Bespoke tailors driven out of business by computers? I don’t think so… (The whole story)
One cannot really speak of “the” difference between machine-cut suits and those cut by a human cutter. The difference is either huge or it doesn’t really exist, depending on one’s point of view. If a bespoke suit is seen as a number of dimensional figures and some cloth-technical elements, coupled to the wishes that the client expresses, there probably won’t be much difference to be seen. But I don’t define bespoke in that way. To me, a bespoke suit is built up out of several elements, most of which a computer or a machine could not process. The sizes and the elements that a computer can process are but a part of the whole.
Perhaps the present day machinery isn’t as developed as I am imagining now, but it will be, and probably quite soon. The bottom line is that a body can be digitized: All possible configurations can be scanned and referenced. The downside is that it would take a whole pile of work to define beforehand all the physical forms and deviations that can be perceived in any given customer. I’d estimate, roughly, that you’d need some twelve retired (meaning also extremely proficient) tailors. Whatever. A lot. You’d need them for, say, a year or so. And they’d have to pour all their knowledge in it, and then you’d end up with a sort of workable configuration, I assume.
And still, all that knowledge in such great machinery, it would never out-cut a good cutter. It couldn’t. And I’ll tell you why.
For a Great suit, one needs a Great cutter. A great cutter makes a great suit, a mediocre cutter makes a mediocre suit. This seemingly obvious fact is very revealing: something of the person, some degree of ‘I want to make this suit beautiful’ should be infused into the work. In my opinion, every cutter will, consciously or otherwise, instill his definition of a beautiful suit, and his passion for the job (or lack thereof) in his suits. Furthermore, a person will perceive far more of the client than a scanner would.
Take for instance one customer and two tailors. Seasoned tailors, who know how to cut a ‘continental’ suit or a ‘British’ or ‘Italian’ one. Ask them to make a suit for a man by predefined specifications: Such a silhouette, width of sleeve and lapel, height and angle of the pockets, height of gorge, and length of various items all specified, oh, and to make it even more fun have them make it look as much as possible like a suit that someone is wearing in a photo, like the Prince of Wales, or Cary Grant for instance. Something great.
They won’t be the same. No matter how closely they will resemble each other, you will still be able to see the difference. That is because each cutter has a unique personality, just like all people. So something personal will be visible. A machine has no personality, no taste, no feeling. A computer isn’t creative. It won’t put its character into the suit. A cutter will.
I like to look at a bespoke suit as a piece of art, crafted by an artisan, a master of his craft. Because a person DOES have a personality, and taste, and feeling and is creative. Or at least, I hope your tailor is creative 
These aspects, to be serious, are in my opinion a part of the definition of bespoke.
The second reason, apart from the style, art, and personality of the tailor, is the degree of perception I mentioned before. A tailor, or a machine for that matter, cuts a bespoke suit for YOU. And that means that there are plenty of factors to be reckoned with, factors that can’t be scanned or analyzed by software. When you perceive a person, you perceive much more than obvious things like the height of the body, or the colour of the eyes or the hair. Likewise, a tailor will perceive more than simple measurements.
One can imagine a client who has a habit of folding his arms in front of his chest. It’s all very well for a tailor to tell someone that the suit looks best when the arms hang down naturally, but that’s backwards: You can’t expect someone to change an old habit because of the look of the suit. So perhaps the cutter would decide to add a little more drape in the back, to make the coat feel a bit more comfortable. But then again, he might also decide to cut a slightly fuller sleeve. The same thing holds true if you happen to mention to your tailor that in your job, you spend days on end at a desk. More drape, broader sleeve, who knows? Such an assessment couldn’t be made by a computer now, could it? These are just a few examples from a long, virtually endless list of matters that a cutter has to deal with when measuring a client.
So it is probably mostly a question of how to define bespoke suits:
1: Bespoke suits, the Venture Capital way: Machines make bespoke. The best. And we’re working on a prototype that will drive all you cutters out of business.
2: Bespoke suits, the ‘I am a cutter’ way: Never. We’re immortal.
For reference: try to build a computer system that would paint as brilliantly as say, van Gogh. Can anyone here imagine that this would be worth the investment? Would a machine be able to produce anything better than a copy? Would it be original, creative, artistic?
Is a suit art? It sure is!
UPDATE: After my previous post, I received an interesting email from a guy named Joshua, which you find below in Italics. I quite like this kind of discussion, so anyone who has anything to contribte, just leave a replyin the comment section, or write me an email.
Interestingly, the student who initiated this discussion had an interview with Lectra yesterday. Now Lectra is one of the largest developers of computer systems for the industry. I was quite amused to hear that they agreed in part with my theory, at least to the extent that a computer isn’t creative. Apparently, it is a major drawback in their plans.
Interesting…
Hello Joshua,
Here is my reply to your message, I’ve replied to the paragraphs one by one.
