by Ent » Sat 28 Mar, 2015 7:40 pm
Interesting reading and the comments made. In my humble opinion when production of Mountain Design, MacPac, and Kathmandu shifted off-shore to low cost (slave labour?) countries quality and sizing took a downward spiral. It almost that a person is recruited to shift production off-shore and just mirror what they had done before.
One thing I noticed especially was the sizing. The XL and XXL became tents. Now at 114kg I am no figure of athletic performance but styling inspired by sack designers came the vogue with bulky body and short arm length in those sizes. Much hype is made that nothing changes but take a shirt or jacket from pre the profit chasing motive and and sleeve length is much longer and body closer cut with longer back length. Interesting you take just about any shirt made in China and the sizing the remarkably close to each other regardless of manufacture/marketer but significantly different to an Australian or NZ made shirt, for those old enough to dumpster dive to the back of the wardrobe.
I once worked for a company that "designed" and imported clothing for the tourist market. This market closely mirrored the outdoor market in design as that is what your younger tourist wanted. The sizing was set by China standards that meant nothing fitted me. Yet some of the older samples made in Australia for another outdoor brand that the company in the long past had distributed, but got taken over and shipped overseas, fitted me rather well.
Part of the reason is a "design" is chosen and generally comes from the northern hemisphere and then a pattern is made and standard sizing applied. Now these ratios used to scale up a garment were once specific to a manufacturer, but now rather standardised to the world market. So you get a tendency for fat bodies and short arms. Also, cutting patterns can affect wastage so a tendency to cut to fabric width rather than to a person's size. I wear Hugo Boss suits simply as that is the only suit I can buy off the rack. So it is not just outdoor wear.
For those that have an Aussie foot brought up on barefoot childhood might find surprising that the BXX fitting in the Scarpa brand is considered by Scarpa rather weird as the narrower BX is intended for over ninety-percent of the market in Italy. Now hands up that have found that even the BXX fitting is too narrow. Sizing is unique to ethnic groups, and I suppose as Australia has become very diverse in ethnic background the old ratios are been dropped for Asian sizing. Better larger in the body rather than too tight appears to be the marketing logic.
What I find must frustrating is stitching quality, and to a lesser concern fabric quality, has gone. Please explain the argument that nothing has changed when a NZ MacPac shirt over twenty years old is still my go to shirt for winter, but every other shirt made in China has failed after a couple, and if lucky a few, outings. Similar Mountain Design polar fleece jackets, after countless washes with the black on the zips long gone replaced polished brass now showing, are still going strong. None of the new Chinese production has gone close to lasting the distance.
Also, design suffers. A great tent is one that enables you to live in adverse conditions. We now see a spate of designs that were described as bed wetting designs. By that climb out for a call of nature when it is raining and your sleeping bags cops a soaking. My first tent (apart from the hand-me-downs) was a MD Kaon. It is clear that the designer never walked in Tassie as it is a good example of what happens when someone that has not done the hard yards calls themselves a designer. Older designs, despite been heavy, were often good to live in. Hilleberg tents generally represent the designer that heads out for months on end. Only thing I wished was Bo Hilleberg was 6'4" not 6'2". Similar Tarp Tent come from a designer that is interested in long epic walks where weight is important.
Sure money outlaid on purchase is important, but frankly when it comes to value for money the Aussie made stuff is much better as their life expectancy is many time longer. The issue is we have a mass market addicted chasing "bargains". This means a business model that is based on fashion driven by keeping material and manufacturing costs as low as possible while aiming for a premium is a real money spinner. Funny thing was when I did marketing the strategy of using a well regarded brand and then dropping quality but holding price was actually called the "rip-off strategy" in the text books. Brand milking is a smoother sounding term. It is said Kathmandu makes their money on sales which suggests recommended retail price is inflated.
So Kathmandu, Mountain Design, MacPac, etc have a model that basically sells clothing and other gear as a fashion item for the backpacking market. Assuming that they get the styling right, and people see value in "prestige", they will do extremely well. The much smaller bushwalking market is increasing going non mainstream for packs (One Planet), tents (Hilleberg, Tarptent, etc), but there appears to be no true bushwalking clothing, but looking at NZ, hunting brands are starting to head into the more technical fabrics with emphasis on toughness. Though walking around though I am going to shoot something in a National Park not my style.
It is interesting to consider music. Now independent labels (Indie music) are the music of choice for a growing number of people. So the big brands are no longer the power house of money making. I tend to think that with the internet and people shopping, and referring each other to specialist brands, the mega brands will loss out in niche markets, and hence the "image". But hey, buy a gift for a fourteen year old girl and you find brand names still count.
Despite what we like to think here, most of the people I work with think I that am stark raving bonkers to head bush off-track for days. Especially in winter. So not surprisingly that is where the mass market is not aimed at. Curiously though my recent much used Polar Stretched tops are Kathmandu, so somethings they sell are good for bushwalking. Just need to be selective and not kid ourselves a brandname that makes everything from tents, sleeping bags, packs, to clothing is a reflection of absolute quality. But park yourself at Kitchen Hut in summer and you will see the recent recruits lugging up packs with surplus gear strung on, with a single brand name evident. As long as they greatly outnumber us, and take for fact recommended retail price equals quality, then mega brand-names will turn in good profits when the economy is good. Now maybe the mass market is waking up that a Target shirt is much the same as a Kathmandu one?
"lt only took six years. From now on, l´ll write two letters a week instead of one."
(Shawshank Redemption)