The price increase of 2022

If you've been following us for a while, you know we have been working on creating an honest business model producing quality clothing at a fair price.

To make this system work, we cut out all the middlemen and their profit margins from the beginning and went on the hunt for the best manufacturers in Europe. We could tell you at this point that our search was just like any Disney movie, singing with the forest animals, when we suddenly stumbled upon a magic door, behind which we found a workshop of tiny elves making marvels out of nothing. But as you can guess, this is far from reality....

We did end up finding these wonderful ateliers, those that respect ecological and social standards, value traditional craftsmanship, and care about maintaining economic independence and family tradition. However, our path to get there was more like an off-road dirt rally than a cartoon.

Today, we're proud of our long-standing relationships and the trust we've built with a handful of these manufacturers and the fact that we can continue to create beautiful pieces every year without having to change anything in our system. And if this was a Disney movie, we'd live happily ever after. But the current economic situation forces us to act, and act fast!

A global domino effect

Over the past two years, we've become accustomed to smiling with our eyes, greeting each other with our elbows, and working from our living rooms. However, the economic impact is only now starting to show.

When the pandemic spread, all economic sectors were directly and severely affected. You can think of it like a giant game of dominoes, with each piece falling over, one by one. The year is 2020, the world is at a standstill, what comes next is uncertain. The demand for everything that is not "necessary" is rapidly collapsing. The result: massive reduction of the production. In 2021, the economic recovery triggers the huge domino effect: Demand suddenly increases while supply is tight. The result: a historic price increase on almost all fronts. Prices of gas, fuel, electricity, but also aluminum, paper or wheat, and in the textile sector, cotton, wool, linen and even polyester are skyrocketing, while procurement remains complicated.

Cotton, which is the basis for most of our creations, has been hit particularly hard: +54%, making its price the highest in ten years. A chain reaction of several dominoes explains this particularly high price increase: climate crisis (bad conditions for cotton growth), political crisis in China (the largest cotton producer in the world) and freight crisis are added to the sharp increase in demand.

Being the kind of people who see the glass half full, it is important for us to also highlight the positive effects associated with this price explosion. After all, due to limited freight traffic by sea and land, more and more brands are turning to local manufacturers. While this also drives up manufacturing costs, we are glad that European know-how is thus more appreciated and preserved.

What changes in 2022

Since the second half of last year, emails from our manufacturers and suppliers have been piling up and they all have the same subject line: Price increases 2022. Supply problems and rising raw material prices on the one hand, coupled with higher manufacturing costs mean we have no choice but to adjust our prices from February 1 this year. Price increases of materials and manufacturing are technically nothing new, but occur regularly. However, we have not reflected them in our sales prices for many years now. Unfortunately, with the numerous increases and the current economy, we are no longer able to do so.

Of course, we continue to stand by our honest sales system that we have established with our manufacturers and suppliers since 2008. This provides fair pay to the men and women who work on our creations, while maintaining a fair price for our customers. However, this fair price will be slightly higher for some of our products to compensate for the higher cost of manufacturing, never to increase our profit margins. The quality of our creations will not change either, except that we are more and more turning to environmentally friendly materials such as organic cotton. Our clothing and accessories will continue to be made using the unique savoir-faire of European artisans we've trusted since the beginning.

The good news: earlier this year we resumed production of several of our essentials. Many of you have been waiting a while for these items to come back in stock and we hereby confirm they will very soon.

Coming soon: restock and new collections

Until the end of January:

- Restocking on some of your favorite cufflinks, e.g. the blue bicycle
- Restock of our organic cotton socks
- Long-awaited restock of our smooth leather belts and suede leather belts, as well as our elastic braided belts

As of February:

- Restock of our tailored stretch trousers
- Large restock of our essential line shirts in white poplin
- New limited edition collection of shirts: Oxford, Thomas Mason and Sea Island cloths
- Large restock of ties from our essential collections Côme, Bergame and Grenadines
- New wedding collection in Liberty fabrics and new colors for our Sorrento collection
- Restock of the four seasons suit in Loro Piana's Merino wool Super 130's
- New colors of our organic cotton trunks
- New capsule collection of summer scarves

To find out directly when these products arrive in our warehouse and to receive weekly emails related to men's fashion, sign up for our newsletter. You can see the newsletter subscription box by scrolling down this page.

Thank you for giving us your time and attention to this article and thank you for keeping our honest sales system running.

The Nines