Our main concern from the very beginning of www.ThaiDye.com has been that we get the sizes right. As long as we only offered sarongs that was easy – xxx inches by yyy inches would do it. But dress sizes are differing so much even from one manufacturer that there was no easy way for us to see how we could avoid wasting lots of money for shipping items back and forth.

Increasing the problems severity was the fact that in the beginning we went to Thailand and purchased items that we really liked – and there was no sizing provided for those. You could just try them and if it did not fit try another. That was not an option when selling over the internet.

So our first solution was to give direct measurements with each item. To indicate where to measure we made cute little sketches of our items, marked A, B and C where to measure and for each item recorded as the size (A x B x C).

This is not quite as convenient as – I know I am a M – and thus just looking for items in M. You have to get out a tape measure – finding one might be the biggest obstacle.

But we wanted to do better.

In the second stage of the development of ThaiDye.com we therefore designed the items we wanted to offer here in the US according to standard sizing charts and in styles that are more appealing to an American clientèle than the items designed and cut all in Thailand.

That worked very nicely – with the completed patterns we had first samples made that we could test sell here in the US and then had our big order produced in Thailand. – - – OK, thanks for asking – no we do not use any sweatshops – we find this despicable and would not want to condone such an exploitation.

So, there you have it – now we can offer standard sizes, have a nice sizing chart on the web and returns have been very rare – actually only one return because the item did not fit – pretty good, I think.

We offer our unique jackets in sizes from XS to XXL – and the XS size fits even kids so you could get one of those great jackets for your seven or eight year old.

So, how do you start a business like ThaiDye.com?

There are probably many ways to do this but this is how it started for us. Gigi being from Thailand brought with her the the artistic ability and love for clothing and Gunter threw into the mix his computer abilities.

Gigi worked in the fashion industry and Gunter was riding the good times of the internet bubble and at this time Gigi’s brother brought some nice tie dye outfits for Gunter from a trip to Thailand.

This stuff was great, nice colors and so comfortable to wear. So whenever Gunter could he now wore these outfits, even though some well-meaning friends tried to tease him once in a while with statements that he forgot to change in the morning etc. But in general reactions were great.

Usually in the form “Where did you get those from??” – “Wow, where can I get those?”. The second question I only could answer with the impractical answer – go to Thailand.

Finally that sank in here – there was a need – and this realization finally got us started. Bringing tie-dye from Thailand directly asked for the name ThaiDye and I was so surprised that this name as actually available when I tried to register it.

Once the name was there and a rudimentary website up – that was the actual beginning.

You can go to the main ThaiDye.com site and for example check out all the unique women’s jackets.

Look at this – a brand-spanking new blog for all people who love unique tie-dye, people who want to go beyond the basic colorful spiral on the chest.

So, please welcome and if you like to participate, please feel free to become a contributor. Write to Merlin at the address “merlin.silk at gmail dot com” to get a contributors login.