Every year, when spring comes, conversations about raw cotton prices begin. They used to move gently—a little higher this year, a little lower the next.
Over the past few years, the range of those swings has become noticeably wider.
It is not just cotton. Dyes, sizing agents, yarns, loom parts, cardboard boxes, shipping—each one is creeping up little by little, and when you add them all together, the difference is surprisingly large.
It doesn’t double overnight, so the change is easy to miss. But looking back at old invoices, there are moments when we catch our breath.
The difficult part is how to reflect all of this in the price of our fabric.
The longer we have worked with a client, the harder it becomes to bring up the topic of a price increase. But carrying the burden in silence will eventually weaken the entire production region. That would defeat the whole point.
All we can really do is explain, little by little and as honestly as possible, the value of the craftsmanship behind each number.
There are things we cannot change about the flow of the world. Still, we would rather not have prices simply drift with the current. We would like each adjustment to carry a clear reason behind it. That is the kind of thing we think about at this time of year.