Inside the Atelier Vol.5

Inside the Atelier Vol.5

We're probably past the 'Happy new year' cut off but here's a belated one. 

A lot can happen in a short space of time and only this morning when I checked did I realise that November was the last time that I shared an update from the workshop. 

We had a great Christmas. We had more jackets than ever and we sold lots of stock. All good on that front. I even spent a lot of time designing some new stuff for 2025. We had some good meetings and put plans in place. 

I also did a lot of thinking. 

I created this business a bit by accident but soon found our path, our voice or however you want to frame it. I am passionate about 'good quality' clothing and spend way too much time down internet rabbit holes searching for satisfaction on different types of wool for example. I have always struggled internally about not being able to create our own stuff in that same material that I fanboy about. That also left me feeling a bit weird. 

I'm going to spend this next bit tell you exactly why. 

At the moment, we sell printed jerseys in the main. We don't manufacture them. My supply chain is set up so as I can order as few or as many as I like before working with my local printer in Leeds, to finish them as I please. I have spent years finding the right garments, testing and failing and winning until I was happy to add my name to them. Right now (despite some turmoil over pricing) we're where we want to be. These also sell really well and not once in the 4 or so years that we've been selling them has anyone asked 'where are these made?' That last bit is important. 

If I were to manufacture them from scratch here in the UK, I would need to buy in at roughly £13+vat per unit on a minimum run of 100. 

That's after sampling at 3x the cost of one unit with samples possibly taking 3-5 goes to get it right. 

Then I am sat on stock (and debt) that I need to move. So on one t-shirt alone, I'm already £1560 in plus £117 sampling plus £800 on printing. 

So that's £2477 on 100 t-shirts. For a collection, I'd usually look at 2x t-shirts, 1x hoody and 1x sweatshirt of which each of them land around £30 per unit. 

So my t-shirts now cost £24.77 per unit to make. 

One way to sell is to get it into retail who require making 2.8-3x mark-up on what they buy. Using this example, if they bought my t-shirt in at cost, they would place it with an rrp of approx £70. Which is a lot for a t-shirt, not forgetting I've not made any money yet. So if I add £5 per unit and sold at £29.77 per unit, the retailer would sell at approx £84. Madness for a t-shirt from an unknown brand. 

Doing this would then also mean that I would have to sell directly from my website for the same price so as not to upset or undercut the retailer. Granted, there's a big profit margin in that but no one with sense is paying £84 for a t-shirt. I will leave the maths to you to work out the hoodies and sweatshirts then add them all together. 

And we've not even mentioned making waxed jackets yet. 

So as you can see, you need a big pot of money to start with, which unless you are a millionaire to begin with not many have. Certainly not small indie brands like us. Do some digging on those brands who've excelled in recent years and you'll see they started with money, even if they offer a bullshit talk on humble beginnings. 

So why am I telling you this?

I think it's important for the consumer to understand that this is the model and it's a model that prices small brands out of the market. It should also make you question how much that t-shirt from the designer brands is actually worth, never-mind the fast fashion rubbish being sold for less than £5. 

It's worth noting at this point that anger isn't faced at the retailer, especially the indies. They have to compete with Mike Ashley's lot and the ilk plus they have wages to pay, lights to keep on plus they offer a service level you can only get in-store. 

The anger is aimed at the game which has been a race to the bottom for years and now we're there, it needs a brand new outlook. It's the same with most industries, music, farming, manufacturing.. We've killed them all for convenience. 

What does this mean for us?

Well, we will still make printed garments but price them accordingly. These are a symbol of the work we do on jackets and help us promote a better attitude to fashion. Our work restoring vintage pieces is what brought us here and why we remain. 

Our plans for this year see us doing what we do well, fixing up jackets, but better. We will be investing in strengthening those skills and going deep on sourcing and fixing up vintage pieces to put back into circulation for a new lease of life. There's enough great 'old stuff' already out there that I don't think we actually need any more 'new stuff'. 

We will be running much smaller projects with real artisan makers, where we can meet and speak in person whilst creating a model that serves us all. 

If you've got this far, then thank you. Please bare all of this in mind when shopping in future as this is the model most if not all indie brands work with. It's also the reason why most don't last long. 

Thanks for reading! 

Ryan