You ask if a machine can produce anything better than a copy. Lets say, for the time being, that it cannot. However any copy that itmakes is immaculate. If I were to purchase a suit from you that I wasoverjoyed with, would I value having a 100% identical replica of it?Absolutely. I could rotate between wearing the original and the copy and halve the wear on the suit! Or if I were to have a terrible computer related accident and tore my suit irreparably, I would be safe in the knowledge that I had an identical replacement.
Wouldn’t work. The cut might be copied precisely, but then you forget about the small tweaks that happen during making it up. You’d see the difference. Guaranteed.
However, if someone gave me a 100% identical copy of Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, painted by computer with the exact same strokes, paint and aged canvas, would it be as valuable as the original? Probably not. The owner of the original knows that they have the original and mine is a copy (even if they can’t tell the two apart). The value from the work comes from the fact that is was made by the hand of Van Gogh, and no more like it will ever be produced by that hand. Indeed there is value that arises from the physical work (paint + canvas), but the astronomical price is due to the intangible fact that it is unique.
Unique is the word. A copy isn’t unique. Forget about value, that’s just there to cover the costs, basically, and keep the tailor alive. If you enter into the value discussion, there are plenty of big names who produce stuff at prices only backed by the reputation of the name.
I am not denying that this latter element is not a component of the price of bespoke suits, but I feel that the majority of the price comes from the quality of materials, construction and attention to the unique needs of the client. Imagine the thought experiment: you tailor a suit for me for the price of, lets say, $3000. You see that I am happy with the suit and decide to offer me an identical suit for $2000. The lower price of the second suit due to the fact that you no longer need to make initial measurements or adjustments. Now imagine that I accept your offer and return the next week to pick up these two suits. At this point I can no longer tell that one is ‘worth’ $3000, whilst the other is merely worth $2000. Because, after handing you $5000 for the pair, they are both worth $2500 to me.
Point taken, but that is just your way of bookkeeping, in the end. And my way of bookkeeping wouldn’t readily allow for a 1000 dollar discount. But you guessed that.
Thus far, your reply has placed the value of a bespoke suit on the art of the tailor in designing an appropriate piece for the client. I am quite happy to accept that modern cutting and sewing technology is currently unable to capture the intricacies of a tailors hand. But let us assume that one day this arrives. In which case a tailor could produce the original, and machines could produce duplicates for a single client. Perhaps you may be kind enough to let this technology cope with different fabrics. Even so, a single client would never want more than possibly one or two copies of any single design. Fashions change, bodies accumulate mass and posture and position change. I am not familiar with the breakdown of bespoke suit prices, but if we imagine that 30% goes towards the labor of production (rather than the labor of ‘art’), we at best may reduce suit prices by a fraction through duplication.
Well, yes, but you are talking about a different product here: I maintain that a bespoke suit should as near as possible, be a work of art. You NEED an artist (cutter) for that. Furthermore, you seem to contradict yourself here: If a customer would only one or two copies of a given suit, would that justify the investment needed for such an advanced machinery?
The real question is to whether technology can ever measure and notice enough about the client to have enough information to make a suit. Following the gathering of information we would need some technology to design the suit — the creative genius, if you will. Rather than approaching this by tackling the measurement and then the design phase, let me limit my following discussion to the question of whether a computer could design a suit, given suitable measurements. I choose this approach because I am certain that your answer to this would be ‘Never!’
Not at all. The procedure is even in commercial use as we speak, with varying results. Probably some quite nice results in general. But the personal touches that a cutter would implement, which are often very subtle and of a ‘trompe l’oeil’ nature would be absent. They are all a matter of personal taste, either that of the customer or that of the cutter. So you could imagine a cutter at a workstation, correcting and adjusting a computer generated pattern. So you’d still need a cutter, and a damn good one.
My answer is ‘Yes!’. And the reason why I am so confident in this is that people often forget computers do not run by themselves. Software developers make computer software and software developers are people. And for examples of this I turn to the world of computer art, where artists use software as a medium. They take their aesthetic and use programs as a mode of creative outlet. While the majority of this work is in the graphic mode, artists around the world are writing software to generate music, sculpture, landscapes, etc.
Just my point. Without an artist of some sort, the machine wouldn’t produce anything original or creative.
Artistic expression is never limited by the medium. Whilst oils provide one set of opportunities and watercolours provide a different set, no one would say that watercolour is not art whilst oil is. Creative expression can and does flourish in many unexpected places. And there is no reason to think that computer software is not a valid creative outlet. Just as it took centuries for those working with cloth to establish techniques and artistic idioms, computer generated art is evolving and every day practitioners are refining their works.
And here we return full circle. While I certainly like your way of thinking, you merely prove my point by your rationales. A computer would only replace chalk and measuring tape, and would be useless without a cutter: the artist.
Thanks again for a great blog, and keep cutting!
You’re very welcome. Will do.
I like this discussion, and I’m looking forward to your reaction.
Regards,
Martin
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Take the most advanced CAD- pattern drafting system, run by the most experienced, highestly trained operator, let it cut out the “ingredients” for a suit. Then place needle, thimble, thread and an iron before it and tell the machine to make the suit! This makes all the difference!