What’s that, a whole new product that we didn’t tell you anything about?
Why yes, yes it is.

Introducing the Cloverdale Vest.
We’ll have these up on the website for purchase on March 1st, and while they won’t be part of the sale, we will be offering them at a special introductory price.

Seattle is a great city for eating out. When I Googled “Italian Restaurants” there was a map, and I started counting them. I gave up after I got to 50. And that was just in the downtown area. But you know, that’s not unusual: most cities have lots of Italian restaurants. And lots of Thai, Chinese, and Japanese restaurants, burger joints and endless Teriyaki places. Of course you can’t move in Seattle without seeing a Starbucks, but there are independent Coffee bars and Espresso cafés everywhere, too.
And all of these coffeehouses and restaurants are in competition. Occasionally one goes out of business. Occasionally one grows so big the owner opens up another branch, and another and the next thing: Starbucks. This is the free market. And the reason there isn’t one giant chain of generic restaurants that sells all kinds of food is because that would be a terrible restaurant, and even if the food served there was much cheaper than anywhere else, it would just be a chain of food-courts.
And who wants to only eat at food courts? I mean, all the time?
And the thing is, if you shop at Wal-Mart you are really shopping at a kind of food-court for…well, just about everything. And just like at a Food court none of the brands there are really in competition with each other, and since the only thing they have to offer is lower prices, they don’t offer much choice in quality. Or product.
And absolutely no choice in service.
What would it be like to shop in a shopping mall, where all of the stores were independent, owner-operated and focused on you? Where the manager was the owner, and not some multinational corporation? Where the products were, for the most part, locally made? A shopping mall that worked like the Restaurants in downtown Seattle?
Well, for one thing, you would have a lot more choice. Because every shop in that open-source shopping mall would be offering its own products. Did you know that most of the mall stores have their clothing manufactured in the same factories in China, or Macau or Indonesia? I mean, not just in the same countries, in the same FACTORIES. And the only thing that changes is the label and the price tag.
Lots of choice.
And the corporations have no incentive to change in any way, because they are bound by law to maximize their profit margin. They don’t need to offer you choice or quality or service because you no longer have an option.
Except that you do. For every MacDonn*ls, there is a local burger joint. Here in Seattle we have loads: Dicks, Kidd Valley, Red Mill, Blue Moon, even Red Robin! And they all offer great burgers, at reasonable prices, and they are owned by Seattleites. Dicks gives high school seniors a chance to earn a College Scholarship, serving burgers and fries. Local companies can do that. They don’t have to push up their share value every quarter. All they have to do is sell good food.
Do you want choice, quality, a job? Support Lastwear in its fight against Corporate Colonialism. Shop local. Work local. Support your local jeweler, potter, software developer, game company, whatever. Shop online. Support the makers on Etsy. Once upon a time, the United States was the workshop of the world. We can be again. We don’t need government help, nor the banking of big banks. You can start today, helping small business earn a living. How? Just stop helping the Corporate Colonialists from making a killing.
Now, do you want Green Cake with that Pinkerton? Free pattern? Chips?

Ahoy there folks,
The Steeplejacks are now on sale.

We are currently very low on stock and do not have the fabric to make any more right now so what you see is what you get.
If we meet our goal for the Staying in Business Sale we will certainly be getting more in stock ASAP, but if you want the sale price, you’ll need to act quickly to get the size you want.

The new Teasdales are now up on the website and they’ll be on sale until next monday.
We’ve made a few crucial alterations to the pattern and after testing them out on folks at the Queen Mary we’re very happy to say that the new Fit is a great improvement.
Not content with merely improving the fit, we’ve also increased the number of sizes, adding in a size 18 and a 20.

If you’re an odd size (i.e one of our older versions) we still have some original stock left on Etsy, but for everyone else, the new version is better all round.

With our Staying in Business sale coming along nicely we’re feeling really good about announcing an entire new menswear line for 2012.
Our new collection, while still incorporating many of our current silhouettes, will be taking things in a 1900 to 1930′s direction with Art Nouveau, Deco and Dieselpunks influences.

