Creator of Custom Made Denim, Suran Goonatilake took the one thing almost everyone on the globe, men women and children alike, wear and customized it.
What was once an every day staple has now become luxury, but with all luxurious things, it is the adding of luxury to practicality that makes it so lavish. Brooke Shields quoted that nothing came between her and her Calvins… Nolcha Magazine investigates the technology of how literally nothing will come between a Body Metrics jean and the woman who wears them. Nolcha: Please explain a bit about your technology background and how the pod came about in the first place?
Suran Goonatilake: Selfridges is a truly ground-breaking department store allows us the face and time and attention you don’t normally get in a dept store. They took a risk on a new idea and it panned out. Creating a category, this is the innovators dilemma. There is nothing to compare yourself with. It is very hard to be the first person. Now that we have our data Bodymetrics will roll out into the US the first part of next year.
N: Why with a pod that can scan and garner 200 + measurements, why did BodyMetrics decide to start with denim?
SG: In retrospect we probably picked the hardest problem of all. The most compelling fit is women’s jeans. Denim is a very good sector. One fifth of all clothes sold in the world are a denim jean. The premium denim market has been growing and because we were in Selfridges we were allowed to work on this area with the high cost. We picked a niche that was a) democratic and b) solving a big problem. It is the perfect mix of what the market demands. We have some women who after they order their first pair order 20 more pairs and they $900 US dollars so that really says something about our product.
N: You mention on your website that you have bespoke jeans from premium designers. Please explain… do you use their denim? Their designs etc.?
SG: Serfontaine was always ahead of what is being done in the denim sector. He has been our main partner in that relationship. Recently we introduced the body shape jean. They classify a women’s body type into 3 different categories and we have jeans made into those categories. This denim comes at a lesser cost as they are not made to measure but made to a larger size range. It is in between made to measure and off the rack. A final service (I find it the most interesting service) went into Selfridges as a promotion called body craze. It scanned your body and then you could virtually try on different types of jeans. It helped a customer know what to try on (on average a woman tries on 9-12 pairs of jeans) It was highly entertaining and people loved it so we are re-introducing that at Selfridges in Fall 2008 with the difference of looking at the impact of that to reduce on-line returns. We think it will have a considerable impact of returns in the process. When it comes to jeans returns are about 40%. Returned garments add to more transportation costs, so we are changing the ecology aspect of on-line retail as well by reducing the traffic
N: Bespoke anything used to be just for the boys from suits to dressing slippers, what is the importance of bespoke fashion for women in today’s society?
SG: I originally wanted to make this be a completely female initiative. My question was why hasn’t there been an established culture of bespoke garment for women. We are on the women’s floor and 99% focus on women. I found there was a compelling need. Getting jeans made is going to have much more of a return on your investment than a bespoke wedding dress when you think in terms of number of times worn.
N: As trends change, how does BodyMetrics adjust their business to the ever evolving industry?
SG: Essentially Bodymetrics is a service based business. We are the fashion enabler. There will always be a partner brand. They are the ones with the design team. We simply enable that process in that business. The design partners are the ones that are adapting to the ever changing trend.
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