Words such as ‘craftmanship’ and ‘handmade’ are used a lot in an attempt to add value to brands but the value are often only to vaguely enhance the image.
Meanwhile these words have tangible meanings to me.
Firstly, it means years of training to learn the skills. I have been making hats for 20 years and still feel that I have only scratched the surface of this big art. The words should not be used lightly out of respect to those who strives daily to build on expertise.
Secondly, I believe that ‘craftmanship’ is genuine only when the customers DIRECTLY experience the positive effect of hand-crafted items produced by skilled workers. In this blog post, I’d like to focus on this aspect. Here I am not talking about ‘#craftmanship’ as a part of ‘#brandexperience’.
I decided to learn traditional couture hat making because I believe handmade hats can be enjoyed by my customers because of their unique characteristics. For example, Where sewing machine stitches make the design of the hat too busy, I can blind-stitch by hand for cleaner and more refined look. Where factory-made flowers look too uniform and cheap, I can curl each petals and create more subtle and natural-looking flowers. Also, by sewing together the crown and the brim of a hat with ‘z-stitches’, the joint part, which happens to sit on your head feels softer and more comfortable. The methods I employ can bring both aesthetically and physically enhanced results. Also, making hats by hand one by one gives me an opportunity to take into consideration my customers’ wishes as well as facial features and make all fine tunings. These are few of the many ‘tangible values’ that customers can experience and these are the values that lead to emotional connection between the customers and hats. This way it becomes meaningful to take care of one hat for a long time (and as my customers know, I take personal responsibility to do maintenance of all demure hats) and our approach to consuming goods become more sustainable. If I don’t believe in the true customer values that handcraft can bring, I would not be a designer/maker brand but would apply for a job as an accessory designer at a large manufacturer.
Of course, making everything myself by hand do result in higher prices and if I want to charge those prices from my customers’ hard-earned money, I have to take personal responsibility for giving back the real value for it, not a vague promise of ‘brand experience’. Despite the branding-oriented trend, I have invested all my resources (monetary and personal) into the hats that my customers take home and no other things. And I am very grateful that my customers are open to my minority approach and give chances to it. With this knowledge in mind, I am determined to work harder, improve my skills so that I can deliver maximum value to your investment piece hat. Thank you all!
