Tweet
a reply to Gawrodger & beginning of AW2014 new works series
.
Dear Gawkrodger,
Thank you so much for your visit to Hostem and your kind words regarding our work. But I would not be so pessimistic... never say "never."
You'd be amazed how many times I have heard stories about clients of ours who waited for years before being able to make their first purchase of one of our pieces. All the more reason we feel every day, the intense responsibility and commitment to make sure that their piece becomes and remains one of their most trusted wardrobe investments they ever make.
We take longer to make our pieces, we take longer to get known about our work, and we take longer to sell our work, but after almost four decades of doing it, we can begin say we last longer than most as well. Our target product life for an average GBS design we now set at 20-25 years each time we go to the drawing board to build a new collection, and that's not just for construction or material issues, but for styling and design as well.
So it's like buying a good house on good land, if you can save up the capital to acquire it, in the long run you will get your money back ten-fold and it is far, far less expensive than renting. And when you buy your clothes over and over because they either go out of fashion or fall apart or cannot be altered to fit you anymore, we view that as the equivalent of "renting" your wardrobe. A continuous stream of money being spent without benefitting from long-term ownership of the asset. At first glance, one may think one cannot afford to buy the house, but in reality, one really cannot afford not to.
If we could make and sell our work for less, we would, but the fact is, we can't. Our pricing reflects the true cost and value of what it takes to create and sustain that level of work and product. We know it is higher than most people can believe in spending for a piece of clothing. But our view of what a piece of clothing can do to improve one's life each and every day, is different than most people's today. Because most people have no idea what great clothes really are any more, let alone what they are worth.
But we do. And since 1979, our mission has been to show the world once again, one person at a time, what is possible- and what is the true value of great clothes made by great people. The price on the tag is for the people who make the clothes. People who live in Western Europe, pay their taxes, support their families, pay their rents or mortgages and spend their money in the local economies of a major western industrialized country. They are people who have spent their lifetimes mastering and refining their knowledge, skill and craft at becoming the best tailors, weavers, artisans and shop-masters in the world. Each one of them faces the same challenges you and I do when it comes down to being able to afford to have a roof over your head, food in the fridge, a doctor or hospital you can go to when you need to, heat and electricity where you live, and so on.
And so the price of the clothes they create, and the time and materials spent on doing so, must cover these things, without which, people with this level of knowledge and skill cannot continue to do their work and the pieces you experienced in your visit to Hostem would not exist.
For decades, self-serving industrialists, media gangsters and financial parasites have shielded you from this reality by eliminating skill and passion from the product and moving the making of your clothes to people who they can continuously pay less and less--not only in money, but also in knowledge and skill and craft--and even more importantly, passion and pride. They have done this so well, that the average person's monetary valuation of their clothing, their thinking of how important their clothing is in the quality of their own lives, has dropped 50 times from that of a person living in the 19th century.. when one would "never trust paying less than a full week's wages for a new suit of clothes--for it would never be able to be made right for less than that and be able to stand up with any kind of real use or wear."... a time when people not only wore their clothes for a lifetime, but passed them on to their children as well. Think about that.
the Great Lie
Today, more and more we feel we stand alone in this industry which has devastated so many communities around the world with its artfully disguised version of global slavery. Bad for the environment, bad for people and bad for the customer the Great Lie about the true costs of what it really takes to make a piece of good, honest clothing today where every person involved in the total cycle of creation is adequately taken care of- needs to be exposed. You cannot make a pair of pants and retail it for "19.99" or whatever, without someone, somewhere in the cycle getting screwed. The consumer's price does not cover all of the costs of the product cycle. Someone else has to pay.
Invariably, it is the people who actually perform the physical work to make the product, such as the thousands who have lost their lives in Bangladesh in the past few years and the millions still alive who are paid less than 40 us dollars a month there, and the hundreds of millions of people who have been used and abused and then tossed aside as the relentless global outsourcing of production by large multinational corporations has moved its production from one country to the next. And it is also the consumer who gets a product that doesn't last and doesn't work, and which needs to be continuously repurchased with no end in sight-- a renter's wardrobe that in the end holds zero value for all of the moneys spent to acquire it. And believe me, that money adds up fast. As we witness the steady and systematic elimination of the middle class throughout every western-industrialized country in the world, along with the devastation brought on by globalization and the loss of jobs on a mass-population scale from those countries to ever poorer countries, few other things have made people less well and more insecure today than the rented wardrobe habit. This habit has made the owners of its leading proponents now among the richest 20 individuals in the world, but left its customers numbering in the hundreds of millions, poorer by the day.
