Now You Can Be 'The One' In Leather!

We are pleased to announce the Lobby Reloaded Trenchcoat in leather! We keep over-achieving to bring you the best there is in custom clothing. You've seen the Lobby Reloaded in a variety of materials, Stretch Twill, Commander, and imported Italian Wool. Now see this attractive design like you've never seen it before - in genuine cowhide leather!

Once you touch this trench and smell the leather you really sense that this is something special. It has so many distinctions which make it the Matrix coat to end all Matrix coats. We've even done something to make it stand out even more as an extremely luxury item. Every one of the buttonholes of this garment are meticulously constructed as double-welt style buttonholes, thereby achieving the highest level of detail of any of our designs.

Every feature of the standard Lobby Reloaded design has been faithfully recreated, the mandarin collar, tapered waist, flared tail with the center pleat, single welt pockets, and more. This design is also available with all the standard options and lining colours and is custom fitted to your measurements. Many of you have been asking for this, so now it has become a reality! There is a lot of leather and a lot of style to this garment and it's ready to be worn by you! Just as our previous leather products have become very popular items, we expect that the demand for this newest addition will be very high so act quickly if you want to beat the pre-Christmas rush!

"AbbyShot Zoe Girls" are a hit!   MANY people visited our booth!

If you’ve never been to a fan convention like Dragon*Con, it's really hard to understand just how amazing it is. It's a special experience to be surrounded by so many interesting and unique people who share an interest in clothing from science-fiction, fantasy, anime and more.

This year was special for us in that we were involved with a lot more of the "extra" social activities during the con. We took part in the charity auction hosted by Kevin Sorbo. The proceeds of which went to support two charities: "A World Fit for Kids" as well as "The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society". AbbyShot Custom Clothiers donated a one-of-a-kind piece to add to this unique auction, our first Browncoat that was made for the photo-shoot seen on the AbbyShot Browncoat product page.

AbbyShot also attended the Browncoat Shindig on Friday night. On Saturday night we were at a Firefly / Serenity Costuming contest with two AbbyShot staff members on hand as Guest Judges for the event! Sunday saw us giving our Costuming Track presentation which was a great success with many new things being discussed by everyone.

The welcome we received from the Browncoat community was phenomenal! Everyone was so supportive and appreciative of what we're doing with our Browncoat and Zoe Vest. The encouragement and acceptance that they gave us was beyond our expectations. We were almost treated like celebrities ourselves. We want to thank everyone in the East Coast Browncoats for their eagerness to include us in all their events and make us feel so welcome. Also, a special thanks to the Hempel brothers for treating the Abby Girls like true ladies and being such gallant gentlemen during the entire convention. You guys really went far above the call of duty!

Our products were instant hits with everyone who visited our booth. Many people came who had seen us last year and were bringing their friends to see what we do. (Thanks for that by the way, we greatly appreciate the power of word of mouth referral!) A lot of customers asked about specific garments like the Stampede Duster and the Browncoat. In fact, people were even asking to see garments from our web site which weren't in our booth! Oh, and to answer one of the more commonly-asked questions: Yes, we'll be bringing a lot more garments for everyone to buy next year! ;-)

Along with current products, convention-goers even got to see a few products that are under development as well. Our Alexander Trench (see the "coming soon" article below) was on display, as was an early stages prototype of a Sephiroth trench, complete with shoulder armor! Dragon*Con was also an opportunity for many people to see in person many of the newer products that had been released since last Dragon*Con in August 2004.

We even managed to get starstruck a little bit one night when the Abby Girls had an opportunity to attend a party with Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Serenity) and later that same night speak with Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Serenity). At another point during the convention we also had the opportunity to hand-deliver a mini-Browncoat to Morena Baccarin (Inara on Serenity) to pass along to Joss Whedon for his toddler. All the actors from Serenity were very friendly and it was a real thrill to meet them in person.

Of course, throughout the whole event there were teeming crowds around our booth all day, every day of DragonCon. The public response was almost overwhelming at times! :-) We literally had many people approach our booth with what can only be described as awe for our products. One person even seriously called us "Legends"! We were expecting that people would like our products, but it was definitely humbling to see some people's reactions! The genuine and heartfelt reactions that we get from our fans is what really makes us love what we do even more.

