productised service. If I had found someone that offered a diagnosis (detailed style questionnaire and guidance on taking critical measurements at home), prescription (buy these clothes, from these companies, send them to us, we’ll adjust them), it would have saved me money and time, so I’d have happily paid for it. It would also be cool to use a VR/AI type of tool that allows you to see how specific clothing would look on your body without having to go into a store. Ideally, you could also store items of clothing, and play around with combinations, until you have complete virtual wardrobe. Shall I build these things? I might do. It would be pretty easy to get local clients through SEO and referrals. Might be a nice little business for my mom. I could then change to an online business model with a variety of remote products and services. For now, I’ll let it brew. I’ll finish building my own wardrobe and soak up mom’s tailoring knowledge. My own experience could be a cool story to use to get my first clients.