Taking the challenge: The road to a better fashion industry

In this episode, Giff sits down with Ed Bartlett, founder of cycling apparel brand Kostüme, to explore what happens when you challenge accepted wisdom and rethink an industry from first principles.

After years of spending long hours in the saddle, Ed found himself questioning many of the assumptions underpinning the cycling apparel industry. From product design and marketing to manufacturing and retail, there seemed to be an accepted way of doing things that nobody was stopping to challenge. Rather than accepting the status quo, he decided to build the kind of company – and products – he wished already existed.

That company became Kostüme: a design-led cycling apparel brand built around a simple philosophy – create exceptional products with as little waste as possible, and remove everything that gets in the way.

The conversation explores how Kostüme's small-batch pre-order model enables greater investment in quality, comfort and performance, while creating a more efficient and sustainable business. Ed also shares why comfort became the brand's defining idea, how customer trust has fuelled organic growth, and why challenging industry conventions can lead to better products and better businesses.

At the time of recording, ultra-endurance cyclist Dr Sarah Ruggins was attempting to break the Europe End-to-End record, riding from the southern tip of Spain to the northernmost point of Norway accessible by road. As Kostüme's technical apparel partner, her challenge became the ultimate test of the comfort, durability and performance Ed has spent years obsessing over.

Key topics covered:

• Dr Sarah Ruggins' extraordinary Europe End-to-End world record attempt
• Why questioning industry assumptions can create better products and better businesses
• How Kostüme's pre-order model removes waste and enables greater investment in quality
• The relationship between customer trust, product excellence and organic growth
• Why comfort is often overlooked as a performance metric
• Building a brand around what customers actually value
• Artist collaborations, design and creating a distinctive brand identity
• The challenges of growing a business without compromising its principles
• How Kostüme's approach could influence the future of fashion and retail

Links
You can follow Kostüme here:

www.kostume.cc

https://www.instagram.com/kostume.cc/

Live preorder:
https://kostume.cc/edit010

Ed's podcast conversation with Sarah:
https://youtu.be/gysE9s80ypo

You can follow Sarah's One Way North record attempt here:

https://www.instagram.com/sarah_ruggins/

https://www.own2026.com/

Looking for fresh ways to make your sustainability message stand out?

Download Blast’s free guide, 5 Ways to Unearth Big Ideas for Successful Sustainability Campaigns, at bright-ideas.blast.co.uk — it’s full of practical ways to develop ideas that are original, on-brand, and effective.

If you’re ready to take the next step, book a call with our team to discuss your project: https://calendly.com/blastdesignlondon/intro-video-call-clone.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

I'm really excited to introduce today's guest because he brings together so many of the things we love to explore on this podcast: creativity, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and design. And selfishly for me, cycling. Before founding Kostüme, Ed Bartlett was a curator and cultural entrepreneur, producing exhibitions and artist collaborations for brands including MTV and Grand Marnier. Today's, he's channeled that same passion for design and storytelling into building one of the most innovative cycling apparel brands on the market. Welcome to the podcast, Ed.

Speaker 1 0:33

Thanks for having me, and thanks for the intro. I've always been um a bit of imposter syndrome, so I always find it quite hard listening to those things, funnily enough. But yeah, I'll get there. We'll get there one day. It'll feel comfortable one day, I'm sure. I'm only 50, I've got a few years to go.

Speaker 0:48

Let's start here, or more accurately, somewhere in Germany, where at the time of recording this podcast, there's an incredible world record attempt and feat of human endurance taking place, and something which you are very much a part of. So, Ed, tell us about Sarah and the challenge that she's undertaking.

