N America News May 2017

108 NORTH AMERICA NEWS / MAY 2017 , BookATailor have grown frommall kiosks to a high-end, franchise operationwith showrooms across the country. Service with a Perfect Fit at BookATailor From pop-up mall kiosks to 12 high- end showrooms across seven states, BookATailor has grown from strength to strength since it was founded by Jacomo Hakim, with help from his father, Fred, in 2012. Jacomo was inspired to open BookATailor during his studies. When, working as a DJ under the name Jacomino, his father began trying to convince him to seek more gainful employment, or open his own business in a more affluent industry. With his father’s support, Jacomo opened BookATailor in 2012 and has seen exponential growth year-on- year since then. The company is founded on the principle that everybody should be wearing custom-fitted clothes. With staff holding the opinion that custom clothing should be the centre of a normal wardrobe for people from all walks of life. To support this, their business model utilizes a private manufacturing company based in Bangkok, who are responsible for the construction and professional finishing of each garment. The use of a private company, rather than a mass-production service means that individual items can be made to exacting specifications, rather than a mass-produced model which defeats the object of tailoring. This means that turnaround times are much quicker and customers can have their tailored outfits or garments ready-to-wear in around five weeks. By ensuring that they can fulfil a customer’s needs entirely in-house, BookATailor can access clients from all over the country. They have partnered with professionals from all over the U.S and have opened showrooms in seven states, offering consultations on the premises or visiting workplaces, companies and households for personal consultations when requested. The service is broken down into 5 stages – first, the customer schedules an appointment at a showroom, or requests a personal appointment at a location of their choosing. This gives customers the flexibility to have measurements taken at work, on weekends and at a time to suit their lifestyle. The tailor will store the measurements on a tablet, which has specially designed software to store each customer’s profile, which includes their measurements, preferred materials, colours and persona style profile, to make the process much more personal and valuable for the client. The client can choose from a range of materials and fabrics, which the tailor will show them swatches of for an easier, more accessible experience. This gives the manufacturers more insight into the customer’s style, palette and fashion preferences. The measurements and customer profile are sent to the manufacturing agency in Bangkok, where the clothing is professionally-crafted and finished to the customer’s specifications – leaving nothing to chance and guaranteeing client satisfaction. The items are then delivered within four weeks of the consultation date and customers are free to show off their new, custom-fitted clothing in style. Jacomo states that the benefits of offering personal and work- based consultations is that once one person is being measured, their co-workers often become interested and tailors are presented with an opportunity to pitch to warm leads and bring new clients into the business – a much more personal version of word-of-mouth advertising. The success of BookATailor has seen the company turn over an excess of $5 million each year since 2014, growth which does not seem to be showing any signs of slowing down at all. Company: Book a Tailor Name: Fred Hakim Email: [email protected] Web Address: www.bookatailor.com Address: 11 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck, New York, 11021 Telephone: 001-212-486-6628 1702CA58