An X Marks tartan

[bikercelt1]

it doesnt seem so impossible. Lets try to get a count!!

I'm going to be interested in whatever material we get as long as it's quality stuff and not homespun or saxony. I prefer 8 yrd kilts, so figure me for that.

Jamie

[Alan H]

Let's get the tartan nailed down first!

Remember, deadline for submitting a tartan design for the X Marks kilt is NEXT Friday (not tomorrow).

[Manu]

Im in for and 8-yard as well. Thats two so far.

[Alan H]

There is one other issue, really two issues.

One is time, the other is money.

If we can find a place that will 1. supply the cloth ans 2. supply the kilts, then the burden of...

A. time, B. organization and C. collecting and distributing money is shifted AWAY from whoever at X Marks is involved with this. I've been involved in two projects like this. One was for a small run of poetry books and the other was for a set of baseball caps for a sailing association online. Believe me, if you serve as the "order center" and the "shipping center" and so on, the amount of work is absolutely monstrous, even for just 60 items. Everything we can do to have SOMEONE ELSE do the work will make the project that much more likely of success.

I find it telling that I put up two telephone numbers to call about mills in Canada that might be able to supply us with cloth and nobody has called them. To be honest, I fully expected that and I put it up as an illustration. It's one thing to commit to buying a kilt, and that's great....Thanks, those who've chimed in on that, already! But before that happens, SOMEONE, and hopefully more than one person needs to do a STINKING lot of work. A tiny, tiny part of that is making a dozen or two dozen phone calls about sources of cloth. Why is it that nobody has called those two mills that I put the contact information up about two days ago? IOt's not very much work is it, to make two phone calls? But nobody has done it. The reason is that many people will be willing to BUY one of these kilts, but almost nobody is willing to spend REAL TIME (not "post-on-the-internet-time") to make it happen.

Get real, people and understand that....or step up to the plate and make some phone calls and report back here about what you learn.

OK, enough ranting and expectation-training.

Now, imagine that in fact, sixty people sign up for kilts. I'd fall over in a dead faint if that happened, but let's pretend it DID happen. After all, it's not an impossibiloity.

Go check the Matron Mills price for 11 ounce Poly-Viscose.

http://www.scotlandforever.net/tartanyardage.html

It retails in the USA for about $30 a yard. That means it wholesales for roughly $15 a yard. SOMEONE has to up-front the money to buy 120 yards of this fabric if it's going to get made. That's $1800. How about the 5-metre preliminary run to check that the tartan is in fact what the designer intended it to be? Who's going to pay for that? I bet it's along the lines of $300 to do that. Some inquiries with Marton Mils will reveal that.

OK, X Mark citizens, who's going to step up to the plate and up-front $1800 of your personal money to guarantee Marton Mills that they'll get paid for their order? Don't expect Bear and Rocky and Matt and Steve and Jeff to cover this for you. You'll get your money back after you sell it, at no markup unless you have a retail license in your state of course, to Bear Kilts and USA Kilts and so on. Because you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart and want to make a great kilt available to X markers for the lowest price, you'll sell it to Rocky and Bear and Jeff and Steve and whoever else wants it, assuming they'll order 200 yards of the stuff at a pop, for $16 a yard. That'll cover your shipping costs. Who here is willing to cover the costs of 120 yards of poly-viscose fabric, order it, receive it, store it, re-sell it to kiltmakers in the USA and Canada on the hope that 60-plus guys from some site on the internet called X marks will in fact come though on their internet chit-chat and order the kilts you've just stuck your neck out to finance?

OK, now THERE is a dose of reality that everybody needs to understand.

If someone on this board is willing to up-front $1800 or more for that fabric, and that's just my totally uneducated guesstimate of what it will cost, then step up now, because believe me, you are our hero!!! Not only that, but all the searching for an affordable source for material is over, if someone will do that.

[Colin]

Good points Alan.

However a few things I feel I should point out or get clarrification on. Is Scotland Forever the mill, or are they simple a distrubutor? I got the impression that they were a distributor of tartans already available. If that is the case, the material is already pumped up for them to cover their costs.

Secondly, (and this is my opinion only) it makes more sense to me for a kiltmaker (or 2 or 3) to split the order and have the tartan made. This will give X marks members a kiltmaker or two with the available tartan. This will save the trouble of buying yardage (paying for shipping), sending the material to your prefered kiltmaker (paying for shipping), and having the kilt made (paying for shipping). If the kiltmakers bite the inital cost, they can make that up with the cost of material and labour. Now I know that none of the kiltmakers on this board will get rich doing this, but they do have the resourses to get this done properly.

Also if the tartan is created, the kilt company(s) that have the tartn made should be able to have a bit of exclusivity to the material. Now people will say that the kilt company may be left with extra material, but if anything has come through in the past, if the tartan is cool and neutral (no real clan affiliation) people will buy it.

Just my opinion.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

All of this is why I strongly recommend woolen cloth for kilts (aside from the fact that it just looks better).

I can have a minumum run of four yards made for a single kilt in any tartan I want. Sure, the prince per yard may be higher than a poly-vis or something similiar. But a single person who wants the tartan can place one order for one kilt and within a couple of months have the finished product.

Sure an alternate material may be less expensive per yard, but if you have to have 120 yards woven up, that is going to be a much, much greater initial cost. And frankly, I don't think anyone is going to want to put up the money unless they feel guaranteed of a certain number of sales. So you may be waiting around an awful long time to get your finished kilt.

Aye,
Matt

[Alan H]

Good points Alan.

However a few things I feel I should point out or get clarrification on. Is Scotland Forever the mill, or are they simple a distrubutor?

Secondly, (and this is my opinion only) it makes more sense to me for a kiltmaker (or 2 or 3) to split the order and have the tartan made.

Also if the tartan is created, the kilt company(s) that have the tartn made should be able to have a bit of exclusivity to the material. Now people will say that the kilt company may be left with extra material, but if anything has come through in the past, if the tartan is cool and neutral (no real clan affiliation) people will buy it.

Just my opinion.

I'm sure that Scotland Forever is in fact just a distributor. Absolutely, you're right. But the default markup in retail (when in doubt use this figure) is 100%. In other words, if the retailer pays one dollar for "the widget", they'll turn around and sell you that widget for two dollars. Of course, markup varies widely in various industries. However, it's not beyond the realm of reason to assume that if a fabric sells retails for $30 a yard then it probably wholesales for half of that, or $15 a yard. Now, I could be dead wrong. That fabric could wholesale for anything from $7 a yard to $25 a yard.

I think it'd be great if Bear Kilts and USA Kilts and Freedom Kilts and King Kilts and whomever else would get together and agree with one another to each order 30-40 yards of the stuff. It think that'd be the cats' meow, but I wouldn't EXPECT them to do that. It'd be cooler than cool if they would, though. it'd save a mess of hassle. Then again, Marton Mills is almost for sure going to want to get an order from ONE person/company, for all 120 yards and they won't deal with four companies each ordering 30 yards. "Almost for sure" is not "for sure", though.

So, who is going to call Marton Mills and ask them?

Time, gentlemen. Time is the issue.

I heard back from the guys who make the "homespun" kilts and should have pictures from them soon. I also asked about where the kilts were made and where the fabric was made. Let's see what they say. They're attractive because they'll do it all. All we have to do is submit the tartan thread count and then people who want kilts send them money. They handle everything and nobody at X Marks has to do a darned thing.

But that doesn't mean we HAVE to go with them, eh?

[Alan H]

BTW, I don't want to be a downer about this at all. I think an X Marks tartan is too cool for school, and you bet I'll buy one if one is available for the target price for a budget kilt. You BET I will! I just want to keep people's expectations in order, and I also want to put a limit on how much work I'm going to be doing on this, and what people *expect* I will be doing.

This cannot really be a one-person job.. Matt has designed some tartans. Maybe some other people will submit tartans. Who out there will make some phone calls and send off some e-mails and gather information to help this along? ANYONE can step up to the plate and help at gathering information about kilt/fabric options.

[The Wizard of BC]

Well, actually I did phone the Canadian mills.
And I called Marton Mills. (Which I have dealt with in the past)
Minimum orders is going to be the big problem with all of these suppliers.
There is one mill in Vancouver willing to do the job but they use Austrailian wool which is spun differently from what kilts are normally made from.
I am also willing to front for 30 or 40 yards of the tartan. But remember, I am not a traditional kilt maker. I am making my own Kilt with Barb's Posse, but it's not what I do everyday. and I'm already busy filling my own orders.
I'm sure someone ordering a kilt in our tartan wants a guarentee of a first rate job.
Let's get the tartan selection issue nailed down first. We can't even get that done.

[Colin]

Well, actually I did phone the Canadian mills.
And I called Marton Mills. (Which I have dealt with in the past)
Minimum orders is going to be the big problem with all of these suppliers.
There is one mill in Vancouver willing to do the job but they use Austrailian wool which is spun differently from what kilts are normally made from.
I am also willing to front for 30 or 40 yards of the tartan. But remember, I am not a traditional kilt maker. I am making my own Kilt with Barb's Posse, but it's not what I do everyday. and I'm already busy filling my own orders.
I'm sure someone ordering a kilt in our tartan wants a guarentee of a first rate job.
Let's get the tartan selection issue nailed down first. We can't even get that done.

Steve, I have some wool from Fraser & Kirkbright at my place as we speak. I will be using that for my kilt project in Barb's posse. Nice wool.