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From http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html ...

Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to.




What does this have to do with anything other than that both articles happen to use the word "suits"? This isn't a story about the suit making a comeback, it's about old world artisanship struggling to survive in a 21st century economy.


It's not the suits are back...it's that they never really left.


this.


Graham also says in that column (and this is weird that I remember it, not having read it in five years!) "we never managed to crack the print edition of the Times."


Read the article more closely. This is about craftmanship trying to survive in an age where craftmanship itself does not scale. It's not about the "submarine PR" phenomenon that concerns the Paul Graham article.


I am willing to bet someone that knew what they where doing could program a machine to cut fabric based on all those measurements thus saving time. That by it's self is scale. Next step, 3d imaging to capture some / all of those measurements automatically. Once you start down the path it's the classic R&D vs vs market size debate, but nothing says you need to diminish quality as you start to scale.


Costco had a company that was bringing in 3d scanners to scan your body and then making suits based on those measurements. Haven't seen it advertised for awhile, so I'm not sure how well it actually turned out.


This may work for the initial fitting, but that is a relatively one. Some of the later fittings, particularly in the shoulder areas are more difficult and more trial/error.


Unless there is actual customer preference involved this is probably an area where more highly accurate measurements + a better formula + better construction could make this much faster. For people it's easier to fix it after the fact than do more up front calculations, but when a computer is finding the solution they can probably get vary close the first time.


In fairness, Adam Davidson's usually not quite so crass as your typical fashion reporter.

Usually.




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