What a $148 linen shirt actually costs to make
Customers kept asking the same question by email, so here is the whole answer for the Marguerite shirt, at a production run of 180 units.
By Beatriz Roe · 14 July 2026 · 6 min read
There is a version of this article that most brands write. It says the fabric is beautiful, the makers are skilled, and the price reflects quality. All three are true and none of them are useful, because they do not let you compare anything.
So here are the actual numbers for the Marguerite Linen Shirt, taken from the last purchase order. The run was 180 units across five sizes. Prices are in US dollars and rounded to the nearest dollar per unit.
The fabric
The linen is a 185gsm plain weave from a mill in Lithuania, garment-washed after cutting so it arrives soft rather than crisp. We buy it at $14.20 per metre in the quantities we order, which is not a good price. Mills quote seriously at 3,000 metres. We buy 450.
Each shirt takes 1.9 metres including the yoke, cuffs and a 6% cutting waste allowance. That is $27 of fabric per shirt. If we ordered ten times the volume, the same fabric would land nearer $19.
Small runs cost more per unit. That is the trade we are making, and it belongs in the price rather than in a story about craftsmanship.
Cutting and sewing
Cutting is done on a table, not an automated cutter, because our lay lengths are too short to justify one. Sewing happens at Mira Confecções outside Porto, where a shirt of this construction takes roughly 52 minutes of machine time including the collar, the placket and the flat-felled side seams.
The quoted make charge is $34 per unit. That covers labour, the factory's overhead and its margin. We have not asked them to cut it, and we would rather raise our price than ask.
Everything else
| Line item | Per unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linen, 1.9m | $27 | Includes 6% cutting waste |
| Cutting and sewing | $34 | Quoted make charge, Porto |
| Buttons and interlining | $4 | Corozo buttons, woven interlining |
| Labels and packaging | $3 | Recycled mailer, no tissue |
| Freight and duty | $9 | Sea freight, 16.5% apparel duty |
| Sampling, amortised | $6 | Three fit samples over the run |
| Landed cost | $83 | What the shirt costs us |
| Retail price | $148 | Gross margin of $65, or 44% |
What the margin pays for
The $65 is not profit. Out of it come payment processing at about 2.9% plus 30 cents, return shipping and inspection on roughly one in nine orders, the studio rent, photography, and three salaries. On a good month what is left over is in the single digits per unit.
This is why the shirt is not $99. A brand selling the same construction at $99 is either buying 4,000 metres at a time, paying a lower make charge somewhere else, or accepting that the fabric is 20% lighter than it looks online.
Why we publish this
Two reasons. The first is that it keeps us honest: it is difficult to quietly cheapen a fabric when the cost line is on the page. The second is that it makes the price arguable. If you think $65 of margin is too much for what you are getting, that is a reasonable position and you now have the numbers to hold it.
The same breakdown appears on every product page. If a number changes between production runs, we update it rather than leaving the old figure up.
