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Re:What's a $4000 Suit Worth? by lobster_johnson on Tuesday September 04, 2012 @07:59PM (#4477149)
Read the article more closely. This is about craftmanship trying to survive in an age where craftmanship itself does not scale. It's not about the "submarine PR" phenomenon that concerns the Paul Graham article.
Re:What's a $4000 Suit Worth? by Retric on Tuesday September 04, 2012 @09:35PM (#4477462)
I am willing to bet someone that knew what they where doing could program a machine to cut fabric based on all those measurements thus saving time. That by it's self is scale. Next step, 3d imaging to capture some / all of those measurements automatically. Once you start down the path it's the classic R&D vs vs market size debate, but nothing says you need to diminish quality as you start to scale.
Re:What's a $4000 Suit Worth? by markshead on Tuesday September 04, 2012 @11:01PM (#4477751)
Costco had a company that was bringing in 3d scanners to scan your body and then making suits based on those measurements. Haven't seen it advertised for awhile, so I'm not sure how well it actually turned out.
Re:What's a $4000 Suit Worth? by christensen_emc on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @07:21AM (#4478847)
This may work for the initial fitting, but that is a relatively one. Some of the later fittings, particularly in the shoulder areas are more difficult and more trial/error.
Re:What's a $4000 Suit Worth? by Retric on Wednesday September 05, 2012 @10:11AM (#4479417)
Unless there is actual customer preference involved this is probably an area where more highly accurate measurements + a better formula + better construction could make this much faster. For people it's easier to fix it after the fact than do more up front calculations, but when a computer is finding the solution they can probably get vary close the first time.