The concept of N=1 is now undergoing a rebirth in the apparel industry. Some of you may recall that at the height of the dot-com era, some major companies started experimenting with using the Web to customize jeans for each individual customer. We haven't heard much from those companies lately, but one successful and growing firm, at makeyourownjeans.com, got my attention. (Read background on the company.)

Its Web site opens with this quote: "People are not mass produced. Why should their jeans be!!" The company lets customers choose from a multitude of accessories, thread colors, belts, embroideries, distressing, elastics and additional pockets. Customers also may include a tummy panel and gussets, to ensure the perfect fit and more support.

Now, if we combine this approach with the R=G digital platform model embodied in www.zazzle.com, makeyourownjeans.com could let customers apply their own designs or personal messages to their jeans. Makeyourownjeans.com already lets customers apply hand-embroidered labels featuring their own "brand" name. So its business model is letting customers co-create their own brands with the firm.

The founder of the company, Harry Shahari, says makeyourownjeans.com views each customer as a unique individual with specific needs for size and style. In fact, if you have an old pair of jeans that are a perfect fit you can send it to them and they will custom-stitch a new pair with added designs. The company delivers several styles of jeans in more than 110 different fabrics.

The point here is that if one business model fails or succeeds, it doesn't validate or contradict the conceptual idea behind N=1 and R=G models. The evolving nature of competition will demand constant experimentation and learning from past models.