Catshanghai

I’ve just been checking out Indochino’s online tailoring website.

Indochino is a Canadian company with offices in Vancouver and Shanghai. It runs a website that sells made to measure suits over the Internet for as little as $199, which can be a great bargain if you don’t mind waiting for your suit to to arrive from China. Selling clothes over the Internet did not work out for Boo.com 8 years ago, but we’ve come a long way since then. They have an answer for many of the issues that would stop many of us from buying a tailored suit this way.

Firstly, they tell you how to take your measurements. Your register as a new user and enter your measurement details. You can pay $1 for a swatch, which they will send to you if you want to get a feel for the fabric before ordering and they will honour the first $25 of any alterations, which need to be made. They claim to have a return rate of only 3 percent compared with an industry average of 17 percent.

Jenny was horrified by the concept of an online tailors, because getting bespoke clothes is such a personal experience. You need someone to help you choose the colours, cuttings and fabrics. She feels that simple commodity items like socks can be sold over the Internet, but not suits.

Indochino’s suits are not meant to compete with Taville Row tailors, but they are seeking to use the Internet to offer made to measure suits in a similar price range to items bought off the rack.

The online catalogue has a choice of about twenty basic designs from conservative to fashion suits. They also supply coats, shirts, blazers and accessories. Some of the garments look quite snappy, although they have promised to upgrade the photos. (See the techcrunch article here)It might appeal to folks in western countries who don’t want to spend $1000 for a made to measure suit, but those of us living in Shanghai will do just as well for less than 1000 RMB using the same tailors.

Good luck to Indochino for their bold E-commerce endeavour.