Is made-to-measure a new hope for brands?

Thinking of launching ready-to-wear brand? Be prepared for minimum order quantity, excess inventory and fashion calendar (spring/summer, fall/winter and resort).

“I made huge losses on my ready-to-wear collections,” said Elsie Chrysila of Elsie Chrysila Atelier. “It was until my third collection that I told myself I could not keep on going like this forever. When am I going to see return on my investment?”

The cost of staging a fashion show is enough to cover the production cost of multiple collections. That is a hefty price to pay for a start-up brand funded solely by the designer. Keep in mind that fashion show and press coverage do not automatically translate to sales.

In her early years of career, Elsie offered a cut-make-trim (CMT) service for clothing line and custom gowns while working on her ready-to-wear collection. “The revenue from CMT went to my collection. I barely earned anything,” said Elsie.

“I stopped doing collection and focused on customised bridal wear in 2016. I was thinking, why didn’t I do this since the beginning? Ready-to-wear fuels my idealism as a designer, made-to-measure feeds my stomach.”

Image: Cava Privé

Many made-to-measure businesses started with ready-to-wear. That is how Cava Privé, custom bridal shoes, started. “Cava (Privé) started out as a formal shoe line. A lot of people approached us at an exhibition and asked if we could customise wedding shoes for them,” said Cava Privé founder Christine Chai. The first order of customised shoes came from Indonesian fashion influencer Acha Sinaga.

It was a great decision indeed. The customised wedding shoes went so well that Cava Privé recorded a 100% growth in 2017. The number of orders doubled every month.

The atelier posted another meteoric growth when Indonesian pop singer Raisa Andriana wore its customised shoes on her wedding. Cava Privé currently has 59,300 followers on Instagram.

The biggest advantage of made-to-measure is no excess inventory. An atelier only produces when a client places order. There is no upfront production cost. Plus, there is a 30% to 50% down payment before production starts. The down payment usually has the cost of material covered. In case the client bails, the atelier will not be left out dry.

With made-to-measure, founders can leverage their skills by creating everything on their own. There is no need to hire extra hands when the atelier just starts its operation.

“I started Ayyara with my then-fiancé when we were planning for our own wedding. We tried producing our own accessories for our wedding,” said Jessica Saputro, founder of Ayyara, a personalised wedding accesories brand. 

The two-year-old brand currently has eight people in the team, including Jessica and her husband. The rest is made up of crafters and supervisors.

On top of that, founders have full authority of the production and quality. “I ask ‘is it possible to make more’ more often than ‘how to make more,’” said Jessica. “We are limited by the speed of production. By taking more clients, we often find that compromise on quality has to be made—exactly something we don’t want to do.”

Image: Christine Chai in Elsie Chrysila Atelier

Image: Cava Privé

Image: Ayyara

Balancing capacity and client is tricky. Because everything is personalised, a designer has to make sure the end results meets the client’s demand. At the same time, the designer has to consider the capacity of tailors or crafters.

Tailors and crafters working for an atelier are not trained to sew as fast as garment workers. They have to customise pattern, sewing techniques and fabric according to the order. Imagine if an atelier has 100 orders per month.

“Managing client expectations is arguably the most difficult thing to do. We often draw designs on the spot, in front of our clients and discuss it directly,” said Jessica.

Often time, dispute with clients is inevitable in this line of work. “I’ve had clients who didn’t pay for the gowns,” said Elsie. “I’ve also had client who got offended because of emoji. I’m laughing now but I was shaking terribly when it happened.”

People’s temperaments are unexpected. In Cava Privé’s case, some chats from customers are downright rude. There’s also a case where the client tried to humiliate the atelier for missing out on information on the pricelist. As Christine said, “You can’t please everyone.”

“Miscommunication often happens. For us, writing down client’s request is normal but I’ve got a client that was offended because I wrote down everything she said on my notebook. She was offended because she felt like she was treated like a criminal,” said Elsie. “Nowadays I just take pictures and screenshot of everything.”

