The question that immediately comes to my mind: If he is so fully booked for $4000 suits, why not increase the price until finding the demand wall? Perhaps by starting at $4k, and I assume being back ordered far into the future, he has cemented his brand at that price point?
Good call. I was recently traveling and trying to find the local NPR station. I couldn't find it and ended up listening to some talk radio. The host was giving business advice to people struggling with their small businesses. One person owned a power washing company. He was too busy to breathe, but still not making enough money. The advice he received was to raise his prices and that he should be losing approx 30% of his bids. If he is winning them all, he is priced too low. "Raise your prices" is the advice no business owner likes hearing, it terrifies most of them. But if you have a niche like this suit maker does, you ought to. There are people that will pay 8-10k a suit, which means he will work 1/2 the time for the same amount of $. It's a no brainer.
I was curious about this as well. I was unsure if perhaps it was a flub in the article (since it later states that demand is falling) or if it's just a bit of mismanagement by the tailor. Either way, I wonder if doubling the prices would really work, since there's the looming possibility that the increasing quality of mass-manufacturing could completely undercut him. The issue of no scalability is a sad problem facing artisan crafts now. I wonder what will become of them as manufacturing progresses.
Eventually, perhaps soon, automated mechanisms will meet or exceed his work. My opinion is the only avenue for such artisan work to survive indefinitely is to become a symbol of status. The only way to achieve that is to take the price into the high status range.
Yeah. I had the same thought you initially did, but interestingly, the correct price might not be double (letting the tailor make a more comfortable living), but rather something much higher that not only meets the tailor's needs, but additionally establishes the product as a super-luxury item, going for only the top of the top end of the market. Maybe doubling the price doesn't signal enough status and quality to differentiate it with similarly priced off the rack labels.The only way to achieve that is to take the price into the high status range.
Having had the opportunity in the crazy 1990's bubble to buy a "made to measure" suit I can tell you that an expensive, tailor suit can be worth about a million bucks. Because that is how a good suit can make you look and feel.
How much of that do you think is psychological, similar to the lift people get when they wear a 'branded' piece of clothing that is functionally identical to an unbranded piece. That psychological boost is very real for many people, and most would probably like to pretend that they are immune to it, but they can't all be right. But on the other hand, there can be absolutely no doubt that a made to measure suit is going to fit so much better, and that the satisfaction in wearing and sense of luxury correlates to some measurable attributes besides the price. What do you think?
I can't attest for a $4000 suit but I can agree that a well tailored suit is worth the cost.