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Though the custom haberdasher David Brignoni strives to "make everyone happy," anyone who has had to dress others knows this is easier said than done. Through his many years at J. Press (more about that experience in a future post in this series) and Barneys, David has expertise with luxury fabrics and tailoring. That is reflected in the client that came to his atelier tens years after first working with David at Barneys. The client tracked him down because no suit in those ten years had fit him as well as the way the one David tailored. And like he does for so many of his clients, David had to repair the poor tailoring of the other suits the client already owned. He says this is more common at a time when measuring, even in luxury retail settings, is done by people that "have no idea what they're doing." 

Another story David told was about a coat one of his clients wore to a meeting once. The fur-lined lapel of which was particularly outlandish, and David couldn't help but laugh when he saw it. Rather than take offense, the client asked David to explain his actions and returned the coat once they were finished with business. When I asked why he thought the customer wasn't offended, David relied, "mutual respect." The more respect he shows his clients, the more respect they so him, and, furthermore, the more honest he can be. "I'm old fashioned."

David offers his customers a variety of good options, and his research pays off. Whether it's belts so well made that the artisan's wife must remind him that he's doing this to make money and they must be sold, or fine wool sweaters assembled by a small family operation on an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland, David finds quality product. Angelo Zegna once told him to offer only Zegna suiting, to which David replied, "if I offer only Zegna suits, then my customers don't need me, they'll just go buy those suits at Barneys."

A few years ago an economist, Pietra Rivoli, published a book, The Travels of T-Shirt in the Global Economy, that told the story of globalization since the end of the Cold War (only one of many historical periods of globalization) through the t-shirt. And, more recently, Planet Money, that excellent team of business and economics reporters who facilitate a blog and podcast through National Public Radio, devised a project similar to Rivoli's, where they would make t-shirts for the blog & podcast, but they would do so to illustrate to their viewers the sourcing and policy issues that go into making just a simple cotton t-shirt.

I thought of these works as I viewed the "Made in Mauritius" label on a shirt at the Columbus Circle J. Crew Men's Store last week. I thought of how the "Made in ..." label is misleading, and that Apple has it a little better with their, "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China." This simple but wonderfully colored shirt I held was designed in NYC, and the textiles could have been sourced from Asia or Europe, or even the U.S. (yes, there are still competitive textile producers in the U.S.). But wherever the textiles & notions were sourced, it was affordable for J. Crew to have the shirt assembled on a island in the southwest Indian Ocean (if you've never heard of Mauritius, it was home of the ill-fated Dodo Bird) 1200 miles from the African continent and almost 10,000 miles from Columbus Circle. The U.S. has been increasing their commercial presence in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean, likely a commercial component of America's strategic "shift" away from the Middle East and towards the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

[Vicuña roundup, Lucanas Province, Peru] 

[Vicuña processing, Lucanas Province, Peru]

The Italian luxury textile producer Loro Piana announced this week that it is buying a 60% controlling interest in the Argentine firm, Sanin SA. With this deal Loro Piana, a family-owned Italian firm based in Quarona, will assert greater control over the supply of vicuña fibers for luxury garments. Loro Piana's website describes vicuña as "the rarest, finest animal fibre in the world." The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) is one of two members of the family Camelidae in the Americas, and the animal inhabits the southern Andes surrounding the political boundaries of Chile, Peru, and Argentina. Scarves can range around $1500 & suits $20,000. When it comes to fibers, the best way to describe vicuña is, "it's baller time." 

With the purchase of Sanin SA, Loro Piana buys their annual license to roundup 210,000 head of wild vicuña for shearing in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. The Women's Wear Daily article that announced the deal described the particular breeds of vicuña in Catamarca have "'honey, almost white'" coats. A good natural color is of great benefit as the delicate fibers are fragile and, thus, can handle only so much processing.

This deal comes at a time when the Peruvian government is investing public funds into the further development of textile, garment, and shoe production for export. And their focus is to attract consumers looking for higher end pima cotton, vicuña, and alpaca products.  If it takes luxury fabrics to stimulate U.S.-Latin American commerce, so be it, but the relationship between the two regions needs whatever kind of date night it can get.

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When we first conceptualized Digishon.com 4 years ago, fewer than 4% of all the fashion businesses here in USA would get excited about letting us device a strategy for an entire overhaul to shape their businesses, thus not accepting changing their ways.  Digishon is a startup which bases its belief on bootstrapped fashion styling tips, online marketing techniques and social media for a stronger audience pool.  Soon we were helping struggling luxury home and fashion small businesses become more attractive. We look to others for guidance to help our clients while building a luxury business for boutiques. Yet we also challenge online business models because it is our job to question the best and worst ideas. For us, the fashion industry refused to early adopt our techniques in software because they simply couldn't believe that we were willing to continue paying for them to be acknowledged online.  Perhaps a martyr mentality instinct made our rationalizing the business plan was less about monetizing and more about capturing the audiences' attention.