Client handling is another department in a business. If a designer has to focus on the creative side of the business while sparing a lot of time servicing customer, it will subsequently overwhelm the designers.

“After dealing with many clients over the past three years, I become more selective with clients. It’s about work-life balance. It’s not worth it to be stressed out,” said Elsie.

“Last year, I refused to take in any orders for three months. I was totally burnt out,” said Christine. “Then I realised I need an assistant. I couldn’t handle everything on my own.”

Then, there is the scalability part that remains unclear in spite of the big margins and low-risk business model. There is a clear path to scale ready-to-wear brands – adding product category, receiving investment, opening stores and so on.

With the made-to-measure business where everything has to be personalised, there is no way an atelier can expect the labour to produce the products as fast as ready-to-wear. According to Jessica, it takes around three months to complete an order.

Return order is rare in the made-to-measure business, especially ones that specialise in wedding. “We produce accessories for wedding. Obviously, you want your wedding to happen once in a lifetime, don’t you?” said Jessica.  

Image: Tinker Tailor

The most prominent example of how challenging it is to scale made-to-measure business is Tinker Tailor, a blend between e-commerce and customisation that allows people to design a piece from scratch and customise the existing design of high-end brands.

Founded by Moda Operandi co-founder Áslaug Magnúsdóttir in 2014, Tinker Tailor was hailed as the most innovative start-up. It gained a lot of press attention and is backed by influential figures in the fashion industry. A year later in the summer of 2015, Tinker Tailor shut its operation.

The problem with such business model is that it takes longer to produce one product and it requires a skilful and delicate pair of hands to focus on one product for weeks, sometimes months. Skilful worker or artisan isn’t easy to come by and they are not cheap. “It’s difficult to find shoe crafter in Indonesia,” said Christine.

The stake was higher for Tinker Tailor because they are dealing with customers who wanted to personalise Alberta Ferretti and Elie Saab dresses. Moreover, Tinker Tailor offered two distinct services that are equally time consuming. Tinker Tailor was a case of too much too soon.

Magnúsdóttir admitted to the press after Tinker Tailor folded, “A start-up should start with a minimum viable product and test it before they go and build out too much.”

In comparison, Elsie Chrysila Atelier, Cava Privé and Ayyara specialised in one product. Both Cava Privé and Ayyara founders have ready-to-wear line on the side. Cava Privé made ready-to-wear shoes using leftover fabric. Jessica and her husband already have a line of ready-to-wear accessories before venturing to Ayyara. All three of them succeeded in their offerings. Focus is the key: One viable product at a time.

Cava Privé has even implemented a streamlined process in its operation. The atelier is building a website where clients could fill in the form that slashed the time consuming process of explaining and recording orders.

The form starts with basic, simple, deluxe and luxury options. The basic option comes with one ornament on the shoes. The number of ornaments goes up from there. The form then continues to choice of ornaments, colour, sole and heels.

For Elsie, it is impossible to implement such system because it will limit the scope of design and there will be way too many choices. The decision to focus on bridal wear is already a big win for Elsie.

On the other hand, Jessica is not too fixated on expanding Ayyara. She aims to provide best service instead, citing that she will stick with pen and paper. “We are a young brand. We are content with our current situation. We can’t produce that many anyway.”

Personalisation makes more sense in bridal category because a bride wants to feel special on her wedding date compared to cocktail and party dresses. Made-to-measure is able to give that special feeling because the design of the gown will never be same as other gowns. Meanwhile, with the rise of designer knockoffs and fashion renting platform, the marketshare for cocktail and party dresses personalisation is guaranteed to decline, unless the target audience of the ateliers is ultra high net-worth individuals.

Although wedding industry in Indonesia is a crowded place, the number of competitors doesn’t worry all of them. Social media and wedding exhibition, according to Cava Privé, Elsie Chrysila Atelier and Ayyara, boost their brand exposure and give them kickstart in the industry. As long as an atelier has online presence and constantly joins wedding exhibition, there will always be inquiries for order.

But above all, the ultimate strategy is staying sane and balancing work with life.