A small shirt can have quite a bit of work behind it. Before there's something to fold, someone has chosen the fabric, worked out the shape, prepared the print and made decisions about how the pieces will go together. When you look at the price of a small-batch garment, it's reasonable to want to know which of those things you're paying for.
We think a maker should be able to talk about that in ordinary terms. “Small batch” gives you a sense of scale. The details of the particular piece tell you much more.
The printing alone can be a different job
For the Heart Tee, we press each heart individually by hand. The Strawberry Tee is screen printed in our San Francisco studio. From a distance they're both printed cotton shirts; up close, the making process and the marks it leaves are different.
A design also needs preparation before the printing begins. The drawing, the way it will be applied, the setup: that work can serve a few finished pieces or a much longer run. The same is true of preparing a cutting layout for a particular fabric.
Repeating an existing design and figuring out a one-off fabric project may lead to similarly shaped garments, with different work along the way. Those are the kinds of things worth asking about when a price difference isn't obvious from a photograph.
Which part matters to you?
The Vintage Fabric Pocket Play Jean puts older found fabrics into a new denim garment. For someone drawn to that print, the pockets may be a large part of the reason to choose the pair. Another family might simply need a different kind of pant right now.
Think about fit, the feel of the material and what the piece will go with. Care matters too: if the washing routine isn't something you'll realistically follow, that's useful to know before you buy it.
A higher price doesn't promise a longer life, and a small run doesn't automatically make the garment right for you. We can explain the offer. You get to decide whether the particular details are worth it for the clothes your family needs.
Cost per wear can be a useful guess
Dividing a price by the number of times you expect to wear something can help with a decision. Just leave room for the part you don't know yet. Children grow, preferences change, and an imagined hundred wears isn't a record of what happened.
If you already know how often a similar piece gets used in your home, that's a better starting point. It still won't guarantee that a new small-batch garment works out cheaper over time or goes through several hand-me-downs.
There are good reasons to buy new, buy secondhand, mend something or keep using the clothes you have. We'd like the information about our pieces to be clear enough that you can choose without a sales pitch doing the thinking for you.
Our manufacturing story goes further into why location matters to our work. Read it with the individual garment in mind: its materials, fit, current price and order terms. That's where the larger making story becomes something you can actually weigh up.
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