Once clothing was custom tailored for those who could afford it, but mass production brought the concept of sizing - an approximate notion that sort of works. For most guys it isn't a big deal, but women generally expect a better fit and a someone who is a size 8 in one dimension may not be in another. One study indicated more than half of women of a given "size" have some issues with fit.
With a few exceptions "custom" clothing means printing user designs on tshirts or allowing customer input of a five to ten measurements. Of course if you have money you can go to a good tailor or dress maker. If you have a lot of money a designer can get involved.
About ten years ago body scanners began to appear. The idea was to acquire enough information accurately enough to drive custom fabrication tools. Some universities like
Cornell were involved in the work (see an interesting history by the Cornell folks
here) and an interesting future was sketched out. T You still need good three dimensional models of the human body and skilled designers, but now the model could be manipulated to match an accurate representation of your body and an electronic pattern could drive automatic cutting machines. A really nice idea, but too expensive given the extremely low cost of mass production in the third world. As a result there are only a handful of small companies that use scanners.
One is
indiDenim. If you visit their Emeyville, CA location they will scan you with an
Intellifit scanner and a few weeks later jeans are shipped to you from a fabrication plant in Mexico. They also will work with your measurements you supply, but folklore is the probability of getting a good fit is much better if you are scanned.
Intellifit was recently acquired by
Unique Solutions and it will be interesting to see if they can make a go of the business. Their scanner is rf based rather than a laser scanner, so you don't need to dress in something that makes you nearly naked. They advertise scans for about $50 and will have fabrication
partners. So far the partner list is slim and there are only two scanners in the US (four more "coming soon"). I hope they will succeed, but for now it may be most practical for people who have extremely difficult fit problems - the people who have to use tailors anyway.
The apparel business is a large chunk of the economy and a large fraction of customers are not happy with fit ... there is a real opportunity for someone to get it right. Standards are needed as well as inexpensive scanners (scanners could get very inexpensive if you made them in the tens of thousands). One could imagine Google or Amazon being a broker who might jumpstart this in order to collect your data and be a connection hub to designers and fabricators. Custom will probably mean precise fit with a bit of user selected customization available, but the choices will probably be based on an existing design. Most people can't design - so think of it as a list of options.
The apparel industry has too many layers and inefficiencies - it basically works because you can find $2/day labor in the third world. One wonders how long that can last given the possibility for a system that can produce clothing that fits. And if this happens there may be people who are doing street fashion now who might find the barrier to design much lower. Something about ten thousand flowers blooming...
(thanks to Jheri for great discussions on this)
tiny homes
In the NY Times today ... check out the slideshow.
Sub 500 sq ft may be too small for most (although I know several people who have beautiful apartments around that size). You can do great things on a sub $100k budget and, if your focus is outside the home, it might make real sense. One can imagine engaging an architect and achieving real personalization - something impossible with "normal" homes unless you have a lot of money.
And having less means you may not have to make as much and that may be the key to freedom for some.
I can't imagine many moving in this direction, but I'm guessing the correlation between happiness and floor space and/or stuff is not positive after a certain point.
disclosure - the two of us have 1050 sq ft of paid-off living space. It is full enough that buying anything new requires the replacement of something old. Living in a smaller space would take some adjustment, but I imagine 800 sq ft would be ok with a lot of planning.
So daydream for awhile - what would your life be like if you could have huge savings on your home and time required to keep it up? What if there were constraints on the stuff you could fill it with? What would you do with the extra time and money?
I bet two meter friend Colleen would be ok with small sub 800 sq ft home *if* the ceilings and doors were high enough. It is painful to have someone that tall hit her head on a doorway. She could probably even get a custom place made to her scale with high counters, a long tub, high shower, closets, etc. Practical personalization that may be affordable.
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The average area of a new home in the US is about 2200 ft2 ( a bit more than 200 m2 - 100 feet2 is about 9.29 meters2) Here are some comparisons
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