Why do bridal design changes eat into profit?

A bride asks for changes. Lower the back, add a sleeve. Inside the atelier it ripples. The pattern changes. The fabric quantity changes. Sometimes the fabric itself changes, which can mean a rush order to a mill that wants a 40 percent deposit and quotes twelve weeks for a custom weave. The hours grow. The cost moves. And the price was set before any of that happened.

The ripple gets tracked nowhere. A WhatsApp thread, a note pinned to the muslin, the seamstress's memory. By the time the gown ships, nobody can say what that change actually cost. The craft absorbs the change. The business never finds out what it paid for it.

Following that thread, from request to work to real cost, is a large part of what we're building AtelierOps around.