Because saying it twice really drives the point home...

As part of the launch of our gallery feature, we're offering free customized blazers. On the 1st and 15th of every month we pick the design which is the highest rated (with the highest number of ratings, min. 50) and make it for the user, free! The gallery is a place where you can put post your designs and let other rate, and we'll be picking the cream of the crop every 2 weeks and making it for that aspiring designer.

Learn more about this offer by checking out a flash animation I spent the better part of a day in my boxers piecing together, click here.

Generalissimo Horowitz

DressMonkey is searching for ambitious young salespeople looking to make a quick buck selling our wares to friends and relatives alike. No real work required, free stuff, and a chance to be part of an up and coming customizable apparel company. Click here for more details!

To us, markups are like beautiful/unapproachable women dancing with Chester's at a club: they make you nervous at first, but after a while they do nothing but cause you great bewilderment and frustration. Our purpose therefore is no joke: to create a luxury brand that doesn’t cost a fortune because it cuts out all the hype. As we proudly say time and time again here at DressMonkey,

The main difference between our clothes and those of our closest competitors is simply our involvement in the manufacturing process and our willingness to share it with our customers.

So, in order to deliver this full-monty promise, we give you...

Transparent Manufacturing is something we offer our paid customers (one's who have visited our website and placed an order) as part of our no frills, anti-brand approach to clothing and fashion. It's also our way of saying "thanks again" to new, fellow DressMonkeys. Through Transparent Manufacturing, customers are given a rare glimpse into the unknown and often secretive world of global textile manufacturing.

Here's how it works:

A customer places an order with us on our website. After about a week, as part of our typical order status update email, we send a personal DressMonkey "insiders tip" which might include pictures, a short profile of the person making your clothes, a description of how we purchase your materials, an explanation of how custom measurements inputted in the website are transformed into patterns, or any other thing we believe you have an interest (and right) in knowing.

Now, why in the world would we lift up our pant legs and expose our little secrets to the world?

Well, because that's just the way we do things around here at DressMonkey HQ; knowing how things really work empowers us all to make choices that set us apart - we get ahead because of the clearer view of the options available to us.

Being a DressMonkey means being "in the know." However, to really be "in the know" first requires...yup, you got it!

PS - Kudos to Jeff - The whole Transparent Manufacturing process is still administered manually by him, but we're working on getting it automated!

American Apparel was bought last month by a small investment firm for $382 million - NY Times

Expect the AA rash to continue to spread rapidly, with stores popping up everywhere. Sales have blown up since 2002.

But how will the sale affect AA's messaging? Will loyal AA customers who expect the socially-conscious "Made In The USA", sexually-charged brand remain just that? Or will the publicly listed firm seek to rebrand the company to attract more of the mainstream US market like the way GAP did in the 90's?

I suspect much of the same from the brand during the early phases of its takeover. They'd be foolish to rebrand themselves after so successfully hijacking the young hipster populace in the US. And with AA founder Dov Charney remaining CEO, there's little to believe AA will market itself any differently.

American Apparel has been the perfect case study for me while focusing DressMonkey's brand identity and messaging. A few hours researching on the internet and reading old LexusNexus articles has exposed the similarities between AA and DM. AA sought out to do to the T-shirt what DressMonkey is trying to do with the blazer - that is, provide a cheaper alternative to a classic, inspired piece of American clothing, by focusing on a simple product (T-shirt), targeting a particular subculture (young hipsters and retro-chic hippies), staying true to to core values (US vertical manufacturing, socially-conscious, and blantantly sex-driven) and brand messaging. The best bit of information I learned however was that Charney sometimes works in his underwear, a habit we at DressMonkey are not ashamed of.

Here is a revealing portrait of the man behind American Apparel - Inc.com

70's polyester shirt I've had in my closet for years.

Ever wonder where your clothes you donate to charity end up?

Well, the truth about what REALLY happens to the clothes we donate to charities may hurt. Even with the holidays and its spirit of giving behind us.

A eye-opener to celebrate the start of a new year. Read about The Charities Profiting Off Our Goodwill (And Ignorance).

And now, a tirade into why you need to buy from us....when we eventually get our shit together...

I think we Americans have a serious problem with figuring out how much to pay for something. We buy something that's more expensive simply based on the fact that somewhere, somehow, we have been brainwashed to think that it is of superior quality. Think about it, the store brand mouthwash is around 40% cheaper than Listerine, it was duplicated exactly by CVS to possess the same germ fighting capabilities, yet you bought the Listerine. And why did you buy the Listerine, when every bone of common sense in your body tells you to buy the generic? Because you have just been duped, big time. Its ok, don't worry too much, I do it all the time too. Its in our nature to be stupid, just look at Jackass (which I really enjoy by the way).