Speaker 1 1:10

Yeah, so it's funny time in recording this. So Sarah is currently about roughly 40-45% of the way through her new world record uh challenge. So last year, Sarah set the the fastest ever time, including the men's time, for riding Land's End, John of Groats, Land's End. So obviously the length of Britain and back again, which is a sort of very kind of popular ultra endurance record attempt. Um, a lot of people ride Land's End, John of Gross fun, but obviously riding both ways. It's just, you know, against the clock and all of the things that kind of come with that. Why this is all interesting is really because Sarah's only been riding a bike for about four years. And also not that long ago, prior to that, she was completely bedridden with a very rare nervous disorder disease. Um, literally had to like relearn how to walk, had 24-7 care. You know, the fact she's recovered from that is obviously remarkable. The fact that she has recovered from that and then set a new outright men's and women's world record is incredible. However, what she's doing now is like another big step up from that again. So she's now doing the Europe end-to-end record. So that's from the southernmost tip in Tarifa in Spain to the northernmost tip, which is it's actually not quite the northernmost tip, it's the northernmost tip of Europe accessible by a road, which is Nordkap in North Norway. I mean, the stats themselves are pretty incredible, like 6,000 kilometres, nine countries, very significant amount of vertical climbing, 11,000 calories a day. She's riding 21 to 22 hours a day for those days, and the time to be is 17-ish days. So I can't even imagine I've got a four-year-old and I don't you know get a great deal of sleep, but even just the thought of not having the sleep would be bad enough without also spending 22 plus hours of it cycling a bike in what last week was 35 degree heat across Spain, and then now we'll we'll go into some quite cold and wet and miserable temps, potentially into the Nordics. So yeah, truly incredible. Um, I don't know when this is going out, but it's um if you search for One Way North or Sarah Ruggins, R-U-G-G-I-N S, you'll you'll certainly find that. Maybe you can put that in the link. But it's uh it's an incredible thing to follow. And and actually at the time of writing, she's also on course to beat the seven-day mileage record as part of this record. So normally someone would go out and that would be their entire goal, right? And they'd pick a course that suited that and conditions that suited that. So Sarah's actually on course at the moment to set a new world record for that as well, which was previously unannounced and just sort of blows the mind, really.

Speaker 3:42

Yeah, we've been following her from the start, and I think she did 600 kilometres on the first day, which is staggering.

Speaker 1 3:49

She actually left me a voice note from the ride while she was riding, which I think is probably the only time in my life I'll ever receive a live voice note from someone in the middle of a world record. But that's testament to the kind of person she is. She just wanted to let me know that the kit was all working, and then she mentioned I think her literal words were it's as hot as the devil's balls or something, which made me made me laugh again. She's just an all-around fantastic human being.

Speaker 4:16

You better tell us what your involvement is in this world record attempt then and how that relationship came about.

Speaker 1 4:22

Yeah, so we're the technical apparel partner, basically. So, you know, for those that don't know our brand, you know, we only launched commercially four years ago. We have a very different approach, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But, you know, to be involved with a challenge like this in a person like Sarah at such a young age of company is pretty remarkable, I think. And I think ultimately for us, it's like the kind of ultimate validation, you know, like we we clearly don't have the sort of marketing budgets that a big brand might normally pay an elite endurance athlete or any elite athlete to sponsor an event like this. Sarah is using us because for this challenge, she had to have the best possible kit to give her the chance of success. And so she has chosen us because in testing, that's what was found to be the best, you know. She was um she was actually hospitalized after her Lanz End John of Groad's Lanz End record attempt with Saddles. And um, I'd I'd actually reached out to her just before the attempt. I didn't know her before then. I'd just been following her since um a prior, a prior event that she rode, which was really caught my eye. And then yeah, then this challenge came up. And I messaged her and I found out she's wearing a skin suit, you know, like an all-in-one for the Aero reasons. And I messaged her on um on Instagram with a direct estate and said, listen, I really love what you're doing. I think that wearing our bib shorts, which have like a clipless pull-down to pee function, right? So you can just yank the back down to have a toilet break, which is quite rare in in the cycling world for various reasons we may or may not talk about. But I said, Do you think you'll save more time with this than you will say with an aero skin suit, basically? Unfortunately, it was too close to the challenge starting for her to risk changing anything on contact points because they're so vital. And then, yeah, obviously the saddle sorts were so bad that she uh after she'd recovered and then was starting to look at this new record, she actually reached back out to us and said, Could I try a pair of those shorts now, please? And she took them straight into a very intense training block in the Pyrenees, which was like nearly 40 degrees at times and like in insane amounts of vertical climbing. And um, and she came back and said, This is it, we have to use these basically.

Speaker 6:30

I could talk about Sarah and this challenge all day, but that maybe that's another podcast. So let's move on. This ride feels like a sort of real-world validation of what you're building at costume, but to understand why that matters, can you explain what you felt was broken in the fashion industry or the cycling apparel industry in the first place?

