My Himel Experience (v2)

[HoosierDaddy]

I don't think he gets it RD. Keeps trying to justify himself with there's no right or wrong and .....that's OK....

 

[willyto]

Dear mods, I think it is now really time to close this thread... OP has now repeatedly commented on it and explained itself ... I also believe that enough has been written / blasphemed about the work of Himel Bros. Ultimately, everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to order a leather jacket from Himel Bros. or not.

Why the obsession about closing threads? Can't people handle a discussion or debate online anymore?

Thanks for the informative post. Not acceptable at the price point and I’m one that isn’t obsessed with laser perfect stitching.


Bartender Edit: Let's not go over this all again, please. The matter is now closed.

This is really getting annoying now. Editing member's posts? How great. One can no longer voice an opinion in this forum without being censored apparently.

As I mentioned in another thread my Himel Grizzly also has stitching flaws but mine was a sample so I didn't expect perfection. With a final product that can't be allowed.

It's obviously not representative of all their products but when things like that happen the customer needs to bring up the issue so the maker has the chance to make it right. Bringing it up later isn't going to help the customer.

A small edit to keep things on track. No-one is preventing you from posting your experience; the comment deleted commented on a thread you did not see originally, and are therefore not aware of difference in. Let's not keep going over old ground and move on, please.

 

[Mich486]

Custom charges can be claimed back if the item is defective and needs to be returned. Not saying this is changing things at all but if one wants to go down that route it seems like at least in Carlos case there is a way out with no further expense.

 

[red devil]

Custom charges can be claimed back if the item is defective and needs to be returned. Not saying this is changing things at all but if one wants to go down that route it seems like at least in Carlos case there is a way out with no further expense.

Claiming back custom charges is a lenthy and complicated affair unfortunately...

 

[jeo]

Why the obsession about closing threads? Can't people handle a discussion or debate online anymore?

This is really getting annoying now. Editing member's posts? How great. One can no longer voice an opinion in this forum without being censored apparently.

100% agree.

I would only see the need to shut down a thread if it starts to get really nasty.

I don’t think that’s the case here, so I hope it doesn’t get locked or shut down. People are expressing their opinions and there are disagreements and that’s ok.

 

[jeo]

No one here wants free things. No one here simply wants to bitch. No one here is saying Himel doesn’t have killer designs and most of their products are artisanal beauties. What they want is the guy to stand by his product that should have customer service that’s premium to match their premium costs.

Well said! Thank you!

 

[dudewuttheheck]

This thread has been entirely civil. Even the disagreements here have been completely civil and respectful. Plus, the discussion has been quite interesting to read.

It is helpful for me because it gives me a different perspective. I was very happy with my two Himel jackets. I only had great experiences with my jackets so it's good for me to see different experiences from what I had.

 

[Monitor]

^ This 100% double underline ^

Nobody is arguing here, not even close. People are just expressing opinions & what they'd do and I'm actually quite fascinated how all these different perspectives shift my stance on the matter.

 

[Logician]

For years now I wanted to get myself an Himel. But this thread sure made me pause. I am shocked that such a jacket---if we can call it that--- could leave Himel's workshop and receive its seal of approval. You can get a better made jacket at the corner store! It seems to me that Dave Himel owes us an explanation. Thanks jeo for sharing this useful information.

 

[Monitor]

For years now I wanted to get myself an Himel. But this thread sure made me pause. I am shocked that such a jacket---if we can call it that--- could leave Himel's workshop and receive its seal of approval. You can get a better made jacket at the corner store! It seems to me that Dave Himel owes us an explanation. Thanks jeo for sharing this useful information.

I wouldn't worry. Especially not after this thread.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/himel-bros-chevalier.90489/
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/himel-bros-chevalier-bis.93446/

 

[himelator]

View attachment 314892 View attachment 314893 View attachment 314894

Despite all these flaws, I still love my Frobisher. It is my best fitting jacket and the leather is amazing.

When I met Dave at Inspriation LA he assured me that the Imperial he was going to make me will be perfect. This was my dream jacket so I went ahead and plunged a significant amount of money for him to make it for me. My Imperial came out much better than my Frobisher.

