Welcome back to our slightly sporadic accounts of what it’s like building an apparel factory from scratch. I feel like this are like the too-long mass-printed Christmas letters you get from your childhood neighbor that update you on the comings and goings of their lives that you're not really plugged into but you kinda think are interesting. Maybe?

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This time last year, I was writing a story summarizing the wild journey of bringing our Ambition Anorak to market. It was a celebratory post – about overcoming great obstacles in product development to finally bring a dream product to life. And today I’m writing another story about the Ambition Anorak. A saga, this one less triumphant. A real dumpster fire of a month – March 2024. Here’s everything that we’ve been through in the last 20 something days. But there is a major lesson to be learned in it.

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One year ago, I was heading out on a trip thinking “I can’t leave right now, what was I thinking. Was this a bad idea? Can we really do this? It needs so much more before it’s going to work”.

 

These were thoughts about the “factory” we had just started. And yes, then it was just an air quote factory. Our sewing labor was made up of me and Sarah in all our ‘spare time’, and Vicky who worked 5pm-10pm after working her other full-time job (today she’s our Production Floor Supervisor). I’d work 7am-10pm and question all day long if this was the right idea as we struggled through our first batch of 200 croptops- one of the simplest things in our collection.

 

As I drove 15 hours to Colorado that week, I thought deeply about why I wanted to do this. Why I made the wild decision to bring production in-house. The motivation was enormous loss of valuable product and materials to countless production mistakes at our partner facilities in California over the last decade.  I knew for our future to exist, we would need to be vertically integrated. And all of this was part of the process.

 

One year later, we’re now a team of 8 wrapping up production of a batch of Superpower Blazers – the most technical piece in our collection. They’re kind of revolutionary – an athletic blazer made from legging fabric We’ve made 1000 pieces of clothing in here so far this year, and our Youniverse is buzzing with nearly a dozen machines (interrupted but the sound of air compressors charging them)  and lively conversation between teammates over an instrumental playlist of Celtic lute.

 

The strides we’ve made in the last year are pretty astounding when I step back and look at it (which I’m trying to do more often). We’ve hired 9 people (with some ebbs and flows to make 8 today), acquired some fancy new equipment, written policies, established protocols, created a language we gather data from and a whole set of digital tools that help us track and improve and remain accountable.

(Vicky working on our latest production run of Superpower Blazers, dropping later this month!) 

We’re small, and only making half of our product here (the rest remains in CA) but our success this year has been against some serious odds. In the last year, 21 American factories have closed.

 

Which makes we wonder if we’re doing the right thing. Are we about to come up against some serious odds that are going to make this endeavor impossible? Are we naïve to the challenges we’re yet to face?

 

Maybe!

 

But for now, we’re cruising along, trying our best and re-engineering the way we do things with every new milestone.  Our 3 big takeaways from the last year of sewing are

 

• Making new things every month keeps us on our toes. Our sewing team learns a lot of skills quickly because we make new product every single month and don’t repeat anything until the next year - this is new for a lot of production sewers. Right when our team is like “ok, I’m getting the hang of this” we’re like “alright, time for something new”.
• Our location has been a real challenge. Montana is a sparsely populated state with no apparel manufacturing industry. We don’t even have an industrial sewing machine mechanic locally! So finding sewing talent in Montana has been a real challenge – our state has no commercial apparel production industry so our team is made up of people with experience sewing in other industries.
• Our inspection process is our key differentiator between our production and that of our contracted partners. Because everything is housed under one roof, we have the financial flexibility to spend a little more time quality controlling each piece to make sure it’s perfect before it goes into our warehouse. We spend about 2 minutes per garment inspecting.

(Lauren inspecting a batch of Outta Seitz Hoodies that dropped last month) 

To all of you who have supported our journey over the last year, cheered us on, bought the things we’ve proudly made and come in to see how clothes are made, thank you for being here and learning as we learn. We can’t wait to see where we’re at a year from now!

 

Mallory
Founder, Chief Everything Officer

Well, we made a men's hoodie. There’s a big story behind this hoodie. We swore we’d never make a men’s silhouette, but one guy changed that. Greg Seitz, a dear friend and longtime Youer supporter voluntarily put a $50 deposit down on a hoodie years ago for “when you make that first men’s hoodie”. This is Greg, at home in the woods with his saw. 

“We’re never gonna make a men’s hoodie Greg” we said repeatedly, and it became kind of a joke. Every fall he would remind us “it’s hoodie season”. 8 years and many laughs later, we finally decided to make it happen in late 2023 - a small run

of men’s hoodies and Greg would get the first one. He chose the colors and was going to star in the photo campaign showing his life as a sawyer.

On September 18 of 2018, Greg‘s friend Mike Manhardt was injured by a tree falling on him at work, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down. His tenacity allowed him to recover independence and return to a life of activity in the outdoors. Greg advocated for Mike and Adaptive recreation everystep of the way; mountain biking, skiing, or just pumping up wheelchair tires. Greg always said: “…we are all one wreck away from needing Adaptive recreation“.

Greg and Mike on a mountain bike ride together. 

Mike and Greg knew that they would have to start an organization in Missoula if they wanted it. They started by having conversations with local foundations and donors to try to figure out the best way to fund this endeavor. Because of this pursuit, Mike and a group of volunteers were able to establish

Missoula Adaptive Recreation and Sports (MARS).

They voted on the first board of directors on the same day we made the first hoodie prototype - September 12, 2023.

But later that day, we would all find out that Greg had died in a tree felling accident in the mountains. We knew we had to continue with the hoodie in his memory, but in partnership with the young organization he had been passionate about establishing.

 The Outta Seitz hoodie is made in colors Greg chose, featuring prints that celebrate the mountains he made his life and work in.

This joint effort will help bring funding to MARS thanks to Greg's relentless pursuit of the first Youer men's hoodie.

Shereen & Kelsey, both adaptive athletes involved with MARS.  

A portion of the sales from this Outta Seitz Hoodie go to fund Missoula Adaptive Recreation & Sports. They work to enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities through recreational activities & advocacy in our local Montana community. They’re 100% volunteer run and their programs are designed to promote independence, build confidence, and foster a sense of community.

We made these in Missoula - in our factory - and hosted a launch party for locals to check them out early. Many of Greg's friends showed up to get hoodies, support MARS and drink a beer in his memory and he would have been so stoked to see it all. You can get yourself a hoodie here.