High-tech tailor shop on wheels
Accuracy of fit, convenience may set Tailor2Go apart
It’s a Friday afternoon and mergers and acquisitions lawyer Giancarlo Salvo squeezes in a break at the Dentons law firm to get measured for a suit and dress shirts. He heads down to the lobby of Montreal’s Place Ville Marie and steps into the Tailor2Go van parked out front where tailor Nathon Kong is waiting.
“I think that’s really convenient that Nathon can make appointments with people and pull up the truck, then they can literally step out of their office,” Salvo said.
The blue van is about the size of the food trucks you might see around the financial district at lunch, but inside it looks just like a little tailor’s studio. It’s heavy on wood panelling, with benches, cabinets, a few samples hanging on a clothes rack, and even an espresso machine.
Kong shows Salvo samples of the different materials, designs and colours, down to the details such as the cut of the collar and the buttons. Then Salvo steps into something like a dressing room equipped with a 3D scanner that uses cameras to pinpoint 450 measurements on his body in about 10 seconds. “I’ve never been scanned in my life except for at the airport, and this was a much more pleasant experience,” he said.
Although other tailor shops including Montreal-based Surmesur are using 3D technology to get that computer-precision fit, Tailor2Go is the first in Canada to take it mobile.
A graduate of Montreal’s McGill University with a degree in microbiology, Kong is new to the fashion business and Tailor2Go has been operating for a little more than a month. The idea came when he went looking for a job and had to go on interviews. “Everyone tells you that you have to dress to impress,” Kong said. But when he looked for a simple navy blue suit and a white dress shirt, he couldn’t find clothes that fit properly and spent hundreds of dollars in alterations. As a researcher, he believed there was a way to take better measurements.
It wasn’t until he was laid off from a pharmaceutical company last year that Kong, now 31, decided to take a leap and open the high-tech tailor shop on wheels. “It’s almost as if you’re pushed to make the decision, and if you don’t do it now you never will,” he said.
Tailor2Go is still running what Kong calls “second beta testing,” and he’s meeting many of his customers through word of mouth. Salvo was put in touch through a startup consultant they both know.
After the scanner creates an image of Salvo’s body, Kong does some fine-tuning for personal style and preferred fit. From there the measurements are emailed to a factory in Thailand where the clothes are made by hand.
Through family connections, Kong, who was born in Thailand, tapped in to the country’s thriving suit business, an industry that emerged from a combination of the textile trade in the Bangkok Port and a large number of skilled tailor shops. “If you rely on a factory, you want to make sure you have a good relationship,” he said.
“I decided which one will give me the most valuable suit or shirt by looking at their lineup production and making sure the employees are happy. I’m making sure I know where the fabric is coming from and I want to make sure there’s a quality check.”
The clothes are shipped to Canada within a few weeks.
Kong is the first to admit he’s got a lot to learn about the art of tailoring. But he said he hopes what he lacks in experience, he’s making up for with the accuracy of his measurements. While he was researching the company, Kong said he visited 10 tailor shops and found there was variation in tape measurement figures even among professionals with decades of experience.
“The beauty of the scanner is that it helps in terms of the operational because it’s going to make sure that the data is constant and we keep variables to a minimum,” Kong said.
Although Kong has felt the struggles of bootstrapping, he has had support through grants and awards coming from places such as Futurpreneur Canada, the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship and Montreal’s International Startup Festival. “I would have never come this far without the help not just in terms of the money, but also terms of the encouragement and the resources,” he said.
The biggest investment was the van, a former news camera truck that after renovations totalled more than $100,000, including the solarpowered 3D scanner.
The North American fashion industry has been using 3D scanners for at least two decades. North Carolina University’s College of Textiles professor Cynthia Istook said her department’s first scanner cost more than $100,000. Although the price tag for a scanner has come down to below $10,000 and the technology is used in some boutiques including Montreal’s Surmesur and the Brooks Brothers’ flagship store on Madison Avenue in New York, she said the fashion industry is notorious for not adopting new technology until it’s absolutely necessary.
While younger consumers are more interested in the speed and convenience offered by having measurements taken by a 3D scanner, Istook contends technology can never replace the tailor’s professional judgment. “While there are rules to evaluate whether something fits or not, every person has their own opinion about how things fit,” she added.
Salvo’s session at Tailor2Go is finished in less than 30 minutes. And the prices are not too far from those of off-the-rack clothes: Shirts range from $55 to $125; suits start at $650.
“Business has been very good but we’re not aiming for high targets,” Kong said, noting his next step will be to go online to allow customers that have their measurements in the system to order from home.
The beauty of the scanner is … we keep variables to a minimum