Thursday 28 July 2011

More News for 2012, product design continues.

Whilst we are feverishly preparing orders for this extremely busy 2011 wedding season, we are also looking forward to 2012 and making decisions in regards to the new products and designs.

We announced on this blog recently that the Harrogate range will be available in Black from 2012. We are hoping we will have the initial samples with us in October 2011.

As yet no other decisions have been reached in regards to future wedding suits to Hire.

But there is some exciting news! We are currently working on a range of unique, exclusively designed white formal shirts to buy for weddings. This new 'Jack Bunney' range of formal shirts will be 'hand-made' in France to our exact specification.
They will use the finest white 100% pure cotton. They will have our customary Jack Bunney design features, which make them completely unique in the market. I can guarantee you have never seen formal wedding shirts quite like these!

The fit will be exceptionally tailored and slim. The collars shapes will be for use with a slim tie, exclusively. The cuffs will be unusual but for use with a slim suit. The whole design ethos surrounding this new range, is about a shirt which looks fantastic with a slim fitting wedding suit. Slim yoke, slim sleeves, narrow cuff, darted and waisted.

We are very excited about these new shirts, they will be of supreme quality and design.

Prices will start from £110.00 inc VAT.

I will post pictures as soon as they arrive.

Monday 25 July 2011

What does fully booked mean? and why are we fully booked?

Our little shop here in Barking is unusual. I think we have always been a little different to every other shop but recently (over the last 3 years) we have become increasingly estranged to our peers in the same profession.

We offer a 'Wedding Suit Hire' just as many other menswear/tailoring businesses do, we just try our utmost to not be the same as these other businesses. We try to not hire the same suits as everyone else, we try to not hire out sub-standard products, we try to offer the latest designs we can imagine and hire them in the best possible condition, with the best possible fit. I guess this makes us different.

We are very lucky because it seems the general public of the U.K. agree with our ethos and we are busier than ever. But this success coupled with this ethos means that not everyone can hire a suit from Jack Bunneys, for this I apologise but I am afraid this is just the way it is.

To continue to offer the same quality of service, we have to personally oversee every single hire suit which leaves our shop. We have to alter each suit by hand and hand press each one. We have to custom make each silk cravat, tie and handkerchief ourselves.
We also have to have each suit custom made for us in top European factories. This of course means we cannot exceed our stock levels without having more suits made, which can take up to 14 weeks in the summer (European factories shut down over August). We do have plentiful stock of course and we try to plan for each and every eventuality. If a suit gets stolen, lost, damaged or simply over booked (maybe an unusual size has been booked numerous times for the same date) then we do have contingencies. These contingencies however are not limitless. There comes a point when we have to look at a particular date in the diary and say 'we simply cannot prepare any more orders this week'

We could of course book more if we wanted to, we do turn away a considerable amount of business. But this would go against our principles. If we were to book more we would no longer have our contingency plans to fall back on. What would we then do if something did go wrong? This would also allow less time to be spent on each suit, less time to do alterations, less time for pressing and less time dealing with our wonderful clients in the first place. For us the quality of what we produce is paramount.

Jack Bunneys is also a working tailors where we make suits on the premises. This work still has to be completed to our usual impeccable standards regardless of our hire department. We also have a corporate clientele, which requires our attention and a regular retail trade to boot! All of these other aspects (although not a priority for couples getting married) are still very important to us personally and we simply cannot neglect this portion of our business.

We would rather never become millionaires but sleep well at night knowing it was a job well done.

Marc

Thursday 21 July 2011

Jack Bunneys - Changing the world of Formal Wear




Hi All,


Over the last few years we at JB have tried to change the world of Formal Wear and now it seems that (at last) our efforts are starting to have an effect on the industry as a whole.


Our commitment to no longer using the same old products that have always been used. Has really paid off for the whole industry. Groom's are reading our website/blog/FB page and are becoming more demanding with their hire choices and now hire services across the U.K. are being led by a more informed choice. This means that in 2012 you should expect to no longer receive the types of things which I have listed below.



  • Heavy fabrics.

  • Shapeless jackets.

  • Cheap plastic shoes.

  • Standard Edward Jackets (in 100 colours).

  • Back-less waistcoats.

  • Black-backed waistcoats (unless it is a black waistcoat).

  • White suits (unless you are Liverpool FC in the FA cup final)

Not everyone would agree that the above list is of a bunch of outdated products which have no place in the current wedding suit industry but if you agree, then I suggest you find one of the U.K.'s leaders in wedding suit design (not one of the followers).





Marc

Tuesday 19 July 2011

2012 - What's the plan?


Hi All,
I have been neglecting my duties as chief Bunney Blogger recently. I am sorry for not posting very often but I will attempt over the next few weeks to put things right and post regular updates about our little family business here in East London (Essex).

First things first, this wedding season has been extraordinary! We have fully booked the three months of July, August and September for wedding suit hire. We have nearly fully booked some weekends in October too. We have also sold more wedding suits than usual. Mostly made-to-order and made-to-measure suits. The most popular colour this year being blue and the most popular design being our Harrogate range.

I am very proud of all of the Bunneys! It is due to their hard work that we have enjoyed more success than ever. The commitment of the Bunney boys to incredible customer service and their pursuit of perfection is an inspiration to me. The last two weeks has seen Jack Bunneys have the best ever two week period in the 53 year history of Jack Bunneys.

So.....what does the future hold? Well we are always looking for the next design. We are always considering new and interesting ways to supply the very latest in wedding suit design. We haven't confirmed any new designs as yet. But we are considering at least one interesting and maybe even a revolutionary step forward in U.K. wedding suits.

I can announce at least one piece of news for 2012. The Harrogate range will be available in a BLACK colour as of January 2012. The fabric will be the same Barberis Lightweight Mohair fabric as the Blue and Silver. The style will be identical, including the 3.piece suit and the u-shape waistcoat.

We are working hard on new developments for 2012 and have 100's of new ideas. We will narrow this down to only a handful of new ideas, some of these new ideas will be for our Hire department however I believe most of our new product designs will be to buy only.

I am hoping that Jack Bunneys can continue to be a leader in the design revolution of men's wedding suits in the U.K.




I will be posting again soon,

Marc