Thursday 29 July 2010

2011 is not that far away. Part 3 - Half Tail (now the HARROGATE range)




Next year we are introducing a new style of suit into our hire collection. This style is something we have designed over 2010 and currently it has a working title of the "HARROGATE".


It is based upon the design in the image, which is made by Wilvorst in Germany. Naturally at Jack Bunneys we have created our own twist on this design.


This design is trying to capture the essence of a classical morning suit or wedding suit, whilst also resembling a modern slim fitting lounge suit.


It is essentially a half tail. Which is why we have been using this name during the design process. Half of a tail suit and half a slim fitting normal suit.



This new hire range for 2011, will be available in 2 amazing colours.
The fabric is being made by Vitale Barberis and is very fine Mohair mixture. This will be a lightweight, luxurious fabric and has a natural sheen when photographed, this makes this the perfect fabric for a wedding suit. This is something that we have learned over the years as tailors, we have always recommended Vitale Barberis fabrics for weddings and now this fabric will also be available to hire.
This suit will be available in a beautiful Mid-dark two tone Blue and a Silver.

It will be available in store to try from Mid October.
This new will be called the 'HARROGATE'

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Limited Edition Formal Hire CD-ROM Brochures are now back in stock!


At the beginning of this year we trialed a new Brochure format. Instead of our glossy A4 paper brochure we tried a CD-Rom style brochure. This brochure was easy to post, easy to carry away from wedding fayres and easy to collect from the shop. It was also packed full of hi-res images of all the latest formal hire. This brochure was incredibly popular, we had just 400 made and they were all gone within days. The next time we had a 1000 made and they also went very quickly. After this second run we have not had them back in stock.

But now we finally have them!

If you would like your free CD-ROM Formal Hire Brochure please email with you postal address and request your free brochure. marc@jackbunneys.co.uk


Be warned these will go very quickly.

Thursday 8 July 2010

2011 is not that far away. Part 2 - Children

I realise that some of our decisions we have made for 2011 are not going to be popular. And the least popular decision will no doubt be our decision to stop hiring suits for children. So I thought I would address this one first and try to explain our thinking.

So why are we not going to hire for children in 2011? ...

Well over the last 3 years we have become a successful little business. Our customers now expect all of our suits to have an excellent fit, to be made from the best fabrics and to be made using the best factories in Europe.
This is obviously what our customers now desire, but this does not translate well into children's sizes.
To manufacture a childs suit in the same styles and fabrics as the adults suits cost 10% less than the adults, which then requires us to charge only 10% less than the adults for hiring. "We are willing to pay this price" you may think. However the risk of hiring a childrens suit is greater than hiring an adults suit.
Children will and do have accidents. Suits will be stained, knees will be worn through and at times things are ruined. So to cover the risk the prices would have to be at the same cost as an adults suit. Again you may think "We are willing to pay" but the price is not the real issue. If a suit is stained or ruined it can take up to 12 weeks to have a replacement made. This causes issues with stock control or a lowering of our standards when hiring suits. Lower standards is one thing which will not be tolerated at Jack Bunneys.
The other issue when hiring childrens suits is the size. As we all know children grow at different rates, so two 6 year olds may have completely different sizes. This is why quality factories do not make suits in ages but rather chest sizes and waist sizes, in the same scale as an adults suit. However children do not always grow in scale. At times a childs arms may grow and at other times their legs, some times children develop shoulders early in life and sometimes not until their teens. It can be extremely difficult to fit a childs size. More so than adults, this again requires a lowering in our normal standards. We normally prefer all of our hire suits to be an excellent fit, this is not always possible where children are concerned.

So in conclusion there are a number of reasons why we will not be hiring childrens suits in 2011.
1. Price
2. Risk
3. Stock Control
4. (most importantly) Size.

I do apologise for the inconveniance this will cause and we are aware that this decision will not be popular with some of our potential customers. I hope I have explained our reasoning and that you can appreciate that our small business is trying to do our very best to offer the very best service we can.

Marc