When Jeff and I started this company, we knew who we'd be competing against. We knew that they boasted advertising budgets compared to ours that would stand like Everest over an anthill. But, we persisted, and we still believe that we can get Americans to come to their senses and figure out that it doesn't cost a lot of money to look good. I can 100% guarantee that our blazer quality is as good, if not better than Gucci, Prada, Polo, and any other top brand you can think of. Our fabric suppliers all have sold to many top brands. I've been in these major brands' stores hundreds of times since I started this business to see what it was that gave them the ability to sell at such a higher price than we plan on selling ours for. I still can't figure it out, other than the fact that in that issue of GQ, the average consumer sees some really good looking guy wearing something in a strange fantasy scene (I think the D&G ads are by far the most ridiculous), and for some reason that stuck with them. That our quality is as good if not better, you may ask why has DressMonkey not superseded these Italian and American powerhouses of the metro sexual market? Well, firstly, because we haven’t started selling yet, give it time. But more likely, because we don't have the ability to tell you, through million dollar advertising campaigns that our quality is better and our offers cooler. Polo doesn't make your blazer to order, they have a guy in "Italy" make it, and then throw it up in some ad. Their store carries it in hopes that you identify that $3,000 item which only cost $200 to make (tops), as being a worthwhile expenditure, no matter how rarely you might wear it. Do they let you choose your exact sizes, or do they let you choose what color stitching you like on the inside? Nope! They tell you what to buy, and how much to spend on it. (I'm not meaning to sound bitter, honestly, but since I've gotten into this business, every day of finding out what these products actually cost to make has further induced outrage that makes me shudder why this topic isn't more mainstream)

I'm the first to admit that I think that most of these brands are really selling a good product. Even armed with a multi-million dollar advertising budget, they couldn't get away with selling a high priced product whose quality didn't warrant the small fortune you spend on it. Our products are the same quality, but we just don't have the marketing capacity these guys have. But we are trying to launch our business the good old fashioned way, through word of mouth and transparency of our brand. This blog was started to help our readers follow the building of our company. We report on things like trade fairs, factory dealings, and strange occurrences not only because we think it can be funny, but also so that you, our target market, can really see what goes into that blazer you'll hopefully eventually buy.

It will not happen overnight, it will not even happen this decade, but eventually, the world will come to its senses. We see the rise of DressMonkey as the fall in consumer brainwashing. It is possible to get a good product at a decent price, and we'll prove that the second we are up and running (which may be sooner than we think. Be patient my monkeys...)

Have you ever referred to a favorite clothing item by its label? (I shrunk my Diesels! or Dude, this rain is killing my Hugos). Besides sounding like a complete tool, the fashion police at Ask Men say the practice is dangerous: you could become a sucker for brand names and find yourself high atop other people's "fashion victim" A-lists.

We at DM wholeheartedly agree. While I may dream of the day I overhear someone lamenting the wear and tear of their "Dressmonkey," the days of blind devotion to one designer are over. At Dressmonkey.com, you create the clothes and then follow the manufacturing process. Brand whore, no more.

Check out the entire article here.

"For me, the bigger the name on the label, the less you should have to pay for it."

-John Mayer (InStyle Magazine - August, 2006)

John my man, well said. DressMonkey couldn't agree with you more. Suddenly your breathy songs about girls and their bodies are sounding much better to me.

I went back to the enormous fabric market outside of Shanghai, and this time I came back with a clear timeline in mind regarding how DressMonkey is going to proceed. We're going to be able to offer a lot more fabric types than we originally thought, and we will be able to guarantee quality fabrics that are from some extremely credible sources. And because of this and all other news regarding fabric that this gift-from-god fabric market has brought us, I am getting really excited about our upcoming launch.

The trip itself was pretty mundane, its about a 3 hour bus ride followed by endless rows of stalls of almost always the same stuff. But every so often, you find a gem of a store as we did. Some stores are absolutely dingy and look as if they are being used as a house/business. Others look like proper offices and are very inviting for e-commerce fiends such as myself. But you can never judge a book by its cover, as often times the best fabric was sold by the crappiest and off the beaten path stores. So I bought a large amount of sample fabric for us to use in our next Meet My Monkey round commencing sometime next week. So the moral of the story is, we're getting there in terms of fabric sourcing. I'm confident that the barriers to entry that once existed for us in this business (high fabric investment) are slowly dissipating as we work harder and harder. Below is a picture of me (looking like a total tool, I know) with my friend who is visiting from CT at the fabric market of kings.