Nicamaka.Biz • Cost/Value Considerations of Nicamaka® Hammocks

Relaxation Hammocks • Information

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Value ( or Cost) of Quality In a Nicamaka® Imported Hammock

When visitors to our Miami showroom first sit in our "Couples" Nicamaka® hammocks their first reaction is wow -this is comfortable! After adjusting to the shock of being in something that is so safe & comfortable & gorgeous, they inquire about the price. When I say $169 the reaction is usually: "I thought it would be much, much more." (Of course there is a minority that feel everything must be cheaper - but they are not in touch with reality.) In reality, quality is a major part of value and this is a fact of life that is repeated throughout history - if you want value for your money, buy quality. Just let a woman touch a cashmere sweater and ask if it is worth the price. The wise know that the cashmere will be worn over and over the life of the garment while the cheaper and coarser wool one will sit in the closet.

A Nicamaka® hammock is like that cashmere sweater - something that is used over and over throughout it's life, but of course not as expensive. Quality of materials, quality of workmanship, and quality of design are present in a Nicamaka®.

For example, we import into Nicaragua factory-dyed, garment-grade polyester, polycotton & cotton yarns to insure that the colors have the best fade-resistance, bleeding and crocking resistance possible. We do not want an elegantly pant-suited lady in a white outfit to sit on our hammock and come away with color stains. The fact that these polyester yarns dry fast and retain color longer lead to increased, generational hammock life - well worth the cost and aggravation of importing the yarns.

Another cost factor is the labor intensive nature of hand-made sprang woven products. The twisting of the single yarn strands into the various cords for bed, for arms and for crocheting is a specialize process just to prepare for the fabrication of the hammocks. The man who weaves the bed section of the "Couples" Nicamaka® hammock walks around posts while weaving a total of 680 passes, or about 1.5 miles - and this is just the bed section. The crochet coverlet border takes a day to prepare and the rigging of the arms, bed and crochet another half day. Altogether, about 30-35 man-hours is need to complete a hammock. And this for less than $200 is a miracle and anything less is an insult to craftsmanship.

People ask why this sprang-weave process is not done in some machine in a China workshop - it cannot be done on a machine loom, at least until someone spends millions designing a mechanical loom to duplicate the process. This of course is already being done by hand, under the eye of the artisan who insures the twisting is not too tight to make the cording hard and not too loose to make it weak. This labor intensive process is more flexible and efficient than a mechanical process. Info on Sprang-Weave Process

Quality of Style is equally important to value. These hammocks were never "designed" by some chic boutique - they evolved through years of use, like the shape of a hammer handle. The hammocks started out as fishing nets and were adapted to include the as-important function of sleeping. Thus this Central American style hammock evolved to include things like crochet coverlet borders, brighter colors that not only looked good on the beach but also in the elegant haciendas.

"In The End We Pay For Quality - Or For The Absence Of Quality"