Something we’re calling Decopunk.

So if you like Flappers and Mobsters, wide pinstripes and crisp lapels, then you’re in for a treat.
Saturday February 11th at Neighbors in seattle we will be debuting an whole new line.
You can pick up tickets here and if you use the code 1920 you’ll be treated to $3 off the regular price.
So come join us for drinks and be the first to see what Lastwear has planned for the future of yesterdays tomorrow!

Event address is

1509 Broadway Seattle, WA 98122

Evening starts at 7pm

I reject the notion of infinite economic growth as being false. Fortunately as we’re an LLC and will never become a publicly traded company*, growing the business each quater to meet share holder demands is a non issue.
What is, I feel, important is to have an idea of what enough is.
It was my step uncle who I first heard express the concept of

“Work to earn a living, not a killing.”

It’s a pretty good mantra for anyone who’s interested in both business AND ethics.
So what does a living look like?
Well personally I feel that an income of around $50k inflation adjusted, would be completely adequate with the provisos of flexible working hours, paid vacations, good health care and the ability to work from wherever I want.
So that’s where we’re setting our long tearm goals.
A company that can provide that level of compensation for all it’s employees.

Of course, in the end it’s about quality of life. So really that income figure is based upon the life that I feel would make me most fulfilled.
But it is harder to develop long tearm plans with a compensation plan that reads:

• Shelter in a modestly sized dwelling
• Plumbing and electricity
• Quality local food
• Ability to travel
• Etc.

But those were the things I was looking at when I arrived at 50K.
In the end, if you want to be happy, it helps to know what makes you happy and have a plan to get it.

*Unless regulations on capital markets and a curbing of fiduciary responsibility or a full accounting of all reality’s moving pieces allows for business without externalities.

What we need to be sustainable

Just running some numbers, and taking a look at what we need in terms of sales figures, to make lastwear a stable, sustainable business.

If we had 1000 people who bought 1 regular priced item a year we’d be able to keep Thom B. and Lyssa employed full time, offer a very modest dividend to the other 6 shareholders and roll out at least 1 new line a year.
The new line part is important because obviously folks only buy so many pairs of steeplejacks from us before they have as many as they’ll ever need.

That’s really not very many people. If we had that many customers I’d say we were a stable business.

If we had 5000 customers each buying 1 item a year, we’d have everyone employed with health care, could roll out a new line every season and we’d all be very busy indeed.

5000 really isn’t very many people. It’s 0.1% of Washington state’s population.
Given how well received our products are by everyone who sees them I think it’s fair to conclude that our biggest problem is just that no one knows about us.
At 5000 customers I’d say that lastwear was a sustainable business. At least in economic terms.

We’ve had a great outpouring of support from folks saying how sad they’d be if Lastwear went under so for all of you, here’s the number.

1000

That’s the number of regular customers we need to stabilize.
What we need most is just to get our name out there and we’d appreciate any help we can get.

Hello there folks,
Starting Monday the 23rd (tomorrow as I write this) We will be beginning our “Staying in Business Sale”
What’s that you ask?
We’ll you are no doubt familiar with the crazy deals one often finds when a business goes under.
This is basically the same except that if we can sell enough stuff by the end of February we get to stay in business.

This winter has been a really hard one here at lastwear, with an unexpected drop in sales, that has really put us on our uppers.

We need to reach a sales goal of 10K by the end of February if we want to keep going. If not, we’ll likely have to shutter our doors.

So here’s what we’ll be doing.

One or two styles a week will be seeing a dramatic price reduction on our website. We’ll only be keeping each item on sale for one week though so you’ll need to keep checking back or follow us on twitter to catch the great deals.
If you can help us spread the word and enough people take advantage of what will be some really low prices we might just make it through.

So if you like great deals, and you like small American businesses who make quality products then help us out and treat yourself to some awesome clothes at the same time.

Ps. To our existing customers and fans, really the biggest thing you can do if you’d like to see us stay in business, is to help us reach a wider audience.