Quote Originally Posted by Alan H
Now, let's buy the material. Let's pretend that it costs $60 a yard. Now, since I'm running a business, I get a discount over retail prices, right? Let's pretend...because I don't actually know what the discount is...but let's pretend that it's 50%. So that $60 a yard stuff costs me $30 a yard. OK, double-width, right? So your eight yard kilt meant that I bought four yards of it.... $120, and we'll just sort of forget the tax and shipping for now, hmmm?

Tartan: $120
$60/yd is really optimistic. Yes you can get BW and the Stewarts for that, but try and get something else (Aberdeen at the Kilt Store is $103/yd or $88 with the X-marks discount). That takes your cost up to $200 for the material (and I think getting tartan as a kilt maker at 50% is probably optimistic since using your figures you only can make 100 kilts a year and unless they are all the same tartan you are only buying small lots of material). Also many tartans only seem to be available in single width which usually run about 80% of double width in cost.
Quote Originally Posted by Alan H
OK, instead of paying our kiltmaker a decent wage, let's starve the poor sucker. Let's pay him ten bucks an hour, for a stunning annual income of twenty thousand dollars a year.............Riiiiight.....
And yet I suspect that is closer to the truth. I have no problems with the kilt maker making $20+ an hour. My complaint was that the cost of tartan is silly. Why do some tartans cost $50 while others are over $100? Does it really take days to change out a loom? (the answer is no, my mother is learning to weave).
Quote Originally Posted by Alan H
NOBODY IS GETTING RICH, MAKING KILTS.
Yes the mills are.

Adam