Costume commission query

Community
#1

Greetings all!

My mother has been watching all the costuming involved with LARPing and looking at various photos from Teonn and being rather a dab hand with a sewing machine she’s curious about the level of interest at getting bits of costume commissioned or buying them ‘off the rack’.

Would you be interested in getting costume pieces made for you, what kind of pieces would you commission, what sort of payment schedules would you use for commissioned pieces and how much would you pay for generic items like cloaks, shirts and skirts?

#2

I’d be interested.

One can always do with new tunic’s, shirts, cloaks and robes.

I can pay direct to bank account or cash at conventions. We’re set up for PayPal too.

Pay wise, fabric plus a fair price for time to make.

#3

My recommendation, as someone who has made lots of items for larpers and medieval reenactors for many years to make standard items and offer them for sale instead of doing one off commission work. The overhead of designing, patterning and making one off items and trying to also make any kind of profit is actually overwhelming.

I’d suggest that she could find 2-3 items that would be very popular and sticking to that would make her life a lot easier. Things like simple tunics and pirate shirts would probably be a good start.

#4

Thanks for that, I’ve passed it on to Mum and she’s found it very helpful. She’s thinking of turning out some cloaks and maybe some shirts hopefully in time for Teonn and also take the odd commission (she likes making pretty things, I have a wonderful Victorian dress as proof of this)

Just as further research, how much would you guys be willing to pay for:

A basic cloak- one kind of fabric, hooded or unhooded
A fancy cloak- lined, fur trimmed, made of velvet/satin/brocade and/or embellished with embroidery

A basic shirt

A basic tabbard

A basic robe

#5

[quote=“Shades”]
Just as further research, how much would you guys be willing to pay for:

A basic cloak- one kind of fabric, hooded or unhooded [color=#FF0000]$60[/color]

A fancy cloak- lined, fur trimmed, made of velvet/satin/brocade and/or embellished with embroidery [color=#FF0000]$100[/color]

A basic shirt [color=#FF0000]$30[/color]

A basic tabbard [color=#FF0000]$20-30[/color]

A basic robe [color=#FF0000]$60[/color] [/quote]

At a guess, this is what I’d pay depending on material and style of garment.

#6

[quote=“Jared”][quote=“Shades”]
Just as further research, how much would you guys be willing to pay for:

A basic cloak- one kind of fabric, hooded or unhooded [color=#FF0000]$60[/color]

A fancy cloak- lined, fur trimmed, made of velvet/satin/brocade and/or embellished with embroidery [color=#FF0000]$100[/color]

A basic shirt [color=#FF0000]$30[/color]

A basic tabbard [color=#FF0000]$20-30[/color]

A basic robe [color=#FF0000]$60[/color] [/quote]

At a guess, this is what I’d pay depending on material and style of garment.[/quote]

I concur. And tabbards would be an awesome idea, when i first started i looked everywhere for an affordable but nice tabbard. Found one in England for $33 NZ - awesome price! - Shipping? $170.

#7

Just when you guys are thinking about prices - in NZ fabric shops, really cheap cotton is usually about $5m. Good quality wool or brocade can be around $30-40/metre and a cloak can take up to 5-7 metres of fabric. Trims are about $3/metre. (Mass produced clothes are often coming out of China, where the fabric and labour prices are much cheaper.)

If Shades’ Mum has got a good fabric source which beats the Spotlight/Arthur Toyes chains, that’s awesome, but she’s going to have to account for materials plus the cost of her time as well when she works out her budget for this stuff.

#8

[quote=“Stephanie”]Just when you guys are thinking about prices - in NZ fabric shops, really cheap cotton is usually about $5m. Good quality wool or brocade can be around $30-40/metre and a cloak can take up to 5-7 metres of fabric. Trims are about $3/metre. [quote]

Actually, Stock House has stuff cheaper than that, though I haven’t been there for a while, but in the past (about a year ago) it was $3 cotton, $4 linen, and $12 wool - has anyone been there recently?

