Why we stock out. And What We’re Doing to Fix It.

On November 4, 2015, after 6 months of testing and user feedback, we launched our classic Raglan design. The journey over last 12 months has taught us some important lessons and surpassed most of our expectations. We’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response from our users, partners, and our growing community. We’ve also, at times, been literally overwhelmed with keeping up with the pace of orders and planning inventory. 

We launched the Raglan last November with 7 months of planned inventory. However, we got sold out within 2.5 months and mid-Jan 2016 we were already sold out on certain colors and sizes. We were definitely happy but were also caught off guard. We got back into production planning mode and in April 2016, we doubled the size of our next production run which sold out even faster. And while being too in demand is one of the better problems to have as opposed to a dead inventory, we sincerely apologize for the gaps in inventory. We are really grateful for your support and want to reassure you that we are working to make it right.

So, what gives? In the apparel world, building something as unique as the bamboo and silver fabric from the ground up takes a lot of time. The design, prototyping, testing, and anti-odour technology development is a marathon process. We have spent over a year testing hundreds of fabrics and meeting with the best mills in India before deciding on our Bamboo and Silver fabric. We’re proud of what we've built, and sincerely believe that they are the best performing in the industry. However, there’s no rushing the lead time on custom designed fabrics and we simply weren't able to restock fast enough to meet rising demand.

As of now, we’re ready: we’re incorporating more agile processes from our mills ; we’re keeping more fabrics and trims on hand so we can reduce lead times; we’re doubling our production capacity by bringing on an additional manufacturing partner in Bombay; and we’re going ahead with a current production run that’s larger than all previous ones combined. While that is happening we have also finished developing an exciting new fabric which we plan to launch by end of 2016.

The newest colors will be hitting the site by end of November 2016 and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on. We hope that you'll bear with us in the meantime. While that is happening, we have finished developing an exciting new fabric which we plan to launch by end of 2016. Please sign up with your email on our site to be notified of our new product launch. 

We cannot thank you enough for everything so far.


— Athlos Team