Baby Clothes Rant

[Codymoogle]

Okay, I need to go on a bit of a rant here:

1. Why is it that nobody can sell baby/toddler clothes in adult sizes at reasonable prices AND quality? It's either cheap and really poorly made, or decently made and $100+ for one outfit. Why can't there be an even quality/price ratio?? You can get decent chronological toddler clothes for what, $10? Why can't they apply that ratio to AB clothes? I know more fabric = more money and all, but can't the ratio be at least somewhat decent?

2. Why are so many AB clothes styled so differently to baby/toddler clothes? Booties, for example. All of the pairs of AB booties I've found don't look like booties at all! They look like slippers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I want my baby clothes to be, I don't know, BABYISH?

3. Another thing... As far as baby clothes to get AB clothing ideas from? They don't sell BABY clothes anymore! All the baby/toddler clothes now are "mini-adult" clothes! It's hard to even find that nowadays...

4. I wanna start my own business for this, for Pete's sake...Even if the demand isn't very high, I at least want to be fair...But I have no clue how to start a business up, much less the sewing skill for this sort of thing. Any advice on how/where to learn?

~ moogle

[Newroad]

As far as price it is simple economics.. as long as people pay those prices they will charge them. On size ans style.. part of the problem if body shape dif between toddler/baby and adult.. they will never look exactly right. But as far as starting your own business .. Go for it.. competition is always the best way to drop prices. Good luck Moog I'll probably be a customer

[Bettypooh]

Okay, I need to go on a bit of a rant here:

1. Why is it that nobody can sell baby/toddler clothes in adult sizes at reasonable prices AND quality? It's either cheap and really poorly made, or decently made and $100+ for one outfit. Why can't there be an even quality/price ratio?? You can get decent chronological toddler clothes for what, $10? Why can't they apply that ratio to AB clothes? I know more fabric = more money and all, but can't the ratio be at least somewhat decent?

2. Why are so many AB clothes styled so differently to baby/toddler clothes? Booties, for example. All of the pairs of AB booties I've found don't look like booties at all! They look like slippers. I don't know about the rest of you, but I want my baby clothes to be, I don't know, BABYISH?

3. Another thing... As far as baby clothes to get AB clothing ideas from? They don't sell BABY clothes anymore! All the baby/toddler clothes now are "mini-adult" clothes! It's hard to even find that nowadays...

4. I wanna start my own business for this, for Pete's sake...Even if the demand isn't very high, I at least want to be fair...But I have no clue how to start a business up, much less the sewing skill for this sort of thing. Any advice on how/where to learn?

~ moogle

I understand your frustation Moolgelove. While there are very good reasons for high prices I'll make no excuses for poor quality- there's never a place for that

It would take 4-5 paragraphs to explain all the details involved at making your own clothing- let's just say that I too thought I'd give the bisuness a go myself, and then I learned that it's far tougher and more involved than you'd think, especially without patterns that actually give a good fit already

If you really want to give sewing a try stop at a fabric shop and ask them about classes in your area. Oftentimes a sewing machine sales shop will sponsor classes after hours. There may be some cost involved but it would take you years to learn it by yourself, even with the internet You're absolutely right about it being high time for somebody to make quality AB clothing at better prices, I just don't know if it's possible.

Bettypooh

[belinda_sue_fox]

I'll expand on Newroads answer.

Lets start with the $10 baby item. Those $10 items are mass produced and use cheap materials and like you say never have the classic baby style. Those classic baby styles are still available but use better quality materials and on the whole have more construction costs.

Now lets say for arguments sake that scaling up size to adult sized items we use 4 times the materials and that of the $10 item $8 is material costs. so that will get our cost upto $32.

Mass produced simple item to make at most will be one to two hours (I'm being wayyyyy over here) at minimum wage at sweatshopland inc, some third world country. Lets make the wo*kers rich and say they are on 50 cents an hour, which will add another dollar to our costs.

Don't know about you or anyone else but i'm not gonna wo*k for them wages and a decent item is going to take a few hours to make. Lets say four (which for a decent old style baby dress is low) and that we want $5 an hour.

So now we are upto $52.

I think this is where the cheap and poorly make items your talking about enter and get advertised. I'll also add to the rant here. These items are pretty much always advertised as made to measure, when in fact you can tell from the price and designs chosen that they are some bastardised halloween costume that is "one size fits noone"

As for getting the same look as the old (50's,60's,70's...) baby clothes, some styles don't upscale too well and need a lot of adjustments due to how some materials drape when they are made larger. Some just will look wrong because the ratios of the body changes from baby to toddler to adult.

So i'm of the mind that somewhere near $100 for a handmade, made to measure dress in a decent quality material that will last is about the starting point. Course most them $100 dresses ain't made to measure (one size fits no one), ain't decent material and won't look to good after a few wears and washes.

Starting your own business to help Pete?

You either:

Learn to draft and sew so you can earn a bit and have pleasure in the items you make and sell.

Learn to draft and sew, use cheap materials and make a few one size fits no one items and earn a tad more.

Get a few patterns then get them sewn up using good materials by people and earn next to nothing or loss money.

Get a few patterns then get them sewn up using cheap materials by people and earn next to nothing.

So to end my rants are the same as yours, mainly the use of cheap materials, which i know makes a HUGE difference in how the items look when worn.

So ends my quick reply.

For further information use google.

For pattern drafting use a drafting application(Theres one written in Java "sniggers" easy to break and steal err borrow.

For pattern drafting that wo*ks steal above then rewrite properly using a better interface ( Oooo how handy is .Net and it's Bezra curve funtion (had to write my own for my earlier version))