#9

I have some really good sources for fabric (Geoff’s, Nick’s, etc) and you still need to account for 5-10 a metre. I made a fancy cloak recently with velvet, fur and satin, whivh cost $100 in materials. Judit’s cliak for Teonn, satin and brocade cost $110 in materials. A shirt is likely to cost at least $20 in materials unless you’re using the nastiest cheapest faveic.

#10

[quote=“Stephanie”]Just when you guys are thinking about prices - in NZ fabric shops, really cheap cotton is usually about $5m. Good quality wool or brocade can be around $30-40/metre and a cloak can take up to 5-7 metres of fabric. Trims are about $3/metre. (Mass produced clothes are often coming out of China, where the fabric and labour prices are much cheaper.)

If Shades’ Mum has got a good fabric source which beats the Spotlight/Arthur Toyes chains, that’s awesome, but she’s going to have to account for materials plus the cost of her time as well when she works out her budget for this stuff.[/quote]

Or it may be that what people are willing to pay won’t meet the cost of decent materials, and people will have to adapt their assumptions accordingly.

#11

[quote=“IdiotSavant”]Or it may be that what people are willing to pay won’t meet the cost of decent materials, and people will have to adapt their assumptions accordingly.[/quote]Oh yeah, the price people are willing to pay versus the price that someone is willing to sell stuff for will overlap and there’ll be a market, or it won’t. Just, I wanted to point out that getting things hand made isn’t comparable to getting something ready-made from a shop like Farmers.

#12

Yes. And its not just a matter of materials: skilled labour costs money. Easy to ignore when you’re doing it yourself (or have a personal costumer)

#13

[quote=“IdiotSavant”]Yes. And its not just a matter of materials: skilled labour costs money. Easy to ignore when you’re doing it yourself (or have a personal costumer)[/quote]That was the other thing. I’d expect to spend a couple of hours making a basic garment like a shirt. (If I was mass producing them, it’d speed up, but also I’d get bored. :wink: ) And I’d expect Shades’ Mum to be pricing her time at rather more than minimum wage, because of the skills she’s bringing in.

(Sorry, I’m not trying to nitpick, it’s just that the cost of labour tends to be hidden by the favour economy.)

#14

Personally I reckon the more people are making and selling nice gear for kiwi larpers the better.

Here are some of my prices for mass-produced costume pieces from the Epic Armoury range, for comparison. I would expect hand-made costume to be considerably more expensive, for all the reasons people have said. These prices are before the 20% NZLARPS member discount, so in practice most people will be buying them cheaper than this.

  • A basic cloak- single layer of black fabric, hooded - $61
  • A fancy cloak- lined, embellished with embroidery, hooded - $96
  • A wool cloak, hooded - $159
  • A basic shirt - $54
  • A basic tabard - $43
  • A basic dress, sleeveless - $64
  • A basic dress, with sleeves - $80
  • A basic hood - $23
  • A fancy hood, fur lined - $55

The advantages you might over the stuff I’m selling include:

  • your designs or materials might be better quality or more unique
  • you might have more ready-made items to sell than me, for people who want something straight away. I’ll mostly be taking orders from a catalogue.
  • you could do some custom work to order

I suspect people will pay more for things than they realise. Especially if they fall in love with an item. You’ve had lots of advice already, but my advice is to seize the premium market. That way your mum will be making fun, varied, beautiful items that people will fall in love with and pay more for, rather than cranking out repetitive basic items that you’ll have to fight me on price over.

Maybe take a look through the Epic Armoury catalogue with your mum (it’s here, and it’s 80MB, or you can grab a print copy off me at Chimera), and have a look at the Legend of the Seeker gear that several people have for an idea of what premium stuff could look like.

Also, would you like me to move this thread to the Gear forum?

#15

Which is one reason why I like it so much.

#16

Another option for premium gear would be to make outfits involving several matching pieces and only sell them as a set. A really nice outfit could sell for several hundred dollars would suit people who don’t have the time or skills to put together a nicely matching outfit themselves.

#17

Thanks for that everyone!

Mum’s got ideas, I’ve got a feeling I’ll be playing dress-maker’s dummy in the near future :wink: