Gift Shop Website

[M. A. C. Newsome]

For the moment, yes, we are limiting our new orders for jackets to Lochcarron's fabric offerings.

The reason for this is that Lochcarron supplies their own jackets and waistcoats to us. For all the other fabric offerings we had listed, we had to order the cloth and ship to another jacket maker we were using in Scotland. We have been having issues with that particular tailor and until such time as we feel we can guarantee a reasonable turn around time from another CMT tailor, we have to limit our jacket offerings to what we can be sure of a reasonable turn around time on.

If anyone is interested in a tweed kilt or similar, just contact me and I'll be happy to work with you on that.

[MacMillans son]

Thanks Matt, I certainly appreciate your commitment to good customer service.

The difficulty in finding qualified reliable tailors is a bit baffling to me. With the long lead times that you and every other supplier report, it is no wonder that Asian and Middle Eastern companies have stepped in to fill the gap.

It seems that a region with as strong a textile/garment history as Great Britain would have qualified tailors available to do the work. Though I guess I could say the same thing about certain regions of the US as well.

Is it just that the profit margin is not there for companies or individuals to justify the work?

Thanks again, and I wish you luck in finding another supplier.

Brooke

[davidg]

The difficulty in finding qualified reliable tailors is a bit baffling to me.

Unfortunately it's become a fact of life. Being in the trade myself (although I no longer advertise that) I am well aware of the scarcity of jacket makers. Yet the profit margins are actually quite good and the handful of tailors are extremely busy, with long lead times. Getting a jacket made to measure is far worse than stock sizes and one of the major tailors here has introduced restrictions on who they will supply made to measure to (only big retailers who sell a lot of ready made from them)

I sympathise with Matt regarding CMT. I only have two suppliers for that and one of those has stopped supplying until the new year. CMT can add to waiting time as well, because you have the mill AND the tailor to deal with, either of whom may let you down. I would hate to try and co-ordinate CMT from the US as neither mill not tailor necessarily keep their customers fully informed when there are delays, and there are many delays