As perhaps one of the last guardians in this world of an alternative way of doing things and an alternative valuation of what clothes should be and what clothes should cost, we know that we carry responsibilities far beyond a typical designer brand just out to sell clothes with some new look or attitude. No, we are here to show the world how to really make clothes again. We are here to provide a growing successful working model for a better way of doing things for a better way of life in the 21st century. And we must remind ourselves each and every day as we work on each and every piece for our customers with our blood, sweat and tears, that we are not just building and selling another piece of clothing, we are also building a dream.
So don't give up on us so easily, and don't give up on owning some of our clothes someday. Whenever you're ready, we hope to be there for you and take care of you (with both your kidneys intact). And for that, the pricing is what it is.
Now let's get on to the fun part, starting with some wonderful new Piacenza
babycamel hair pieces for Hostem...
Best wishes and thank you again,
Geoffrey B. Small
Cavarzere Venezia
NEW WORKS : GBS limited edition AW2014- a series
the legendary NNC02
A formidable alternative to Cashmere from the best cashmere makers in the world:
consider our Piacenza pure babycamel hair superlux hand dyed coating cloth
This special version of the super limited edition NNC02 4-button hand made coat design is one
of only 4 pieces of its kind made by hand in the entire world this season from one of our original
impeccable single-breasted notch lapel classic coat patterns and cut in super luxury pure Baby
Camel hair wool fabric woven in Pollone Biella, Italy, by the oldest woolen mill and most
respected cashmere makers in the world, Fratelli Piacenza 1733 Spa.
Designed from the inside out, it was combined with special superlux pure silk, and Bemberg
taffeta linings from Como, all individually hand dyed in our studios with a special process which
took over 18 hours to reach the precise final color and effect.
The design also features remarkable real artisan made horn buttons from Parma, Italy, real working
sleeve buttonholes, and 10 hand stitched buttonholes (each one requires 8-10 minutes to cut
and sew) and hand stitch detailing in luxurious pure silk Bozzolo Reale Milano Seta thread, generous
seam allowances on all major seams which provide alteration capability up to 2 sizes up or down for
maximum lifetime wear by its owner, and is handsigned and numbered by the designer.
Only four pieces of the NNC02 were built for the world this season,
each exclusively for Hostem in London.
.
.
Dear Gawkrodger,
Thank you so much for your visit to Hostem and your kind words regarding our work. But I would not be so pessimistic... never say "never."
You'd be amazed how many times I have heard stories about clients of ours who waited for years before being able to make their first purchase of one of our pieces. All the more reason we feel every day, the intense responsibility and commitment to make sure that their piece becomes and remains one of their most trusted wardrobe investments they ever make.
We take longer to make our pieces, we take longer to get known about our work, and we take longer to sell our work, but after almost four decades of doing it, we can begin say we last longer than most as well. Our target product life for an average GBS design we now set at 20-25 years each time we go to the drawing board to build a new collection, and that's not just for construction or material issues, but for styling and design as well.
So it's like buying a good house on good land, if you can save up the capital to acquire it, in the long run you will get your money back ten-fold and it is far, far less expensive than renting. And when you buy your clothes over and over because they either go out of fashion or fall apart or cannot be altered to fit you anymore, we view that as the equivalent of "renting" your wardrobe. A continuous stream of money being spent without benefitting from long-term ownership of the asset. At first glance, one may think one cannot afford to buy the house, but in reality, one really cannot afford not to.
If we could make and sell our work for less, we would, but the fact is, we can't. Our pricing reflects the true cost and value of what it takes to create and sustain that level of work and product. We know it is higher than most people can believe in spending for a piece of clothing. But our view of what a piece of clothing can do to improve one's life each and every day, is different than most people's today. Because most people have no idea what great clothes really are any more, let alone what they are worth.
But we do. And since 1979, our mission has been to show the world once again, one person at a time, what is possible- and what is the true value of great clothes made by great people. The price on the tag is for the people who make the clothes. People who live in Western Europe, pay their taxes, support their families, pay their rents or mortgages and spend their money in the local economies of a major western industrialized country. They are people who have spent their lifetimes mastering and refining their knowledge, skill and craft at becoming the best tailors, weavers, artisans and shop-masters in the world. Each one of them faces the same challenges you and I do when it comes down to being able to afford to have a roof over your head, food in the fridge, a doctor or hospital you can go to when you need to, heat and electricity where you live, and so on.
