G: Quality, Sizing and Word of Mouth

I'm sure that there MAY be a small percentage of good shirts VS hosed up ones, not the other way around 

I've rewritten this about 5 times now, and can't quite seem to say anything without going places i don't want to. I certainly hope that 90% of their product is going out without issue, as this would put them right about average with the garment industry. I'm just seeing what seems to be a lot of people coming up with issues on delivered product, and would like to see Gustin take a more active interest in the problem (ie, finding shirts suffering from recent strokes). I think their customer base has shown the patience that could absorb the time to pull a random sampling of 25% and check them. But I don't know, perhaps one of their biggest issues is people canceling due to shifting delivery dates, in which case I can see their reticence. In my experience, though, the resolution to this is regular communication (like they had a year ago when they were smaller) so that people know you haven't lost track of their order. This is a model founded on trust, but it has to be mutual for both parties to benefit.

I've paid for the Monster Twill, and I hope it comes in perfect, because I really like the fabric and I'd hate to send it back. That's all.

I don't think anybody here debates the excellence of G's customer service; just hoping for fewer encounters with them.

Butteryfly effect.

The only shirts I have that are crooked are G-shirts. And this is what annoys me with G. They have superb fabrics, but there is so many problems and they are *always* things that never happened to me before ....ever.

Love - G
No love - Sewplace

For instance:
* Hole in jeans
* Bleeding patch that ruins tan jeans and everything else in the machine (some favourite clothes)
* Very many places of really messy stitching on shirt
* Lining inside chinos just rupture with ease
* Selvadge cutoff (this one should go into history books)
* All shirts different lengths
* Basically all my G-clothes have different sizes
* Chainstitch coming loose inside backpocket

Now the last one might be common, but it never happened to me before and it does not surprise me that it happened on a pair of G-jeans.

I managed to "save" the tan jeans by using 2 bottles of stainremover and multiple washes, removing the patch and only using them with something that covers the patch area.

I got refunds, new patches and alot of other nice and good things from G so once again - G is good, and makes it right, but it shouldnt have to happen so often. To me this together with the fact that the shirts are too smal i nthe chest and you have to up one size and get too long shirts to wear untucked, aaaaand together with that I have to hem all my jeans myself, this makes me not want to order anymore G-stuff at all until some of these things are fixed. If not, then ok, but for me - money elsewhere.

I forget who brought up the crocked shirts. I never noticed but now it bugs the crap out of me. I still feel bad for that blue rust flannel that was sideways.


Ren is taking care of me.

But what does it mean for something to "sell out" in the G world?

It seems like a lot of the campaigns don't walk a straight line. A couple of those heavy flannels made impressive percentage jumps as they neared the end.

Putting on my conspiracy hat...

With G's model, you never can tell. You can guess by the percentage leaps but with the Stock Store in place, they could also just say "Well, we're 7 short of funding. Let's just make 7 in the most common sizes and put them in the stock store." It would appear that the campaign fully funded and leave the impression that everything is full steam ahead. Or, they could just decide that a run of 60 instead of 100 is fine and change the basis of funding entirely for something that hasn't proven popular just to avoid the optics of something not getting funded. I think it's only been very rarely where G has actually said "We're only making X number of these jeans/shirts".

And I'll take my conspiracy hat off now....

It was me.

I even wrote a haiku about it.

You're welcome.

The first time I heard about pattern matching was watching some old video of Len Logsdail talking about how it took him years of cutting to master pattern matching. He proceeded to show off a shirt and suit so perfectly matched they made almost everything I own look like ass.

After seeing that I went on a ~1 year kick of buying expensive MTM shirts and scrutinizing every detail. Eventually I realized I really only care about pockets and the back yoke being aligned. Fast forward a year and I'm only interested in solids anyways. These days I'm forcing myself to try patterns again and hating it. Texture/character are the new pattern for me, and they come with the bonus that they're hard to misalign!

If I'm not mistaken, I believe there has only been one campaign that "failed" (and by failed, G pulled it down from the site and those pieces that were backed never made it to production).

I say this as an owner of 10 pairs of G denim and 6 shirts- their business model is a perfect case study in brilliant marketing. They've built a format where we appreciate the "scarcity" and reward their marketing copy by overpaying for certain fabrics because they tell us they are "rare" or "limited" or "unique", while being content to never know where most fabrics are actually milled (and thus unable to make an accurate assessment ourselves). I would venture to guess that the margin on each pair in the shop isn't consistent across the boards - but that's their "brand strategy" and I'm not gonna slight them for it. I'm quite happy with my G's and will probably back more in the future. It's still better than paying the crazy prices that others have sold at. For what it is, I can appreciate it.