2010 Spring Anti-Catalogue

Round up the cattle, gather the horses, and protect yer wimmin… Spring is here, and The Utilikilts Company is feeling a little twitterpated.

What’s that you say? Why, yes! We HAVE made a few changes around here. So kind of you to notice.

First, we’d like to welcome the spritely Jenneviere back to the Sales Department in the form of the Sales and Returns Siren. She’s handling the phones and the returns, so chances are 50/50 when you call, you’ll speak to her. So, you know: look your best.

She joins the illustrious Johnny, Sales and Shipping Manager, and the newly promoted Warehouse Manager. Is it in inventory? Then it’s Johnny’s business. He’ll be keeping our warehouse clean, efficient, and running with the speed and precision of an SR-71.

Together, these two kind, intelligent, devastatingly good-looking Utilikilts Sales Minions join forces each day to sling kilts and answer all your burning questions. Here they are, in all their glory, with some news from the Sales Floor.

Can you feel it?

The temperature is raising.

The trees are budding.

The sun is working hard, eking it’s way out from behind that Seattle Grey.

The stench of our alley is taking on the blistery warm-piss aroma that can only mean one thing:

Summer is just around the corner.

For those of us in Sales, summer means the phones blowing up with calls, kilts shipping out as quickly as we can hang them on the racks, half of our staff at events every weekend, and the two of us running around, going pleasantly mad with the busy-ness of it all. We’re preparing, as best we can, for the onslaught of Customer Amazement that will be seeping from our very pores.

We’re working hard with Production to get our stock built up, so that we don’t have to disappoint you when you call in to purchase a kilt. Our racks are slowly filling up, the holes are being filled in, but there are still some things we’re short on. As some of you might already know, our supply of black twill—the twill that we make the Originals and Mockers out of–dwindled down to nothing in the ebb of winter, and it was an excruciating few weeks before we saw those rolls of black fabric be delivered and in the cutter’s hands, and an even more excruciating couple of months before we saw any black Originals or Mockers coming in to the warehouse. We’re still seeing holes in our black Mocker and Original inventory, so if you’re waiting around for those to come in, have just a bit more patience and know that we want them in as much as you do. And they’re coming.

Survivals, too, were remarkably low in stock over our winter months. We’re seeing those coming in each week now, so if you’ve been jonesing for the Cadillac of Kilts, we dig it, and we’re right there with you. They’re the first kilts that we put into inventory when they come into the warehouse, because we know you’ve all been patiently waiting.

That said, our Mocker and Workman’s stocks are bursting: so this is a perfect time to get your hands on one of these styles. Check out the online store or give us a call to order.

Speaking of the online store, we’ve been made aware by some of you that our online store has been having some issues. It seems to be affecting those IE7 users most frequently, but we’ve heard of our Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome customers experiencing it, too. If you’re looking at our online store and seeing that we have ZERO availability, give us a call! We DO have kilts in stock… we do. And we’d love to sell them to you.

This should be your mantra, Oh Kilted (or Soon-To-Be-Kilted) Ones: When in doubt, CALL US!

Repeat it with us: When in doubt: CALL US!

Third time’s a charm: When in doubt: CALL US!

We mean it: give us a little ringy-dingy; you’ll get your kilts faster, we enjoy talking to you, but more importantly, we can make magic happen. Besides, our voices are sexier than reading words on a webpage. CALL US ALREADY!

Now, onto other news.

Big Boy Kilts.

Last year at about this time, we were taking orders—what we call “one-offs”—for any kilt that we didn’t have on the racks, ready to ship. Many of these kilts were Big Boy Kilts: any kilts larger than a size 46. Many of you, dear reader, experienced the absolute and undeniable AGONY and SUFFERING that this order-taking became. We got entirely backed up, most orders came in late, some orders were lost to the ether of a ridiculously flawed system and burnt-out personnel, and taking orders, for the second time in Utilikilts’ history, became a bigger pain in our collective asses than we ever imagined. In fact, it nearly sunk us. It nearly stopped this magnificent journey that we call Utilikilts dead in it’s tracks.

So, we stopped. We halted order taking. Some of you got pretty pissed off at us, and rightly so. It’s not every day that a company says “No, sir, we’re sorry, but we will not take your money.” But that’s what we told you. We needed time… time to recover. Time to let everything settle, to see who was still standing, to see what was salvageable from this Order Taking train wreck.

And, to be perfectly honest, we’re still doing that, to some extent. We don’t have the magical solution… YET. However, we ARE working on creating an infrastructure that can sustainably handle orders for one-off kilts.

What does this mean for you? This means that if you’re looking for a kilt in a size larger than 46, we will have a hard time accommodating you right this very moment. Is all hope lost? Of course not. We are holding a very small stock of Big Boy Kilts. Give us a call (you absolutely will NOT see these kilts on the website) and make sure you’ve done your sizing according to our website directions. If we aren’t able to hook you up with your dream kilt, we’ll take your name down and add you to our very informal “notify me” list. This list isn’t big and fancy: it’s just something that we—Johnny and Jenneviere–are keeping in an effort to keep you as happy as we can in this less-than-perfect scenario. Call us, we’ll make all the magic that we can, and then we’ll put you on our list, and as soon as we see a kilt in your description cross our desks, or as soon as we can take orders for Big Boy Kilts again, we’ll call you, email you, and try to get you kilted. Because, let’s face it: we want you to be kilted just as much as you want to be kilted.

We wish we could give you a date, or even an IDEA of a date, when we might be able to begin taking Big Boy Orders again. Unfortunately, we’re just not sure when that’s going to happen. If things go well, it could be as early as in the next few months. If not? …we don’t really know. Your patience is, of course, most appreciated.

Speaking of being patient, we’ve been fielding quite a few calls about kilts that are on hiatus: The Jean Cut (Denim), the Spartan, the Leather. Well, remember what we said earlier, about building up our stock of the 4 current models to a supply that meets our demand? Yeah, these Back Burner Kilts—Jean Cut, Spartan, Leather— are all contingent upon the current stock, as well.

We hear you. We know you want the Jean Cuts back, and you really want the Spartans back, and you really REALLY want the Leathers back. We want them back too! But we need to focus all our energy on our 4 current models and Big Boy Kilts, before we will be ready to reintroduce these other kilts. We don’t have a date in mind. We don’t know how long our current models will take, particularly entering our Bling Season. But you can rest assured that you, dear reader, will be the FIRST to know when we do, because you know we’re going to announce them right here in the Anti-Catalogue when we’re ready.

And with that, friendly UKers, we need to get our asses back on the phones. Remember the mantra? When in doubt: CALL US!

We mean it.

[Photo by Mina Bast: thesmittenone.com]