As I mentioned in other threads, I never brought this up until now since I saw no reason to, but after Himel's post about standing behind his products, I felt I needed to tell people about my specific experience and am writing this thread with the purpose of informing the great people of TFL community as well as prospective buyers.

I hope this thread will serve well in that purpose.

So, Ive asked Parker to reply tomorrow. I will say it was badly sewn. We stand behind our work. I will of course happily remake the jacket Jonathan. I stand behind our work and if a customer wants a remake due to errors on our part, fit, bad sewing or any other mistake we try and resolve it, offer a solution. I've asked parker to go back in his emails and see what resolution we came to. Again Parker was new and unused to qc at this time. Errors happen in our production, it is rare, unusual and certainly not the norm. I am very disappointed that FL is the place where the rare exceptions are going to in order resolve their issues. I can certainly post reviews from the handfuls of customers we have remade jackets for at our expense, issues are typically wrong configuration, wrong measurements, or issues with buttons coming loose. This one jacket is not representative of the quality of our work and is the exception after 3500 plus jackets I am pretty sure if it was not the case people would be complaining and I would be out of business. So...in typical unedited format...JE get in touch with us, we will send you a shipping label and when we get the next shipment of dark brown in we will remake the jacket. I will encourage anyone else if you ordered a bespoke jacket and you are unhappy and have legitimate grievance drop us an email to work it out. I cannot understand why anyone would come here to work out their problems without contacting me or parker first. If I let you down Jonathan I will happily make it right, you liked your second jacket so I am going to assume the first one well made will bring you back to us. Again for anyone else if you have an issue we stand behind our work as there are thousands of customers who thank me and have become friends, reach out instead of going online to complain, we are here and we care about what we do.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Well...Different leather jacket brands are and should be welcome here to be reviewed and discussed. The good bad & the ugly whether they are top tier of the elite or production line stock. Sometimes reviewed might come across as exposed...

 

[himelator]

To me, Himel's response on the issues with @Carlos840 Chevalier (offering to make a replacement jacket because Carlos's jacket had serious issues,
see link below) came across as cheap and easy damage control instead of the action of someone who stands behind his product.

Why? Because I've seen several pics online of Himel jackets that had similar issues. Not all as bad as Carlos's jacket, but definitely not the standard you'd expect from a man who prides himself in interviews on his company's sewing techniques. Just look at the issues on Jeo's jacket. These are not one-offs that shouldn't have made it through QC. I see a pattern. Apparently Himel's jackets aren't that good as he says they are. Yes there are many good ones, but there's a reasonable chance of getting a bad one too when you buy a Himel.

I quote Dave Himel:

"The ones whose jackets do not fit or have manufacturing errors get their jackets replaced, remade or redone. I can count on one hand how many times a year we have to do it, but we do it. "

Now we know why he can count the remakes on one hand. Apparently Jeo's jacket is not below Himel's own standard. Otherwise Jeo would have gotten a remake.

Link to Himel's response:

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...ets-are-overhyped.103390/page-15#post-2781831

Edit: typo. misspelled Chevalier

 

[himelator]

Thankyou for your kind and considerate opinion. I was legitimate in my response. I would ask a few things. Please consider that we care about what we do it is our chosen work. I would appreciate it that my character not be impugned. I have many customers on FL who have had incredible experiences and I felt quite badly about Carlos jacket. I would appreciate that you fellows perhaps moderate your speculation about my intentions anyone is welcome to pick up the phone and call me if they have any issue with their jacket. I am not some corporation we are a small team running on a shoestring doing something we care about

 

[himelator]

Glad to see this thread, it needed to be shown.

There is a consensus, if I read this right, that this is not an acceptable product from any of the makers here. The response is disappointing to put it mildly, but maybe not so surprising. There was a white deerskin jacket that had the wonky stitching on the collar that was once shown here - unfortunately, the picture does not show anymore. And this was shortly after Himel had made a tweet post showing his superior craftsmanship if memory serves.

His answer is here:
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/himel-brothers-leather-co.62833/page-33#post-2264984

I have discussed deerskin with several makers, and indeed it is a challenge to sew. But it is not impossible to get it straight. To me "handmade product" should not be used to cover for lack of skill or mishaps. I have seen it overused in other products.

