Where does a designer coat's price go, and what does a $20 to $50 replica keep?
research/garment-teardown
Bottom-up cost model for a lined coat applied to two reported designer prices: modelled factory cost is under 15% of price, the assumed markup chain does not close the gap, and a $20–50 replica needs very cheap cloth and labour. All inputs assumed. Stylised.
What it found
A bottom-up cost model for a lined woven coat (fabric from pattern area and marker efficiency, trims, sewing minutes times wage, overhead, brand and retail multipliers) applied to two reported designer prices. Under assumed inputs the factory cost is $186–248 for a $2,850 trench and $469–551 for a $3,850 coat, under 15% of the price in every wage scenario, and the assumed multipliers do not close the gap. A cheap-cloth replica costs $46–100 to make; only a very lean case reaches $29–34. Stylised: every cost input is assumed, prices are from search snippets, and fit and durability are not scored.
A figure from its own output
Paper, code and results
More in Engineered clothing
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- How far is a fixed 0.80 marker efficiency from a nested coat, and what does the difference do to the cost model?Nesting a stylised coat's 10 shell and 5 lining pieces with a 1.5 cm seam allowance gives marker efficiencies of 0.68–0.73 (shell) and 0.59–0.68 (lining) at three cloth widths, below the fixed 0.80 in
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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.