In clothing the retail mark-up is typically 3–4x’s that of the cost to produce the garment. With this metric, if a company spends $50 to produce a pair of shoes you can expect to pay $150–200 for them. Seems a little unfair to the consumer yeah? — that’s because it is. Enter transparent pricing.
Mohammad ElBaradei. “If you have nothing to hide, then there is no reason not to be transparent.”
At Aes•thete we’re doing things a little bit differently. We don’t have a department store — or even a small boutique, just our e-commerce site…that means we have less overhead and more flexibility, ultimately bringing you more value. This spatial and fiscal freedom gives us the opportunity to design and create premium products without the absurd profit margins — helping us fulfill our mission to create a menswear brand that offers premium quality goods in a fully conscientious way. We believe a direct-to-consumer business model brings you the best value while also providing us with enough profits.
Jason Hartman. “Your brand is a promise to your customers… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.”
So how does transparent pricing work? We’ll use our Cashmere overcoat as an example…
We’ve decided you, the customer, deserve to know the inner workings of our pricing model. As you can see above, the textile alone in our overcoat costs $262 (~$100 for the thick gauge authentic silk lining, and another ~$150 for the Cashmere self fabric). From there we add in our other main expense, cut-and-sew. Our master tailors work for 7–8 hours on each and every overcoat, totaling $188 per coat ($20–$24/hour). And there you have it, that brings our coat cost to $489.38 per unit (without tax and shipping in the equation). In a typical retail situation you would be looking at paying $1,200-$2,000, we’ve priced ours at a 1.75x mark-up— $875.
We realize that paying this price for clothing just might not be in the cards for many consumers, and that’s just fine — but to the people whom pride themselves on the quality of their wardrobe we are confident we can provide the best value out there.
Professor Jean-Noel Kapferer. “A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive value and mission.”
In addition to transparent pricing we have other mechanisms in place to ensure you that you’ve made a conscientious and morally just purchase.
We’ve completely eliminated or minimized nearly all of our externalities, challenging the status-quo of the fashion industry. Eliminated or minimized externalities include but are not limited to:
• Domestic production to ensure ethical working conditions and environmentally responsible manufacturing techniques.
• Organic cotton across the board to reduce pesticide usage.
• Our entire line is polyester-free meaning no crude oil usage.
• Our packaging is 100% recyclable and plastic free.
• We use low impact dyes to reduce water pollution.
• We re-purposed leather and textile scraps from production.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, this can and should be done even in the business world. Profits are nice — people are better.