Did Himel ever sew his own jackets? It makes me wonder about his team dynamics...

 

[himelator]

Regarding the team dynamics...there were definitely challenges in the past, one of the reasons I brought Parker onboard. Sometimes the team fails as is the case of Jonathans jacket, the quality of our team is not just doing the hard job of making really beautiful bespoke jackets but fixing the problems and mistakes and errors and meeting those challenges. That is what makes my team special, we stand up and stand behind what we do even when something slips past us, and then we try to correct the confluence that allowed the mistake. The customer only gets to see the result of all that effort and if they are unhappy we have failed and have to learn from it and make it right, we do that. We can't do that if we don't hear back, or if the customer says I'm happy and changes their mind down the road. That being said we have legitimately and earnestly offered to fix Jonathans jacket with a replacement. Ten years of making jackets it does not surprise us and we still strive for near perfection or the best we can achieve.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

...Then it would seem that you wouldn't want any of your jackets out there with such wonky stitching on display.

 

[Entropic Thunder]

So, Ive asked Parker to reply tomorrow. I will say it was badly sewn. We stand behind our work. I will of course happily remake the jacket Jonathan. I stand behind our work and if a customer wants a remake due to errors on our part, fit, bad sewing or any other mistake we try and resolve it, offer a solution. I've asked parker to go back in his emails and see what resolution we came to. Again Parker was new and unused to qc at this time. Errors happen in our production, it is rare, unusual and certainly not the norm. I am very disappointed that FL is the place where the rare exceptions are going to in order resolve their issues. I can certainly post reviews from the handfuls of customers we have remade jackets for at our expense, issues are typically wrong configuration, wrong measurements, or issues with buttons coming loose. This one jacket is not representative of the quality of our work and is the exception after 3500 plus jackets I am pretty sure if it was not the case people would be complaining and I would be out of business. So...in typical unedited format...JE get in touch with us, we will send you a shipping label and when we get the next shipment of dark brown in we will remake the jacket. I will encourage anyone else if you ordered a bespoke jacket and you are unhappy and have legitimate grievance drop us an email to work it out. I cannot understand why anyone would come here to work out their problems without contacting me or parker first. If I let you down Jonathan I will happily make it right, you liked your second jacket so I am going to assume the first one well made will bring you back to us. Again for anyone else if you have an issue we stand behind our work as there are thousands of customers who thank me and have become friends, reach out instead of going online to complain, we are here and we care about what we do.

‘I don’t own a Himel, a little too rich for my blood but this is just good plain old customer service. Offering brand new jackets, years later to guys who for whatever personal reasons never thoroughly addressed the problems with the maker in the first place? That’s more than fair.

These jackets were truly bad, but at least in Jeos case, he never actually formally complained, but rather simply referenced a single stitching issue in order to prevent it from happening again, and then it didn’t happen again. He didn’t want a remake or anything else as he’s clearly stated, and Himel apologized and assured him it would not happen again. I guess Dave could have refunded him $2000 dollars or went into his own pocket to just make a new jacket mysteriously and ship it to him unprompted, but then Dave would be an obvious fool and bankrupt in a short period of time. If a person doesn’t ask for some specific resolution or at least state what they want, then it’s kind of unreasonable for expect for them to get it.

In Carlos case, I don’t see how one could possibly in good faith expect a maker to deal with ones own countries exorbitant customs fees and taxes, years after the case when those fees can no longer plausibly be written off as due to a return, etc. The poor construction is Himels fault and he’s willing to rectify that, the long delay in bringing this to his attention is however Carlos’ fault. Likewise the customs fees and taxes he’s now refusing a remake over are the fault of whatever trade relations exist between Canda and presumably the EU, and have nothing whatsoever to do with Himel.

You can say that it’s just a marketing ploy to offer remakes publicly because it’s out in the open, but in this case Carlos and Jeo are the ones who went public, and so the resolution which Himel is offering has just as much right to be in public, as it’s his name on the line. He absolutely owed them a remake and to cover all shipping etc immediately after this all happened if they had properly shown him the egregious flaws. After accepting the products and wearing them for years it’s certainly less clear that he owes them anything at all besides an apology and some kind of discount.

