If somebody like how to spend it describes your t-shirt as "..the nearest thing I've found to my ideal...quality is supreme…” you are in a good position to turn heads when walking into a pub, club or office. I met the creators behind the young Danish t-shirt brand that knows their way around the garments, needles and threads to talk about why they decided to quit their jobs and start making the perfect t-shirt.
While sitting in a stylish lobby on the North side of Copenhagen I was greeted by Mr. Langhorn, one of the Founders and Creative Director for Son of a Tailor, a young Danish startup known for their made to measure t-shirts. Our first encounter was in August last year. The brand has been growing rapidly for the past year and fresh winds have been blowing around the office, which created a fruitful opportunity to reach out to Mr. Langhorn to see what tricks the creative group of boys and girls behind the brand has been up to and how they see the business atmosphere in the turbulent garment industry.
The brand was originally created to solve a functional problem the founders were met by. “We were seeing all of these online shops popping up that were making tailor-made, custom dress shirts and suits. We didn’t want dress shirts or suits though. We love the simplicity of T-shirts, and that’s all we wanted. We thought, wouldn’t it be awesome if you were able to make the perfect T-shirt just for you? We decided to do just that."
During our talk and extensive amounts of e-mails later on, it became clear that the brand focuses much further than on selling a perfect functional garment. This brand focuses on a higher ideal having the values of it’s customers in the centre of everything they do. "We believe very much in the self confidence of our customers. We believe we are moving towards a way of thinking and consuming that is less focused on the appropriation of larger brands' often largely superficial values. Instead we want to focus on putting yourself and your own personal values in the centre."
The focus on the customer values are highlighted as you get Mr. Langhorn to talk about the main product of the brand. "We have a product and a service that doesn't dictate a certain look or fit, we provide the service and the guarantee of an expertly made product that is produced in a proper manor by people that have fair wages and proper working conditions. This way the product itself is very much in the hands of our customers. We see this as something unique and as a positive influence on the clothing industry as a whole and our customers respond to that."
"Being an entrepreneur in Denmark is very positive. It's fairly easy to set up your own business and you get a lot of support from the general business community."
Europe being in an economic turmoil, I was surprised when Mr Langhorn noted about the positive entrepreneurial atmosphere in the country. “Being an entrepreneur in Denmark is very positive. It's fairly easy to set up your own business and you get a lot of support from the general business community."
The future is looking very bright for this young gun on the fashion market. The constant creation of new value is however kept in mind as the founders want to keep on developing the offer. "We will continue to expand our offerings within the realm of the T-Shirt. In the long run we hope to be able to expand our general offering to include other clothing items such as sweaters, jeans, jackets etc. There is no reason why made to order has to be limited to T-Shirts."
Want to try out this perfect t-shirt? Head here.
