Fashion
How to Buy a Bespoke Suit Online
By John Burns published Feb 1, 2012
.jpg "Suit Yourself")
Two Net-savvy upstarts from Victoria take aim at the bespoke tailoring industry.
November afternoon, 5 p.m. The first pop-up store for online retailer Indochino Apparel-a large, open room on West Georgia-is packed with fresh-faced executives booking off early. The Black Swan soundtrack plays as guests mingle and inspect men's shirts, suits, and accessories.
The stars tonight are a dozen mannequins clothed in sharp jackets and pants. Huge boards lay out the many customizable features included in the standard prices ($400-$700): peaked or notched lapels, kissing or working sleeve buttons, etc. Nearby: rows of suiting fabrics-Italian or Chinese-in three price ranges; shirt cottons; tables of accessories (ties, cuff links, pocket squares, tie pins) and outerwear.
"The pop-up more than met our expectations," says startlingly youthful-looking CEO Kyle Vucko, 26, a few weeks later. He's sitting in Indochino.com's Landing Building HQ, clad in a company pinstripe. "We'll definitely be doing more, though first we have to work out fulfillment." The four-year-old firm, with offices here and in Shanghai, occupies a growing niche. Traditional clothiers (the Harry Rosens and Tip Tops) offer limited choice to maximum customers; online custom retailers like Indochino, by contrast, build products from the ground up-no warehouse inventory, no leases, and a marketing strategy worlds apart from that of the big-box stores Vucko and business partner Heikal Gani encountered when buying their first suits. Indochino was born of that frustration: "The options weren't great," Vucko says. "Service was poor, product selection was poor. I couldn't ID with the sales guy."
So the two, who met at UVic (Vucko was studying business, Heikal psychology and poli sci), found themselves in the apparel trade. Business plan led to proof-of-concept to rounds of venture-capital raising (facilitated by UVic business mentors headed by former Yahoo! president Jeff Mallett). Four years later, Indochino has sold about 25,000 pieces (up from a reported 16,000 in April 2011) to customers who have each logged on, typed in their measurements, and modified one of the three dozen or so suits on offer. The core buyer is the kind of professional who visited the four-day pop-up in November, plus those younger men buying a grad suit and "even some guys north of 40 who used to buy one high-end suit a year, but with us they can buy three times a year and personalize." Online makes the entry-level prices possible. (Thirty staff in Shanghai look after garment design, sourcing fabrics, inventory, and shipping; here, 20 manage marketing, business development, HR, and customer service-the actual cutting and sewing are contracted out in China.) But there are still barriers to the online experience.