It’s like when a restaraunt messes up your food, they definitely need to do more than just say “ oh sorry new cook he messed up here’s the bill”. Although offering a reason why the mistake happened doesn’t offend me as it did Jeo or some others here, I can see why it might if it doesn’t come with some additional remediation. They either make you new food or refund you, offer a discount etc, and I think it’s clear now Himel would have done so had the full extent of the problems been made clear to him rather than just a small area of honestly not that bad stitching on the pocket alone. But if the waitress asks how is it and you say “meh it’s a little overdone but I actually really like it, try not to let this happen next time though oh and here’s my next order in advance thanks” and then eat the whole thing, you don’t then have the right to go back to the restaurant a year later and expect a free meal. I don’t think Jeo does expect anything at all at this point since he’s basically just posting a review as is his right, but Carlos demanding hundreds in customs being payed on top of a brand new $2700 jacket, and the ensuing pile-on here is a bridge to far to my mind, and very unfair.

 

[Superfluous]

Fantastic, balanced, respectful discussion. Very cool! My very quick takes.

1. The flawed stitching on Jeo’s jacket is unacceptable and it never should have left Himel’s shop. Apparently Himel was out of the country and one of his employees failed to exercise the appropriate QC. On the other hand, how did the sewer not recognize the obviously substandard stitching? Sounds like a case of employees acting irresponsibly while Himel was away. Unacceptable!

2. According to Himel’s post, he has since implemented new procedures to improve QC. Good idea.

3. Jeo did not send Himel the photos of the worst stitching flaws. IMHO, and hindsight being 20/20, he should have led with the worst flaws rather than sending a single photo of a relatively benign flaw as compared to the much more egregious flaws elsewhere on the jacket.

4. Jeo did not ask for a new jacket, nor follow-up in response to Himel’s initial unsatisfactory response. Therefore, given Jeo’s decision to immediately order a second jacket (Imperial), Himel arguably was reasonable in assuming that Jeo did not want a new jacket and was pleased with his Frobisher. On the other hand, it is not the responsibility of the customer to expressly demand a new jacket, particularly when paying $2,500 for the jacket. Rather, if the manufacturer – and a manufacturer of Himel’s class in particular – believes that the jacket is substandard, and the manufacturer has a stated policy of ensuring complete customer satisfaction, the manufacturer should offer a new jacket. My problem here is that the single photo presented to Himel does not clearly evidence a substandard jacket requiring replacement and, when considered in the context of Jeo’s immediate follow-up order, I can see how Himel missed the ball. I still think he should have tried harder to explore the issue with Jeo and ensure Jeo’s satisfaction, but the chronology mitigates Himel’s lapse.

5. As bad as Jeo’s and Carlos’ jackets are – and they are undeniably bad – this is not the standard operating procedure and typical quality of Himel’s jackets. To the contrary, most of Himel’s jackets exhibit far better workmanship, not to mention the leather and hardware, and most of Himel’s customers are very happy with their purchases. I have purchased six jackets from Himel and I was, and remain, thoroughly pleased with all six jackets.

6. Widespread customer satisfaction does not excuse Himel’s lapses in relationship to Jeo and Carlos. He plainly dropped the ball with them. No company can achieve 100% success and satisfaction. On the other hand, when a jacket has profoundly flawed stitching of the nature present on Jeo’s jacket, it should never see the light of day. On the other hand, given the chronology set forth above, Himel personally may never have known just how bad Jeo’s jacket was, that apparently was released by an employee while Himel was abroad.

7. Jeo was absolutely right to share his experience on TFL, particularly in light of Himel’s recent proclamation regarding customer service.

8. Himel’s willingness to make Jeo a new jacket is appropriate and noteworthy. Now that he understands the extent of the problem, he is stepping up to the plate, as he should, and resolving an issue that he previously did not fully recognize.

9. This thread and the balanced, respectful discourse epitomize everything good about TFL!

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Seems it comes down to either poor Himel...or poor customer. Is it both?...or is it someone who ordered what supposedly would be a premium leather patterned and sewn jacket and then now must face the hassle of what to do or not do about it.