Salon has an amusing, though heavy on the philosophy, account of buying customized jeans at Levi's. By writing a phrase in rhinestone or having an artist design and paint your jeans, Levi's is getting away with charging $500 per pair.

Like so many other fashion trens, it started in Asia:

"I was in Japan at a popular upper-end boutique called 45 RPM, and I noticed a sewing machine in their store," says Burbano. "I knew right then that customization was going to be the way the market would go."

Although the idea has always been around:

"We're just recycling the ideas of the past," says Burbano. "In the '60s, girls would shrink their jeans in their tubs at home. This was the first instance of customization. People have always used jeans as their own personal canvas." The personification of this idea was of course snaking up the stairwell behind her back as we talked. "We just took it to another level."

Customization makes a product unique. And if a product is unique, you can charge more for it:

"Customizing a good automatically turns it into a service, and customizing a service automatically turns it into an experience -- a memorable event that engages a customer in an inherently personal way," state Pine and Gilmore in "Markets of One." In this way, mass customization becomes one of the most desirable strategies for businesses in the face of the mass-produced backlash for both the growths in service-related jobs and consumer satisfaction.

Sell merchandise no one else sells and you can set your own prices.