What pricing my handknits has taught me
My ‘Late Summer Wrap’ in hand dyed cashmere-silk currently on sale would cost 13,250 DKK (1775 €) in material and labour costs alone if I priced it honestly.
As a self-proclaimed ‘selfish maker’, I rarely make for anybody else – let alone sell my makes for money. But this week I finished yet another new cardigan and it just wouldn’t fit in my drawer anymore. This is a drawer I once dreamed about filling up with my handknits. Now, I have too many; and a sudden urge to make space for new things hit me. So, I chose to sell some of them. But the question was: at which price?
What goes into making a sweater – financially?
I am hardly the first person to make these calculations but I feel there is still value in outlining what goes into making a piece of clothing from scratch – from a financial (and my personal) point of view.
Let’s start with the materials: you need the yarn and a pattern. A good pattern will have a significant amount of explanations and high-quality photography. They are professionally tech-graded and extensively tested by other knitters. In my opinion, the work that goes into a pattern more than justifies the average price of 50-70 DKK (7-10€) and I am happy to support fellow creatives.
Then comes the yarn. Personally, I like luxurious, hand dyed yarns and natural materials. If I spend hours and hours making something with my hands, I want it to feel nice during the making process. The result should also be something I want to wear (a lot). And I simply don’t reach for clothes that contain polyester or itchy wool anymore.
My go-tos nowadays are merino, cashmere and silk and those aren’t cheap. A sweater quantity (depending on size) can cost up to 1000 DKK (134€) or more. Sometimes you actually hold two different threads together, which adds to the material cost as well.
Lastly, we have to consider the labour costs. These days, it takes me around 2-3 months to make a jumper or cardigan. Say, I knit an average of 60 minutes per day for 60 days, that is 60h alone.
Even though Denmark doesn't have a statutory minimum wage but rather collective agreements between labor unions and employer associations for various sectors (that's a topic for another day), I found online that many agreements stipulate rates around 110 DKK (ca. 15€) per hour.
Now, over the 20+ years that I have been knitting, I have become pretty experienced and knit more advanced patterns. Therefore, I don’t think the ‘standard minimum wage’ should apply, so I am going with 200 DKK (which, by the way, is still considerably lower than my hourly rates for my communication consultancy). 60 x 200 is 12,000 DKK (1,600€) in labour costs alone.
An example
Let’s take one of my creations that I am currently selling as an example. The Late Summer Wrap is a pattern by Knitting for Olive and costs 50 DKK (7€). It asks for two threads held together and I bought A Knitter’s World hand dyed cashmere-silk plus mohair-silk for around 1,200 DKK (160€). (Yes, it was one of the most expensive projects I ever made and yes, there are cheaper alternatives.) I don’t remember how much time I spent exactly but let’s use my average calculations above of 60 hours à 200 DKK: 12,000 DKK.
That is 13,250 DKK (1775 €) in material and labour costs alone and doesn’t even include any profit or VAT yet!
Would you actually spend this amount of money on a handknit cardigan?
Fast-fashion’s influence
At a time where we are used to next-to-nothing prices for clothes at fast fashion brands like Zara, Primark, and H&M, fair, honest and genuine pricing for handmades seems almost outlandish. And while I call my pieces handmade, we have to remember that all clothes are ultimately handmade. There are sewing machines but these need to be operated by a human being. So, every piece of clothing you wear has been touched and produced by another person.
The big brands are able to skimp on (fair) labour practices, (non-toxic) materials and their environmental impact. An interview with sustainable fashion designer Marie Sztana I did earlier this year dives deeper into these issues. All of this to say: handmade knits deserve a certain price and fast fashion should go extinct.
Ultimately, I decided to price my handknits at the cost of materials alone. Keeping in mind that the pieces are used, tailored to my body (long arms 👀) and that I am selling to friends and family and not strangers. So, there is an element of ‘unpricable’ love, too.
For those interested in the pieces I am selling, head to my Instagram page.