Everywhere we went people knew who we were and were as happy to see us as we were to see them. We had a lot of fun, met a lot of really great people, (one of whom even came and visited us here in Newfoundland this month!), and we can't wait to return next year! Every time we return from Dragon*Con, our plans for next year get larger. People were quite impressed with our presence at Dragon*Con 2005, which just makes us want to wow you even more at Dragon*Con 2006!! :-)

AbbyShot Develops a second Hellsing Design!

That menacing zealot from the Hellsing anime series may be a bad guy, but his style isn't bad! We asked everyone what they thought of this as a possible AbbyShot design back in April of this year, and the response was quite positive! This is the first of several new designs which will be coming from us as a result of the "Suggestions Box" column that we've begun running in our AbbyShot Newsletter. This particular design looks good open or closed and the prototype is made from grey Commander. As can be seen, the pattern is finished and the first sample coat is sewn together and looks to be really coming together well. We don't have an exact release date yet for this design, but we feel that it will be very soon. Stay tuned to the Alexander Trench Coming Soon Page for further updates on this newest product!

Price Increases On The Horizon

We hate to do it, but there are price increases coming very soon. Back in June, the US Dollar was worth $1.25 Canadian Dollars and holding, now it's worth $1.17 CAD and falling. We even delayed our quarterly US Dollar revaluation by a few weeks, hoping that it would right itself, but it doesn't look like this trend is going to change any time soon.

Also the price of gasoline is skyrocketing with no end in sight, causing currency-independent price increases in shipping costs. Many of our suppliers are increasing their prices for things like fabric, leather, buttons, zippers, thread, etc. and we expect those who haven't yet to raise their prices soon as well.

So we're really in a bind and have no alternative but to raise our prices to reflect our new costs. It is our sincere hope that this will only be temporary though. To cushion the blow, we're breaking up our cost increases into two stages. First, we're going to increase the USD prices to reflect the lower exchange rate. These new prices will come into effect on October 14th. Second, we'll raise our base Canadian prices to take our higher manufacturing costs into account. We will put the second stage prices into effect in late October or early November.

Again, we apologise for all of this and would dearly love to not be forced into it. Should exchange rates and production costs swing back down, then we will lower our prices again. Our next scheduled currency revaluation is in December. Giving everyone advance notice is the best that we can do for now.

Voice Your Opinions Now!

Dante from Devil May Cry

This computer game character has inspired truly massive amounts of requests. The main character Dante from the game "Devil May Cry" has a large fan following which appears to only grow with each version of the DMC series. There's just one little problem... There are three different versions of his trademark trenchcoat and they all are very popular and all are quite attractive garments.

So we are left with a dilemma. Which one(s) do we do? Sure, the quick response is "do them all!", but that's incuring a huge risk on our part. For all we know, two of them won't sell... So we need to try one of them first... but which one? We have some ideas, but as usual, we'd love to hear from YOU!

Let us know which one you like the best. This time, we're not requesting email submissions. We already have many, MANY emails requesting Dantes trenches. Instead we are requesting your votes.

Look at the three different designs and vote on the one that you think we should develop. Please, only one vote per person. We're not looking so much for quantity as a clear leader, so if everyone "stuffs the ballots" in favour of their design all you're doing is making the number higher, not really altering relative positioning.

Kaneda from Akira

This windbreaker style jacket with it's distinctive pill logo on the back is practically a cultural icon to most anime fans. While it's styling is very street-wearable, there are numerous features which make this a unique design. We have gotten a fair number of suggestions for this one over the years, although it's a bit tough to tell if the demand is high enough to warrent developing it. It could be made in a variety of different materials, from windproof fabrics to a red or orange leather version. It is certainly possible for use to make it, depending on the materials used it could be anywhere from $500 to $800 USD. Should we offer this? If we did would you buy it? Let us know!

The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer is an oldie, but still quite popular. This is a jacket design which we weren't sure we were ready for about a year and a half ago. Since then we've learnt a lot about working in leather and are feeling much more confident in our abilities to properly reproduce every feature and detail of this classic jacket. a few companies and individuals have reproduced this design in the past, but so far no one has produces a version that is both highly wearable on a daily basis and completely screen-accurate. Oh, and to head off the inevitable questions: if we were to develop a Rocketeer Jacket, we would be concentrating on just the leather jacket itself. Finned Flight Helmets and Jet Turbine Backpacks are not included! :-) We know now that we can do this one, as always, the key element is customer demand. Do you want AbbyShot to produce this? Let us know!

We'd love to hear from you!   Let us know what you think!   See you next issue!

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