And so the price of the clothes they create, and the time and materials spent on doing so, must cover these things, without which, people with this level of knowledge and skill cannot continue to do their work and the pieces you experienced in your visit to Hostem would not exist.
For decades, self-serving industrialists, media gangsters and financial parasites have shielded you from this reality by eliminating skill and passion from the product and moving the making of your clothes to people who they can continuously pay less and less--not only in money, but also in knowledge and skill and craft--and even more importantly, passion and pride. They have done this so well, that the average person's monetary valuation of their clothing, their thinking of how important their clothing is in the quality of their own lives, has dropped 50 times from that of a person living in the 19th century.. when one would "never trust paying less than a full week's wages for a new suit of clothes--for it would never be able to be made right for less than that and be able to stand up with any kind of real use or wear."... a time when people not only wore their clothes for a lifetime, but passed them on to their children as well. Think about that.
the Great Lie
Today, more and more we feel we stand alone in this industry which has devastated so many communities around the world with its artfully disguised version of global slavery. Bad for the environment, bad for people and bad for the customer the Great Lie about the true costs of what it really takes to make a piece of good, honest clothing today where every person involved in the total cycle of creation is adequately taken care of- needs to be exposed. You cannot make a pair of pants and retail it for "19.99" or whatever, without someone, somewhere in the cycle getting screwed. The consumer's price does not cover all of the costs of the product cycle. Someone else has to pay.
Invariably, it is the people who actually perform the physical work to make the product, such as the thousands who have lost their lives in Bangladesh in the past few years and the millions still alive who are paid less than 40 us dollars a month there, and the hundreds of millions of people who have been used and abused and then tossed aside as the relentless global outsourcing of production by large multinational corporations has moved its production from one country to the next. And it is also the consumer who gets a product that doesn't last and doesn't work, and which needs to be continuously repurchased with no end in sight-- a renter's wardrobe that in the end holds zero value for all of the moneys spent to acquire it. And believe me, that money adds up fast. As we witness the steady and systematic elimination of the middle class throughout every western-industrialized country in the world, along with the devastation brought on by globalization and the loss of jobs on a mass-population scale from those countries to ever poorer countries, few other things have made people less well and more insecure today than the rented wardrobe habit. This habit has made the owners of its leading proponents now among the richest 20 individuals in the world, but left its customers numbering in the hundreds of millions, poorer by the day.
As perhaps one of the last guardians in this world of an alternative way of doing things and an alternative valuation of what clothes should be and what clothes should cost, we know that we carry responsibilities far beyond a typical designer brand just out to sell clothes with some new look or attitude. No, we are here to show the world how to really make clothes again. We are here to provide a growing successful working model for a better way of doing things for a better way of life in the 21st century. And we must remind ourselves each and every day as we work on each and every piece for our customers with our blood, sweat and tears, that we are not just building and selling another piece of clothing, we are also building a dream.
So don't give up on us so easily, and don't give up on owning some of our clothes someday. Whenever you're ready, we hope to be there for you and take care of you (with both your kidneys intact). And for that, the pricing is what it is.
Now let's get on to the fun part, starting with some wonderful new Piacenza
babycamel hair pieces for Hostem...
Best wishes and thank you again,
Geoffrey B. Small
Cavarzere Venezia
NEW WORKS : GBS limited edition AW2014- a series
the legendary NNC02
A formidable alternative to Cashmere from the best cashmere makers in the world:
consider our Piacenza pure babycamel hair superlux hand dyed coating cloth
This special version of the super limited edition NNC02 4-button hand made coat design is one
of only 4 pieces of its kind made by hand in the entire world this season from one of our original
impeccable single-breasted notch lapel classic coat patterns and cut in super luxury pure Baby
Camel hair wool fabric woven in Pollone Biella, Italy, by the oldest woolen mill and most
respected cashmere makers in the world, Fratelli Piacenza 1733 Spa.
Designed from the inside out, it was combined with special superlux pure silk, and Bemberg
taffeta linings from Como, all individually hand dyed in our studios with a special process which
took over 18 hours to reach the precise final color and effect.
The design also features remarkable real artisan made horn buttons from Parma, Italy, real working
sleeve buttonholes, and 10 hand stitched buttonholes (each one requires 8-10 minutes to cut
and sew) and hand stitch detailing in luxurious pure silk Bozzolo Reale Milano Seta thread, generous
seam allowances on all major seams which provide alteration capability up to 2 sizes up or down for
maximum lifetime wear by its owner, and is handsigned and numbered by the designer.
Only four pieces of the NNC02 were built for the world this season,
each exclusively for Hostem in London.
.
Comment