Speaker 1 6:53

Yeah, so I came to road cycling quite late. I was actually a downhill mountain biker going to the Alps, doing these kind of silly, you know, mega avalanche three times and the Trans-Provence and the Trans-Savoir, and throwing myself very quickly down mountains. And, you know, there used to be pre-COVID, this thing is a little bit, but pre-COVID, there used to be quite a lot of compartmentalization. You know, you were either a roadie or a mountain biker, and there was this sort of like semi-joke needle between the two categories. But if you told me back then I'd be running a lycra brand, you know, I would have laughed you off the mountain. What that meant was that when I did come to it, I didn't have a lot of those the kind of the rich history of cycling, you know, the Tour de France and like, you know, the mystique and the the all of the amazing stories that come with it, which it is incredible, but it just wasn't something that was part of my world. And I think when that happens, that's been true of all the things that I've done. I didn't come from the art world, I didn't come from the advertising world before that, you know. I started out as a video game developer. So I think sometimes you see things differently. And so I came into it and just none of it spoke to me, really. I got very quickly into the long distance cycling side of things, and I couldn't find kit that worked for me, despite spending like very significant sums of money. Uh, it was always boring. I found the marketing to be extremely one-dimensional. I've always been very interested in branding and brand marketing and advertising, and just none of it spoke to me. None of it seemed very inclusive. And then the waste issue started really getting more and more of my attention, you know. And I think like over the last 10 years, whatever kind of fashion you're buying, it's just everywhere you look, isn't it? It's it's been a real landslide. We've always had discount sales, it's always been a big thing. But this last decade or so, it's always on sale everywhere you look. Your inbox is full of it, the high streets are full of it, stores are closing down despite constantly being on sale, or as we will learn because of. And I just felt like there had to be a better way of doing it. And um it really came about from doing these long distance rides and spending maybe 12 or 13 hours in the saddle on your own sometimes for long periods. You get a lot of time to think about things. And with a very entrepreneurial mind, I mean, I've been on 26th year now, consecutively, as a founder and entrepreneur, doing my own thing. I've always just thought about how things can be better or different, or like how does this work? Or and I've never really had a fear of doing it because actually, nine times out of ten, you don't need to be the expert in things, right? Elon Musk is not a rocket engineer, a lot of the actual doing of things is typically done by third parties, and that's very true in the fashion space. That you know, Simon Motram from Raphael wasn't a product designer, he was a marketeer. So I didn't really have a fear of doing it. And I've been buying this brand called Gustin. I honestly, I should be on some sort of commission the amount of times I talk about them. It's Gustin with a G instead of a J, like spelled like Justin. So he was um a guy who used to buy self-veged denim, right? And this guy also hated the fact that you'd spend all this money on these lovely jeans with beautiful fabrics, but they were all cut really badly and the branding wasn't great, it didn't really speak to him. So he he realized that all of these factories have these dead stocks, right? So the the big fashion brands will make these beautiful fabrics, and then you don't end up with loads left on a roll that just sits there. So he went around to all of these different factories and fabric mills, secured the dead stocks, and then he knew how much length it was, and therefore how many pairs he could make. He developed three different cuts so that it would suit every body shape. And once you knew your size, you would know your size forever. You could just keep ordering. And this is how long ago this was. He launched it on Kickstarter with one pair in three cuts in one fabric, one beautiful Japanese uh raw denim fabric, and obviously sold out. And then he took that concept, built his own e-commerce website, and then he built that brand up. I mean, now he's got hundreds of SKUs, you know, everything from like leather shoes to I think he's just starting to do his first women's products, but uh and it's pretty much the only new clothes that I buy. I buy shoes and trainers occasionally, but like everything else I buy new, which is quite limited still, is basically from them because everything is amazing quality, really rare, interesting fabrics, which is a really key thing for costume as well. And it's all enabled by this model of cutting the waist. And so I'm there in the saddle thinking about, you know, how you could do this better. And that was the light bulb moment, really. You could basically bring together all the best possible things from the existing fashion industry and especially in the technical apparel world, and then essentially rewrite the rest of it from scratch in a better way.

Speaker 11:30

When you were on these rides, did you think that you would start with sustainability or manufacturing, or did you start with comfort? Where was the focus to begin with?

Speaker 1 11:40

That's a good question. Um, I would say it was probably a blend. I think for me, the quality was going to be the number one thing because I was just fed up with by, you know, spending quite a lot of money on this kit and just the quality just wasn't there, you know. It just didn't feel like it was worth what I was paying for it. It was falling to pieces, it wasn't really wasn't even just so much that it wasn't functioning well, it was the huge variety, you know. Like I remember once, well, let's talk about it. I mean, I don't normally talk about other brands, but actually it is quite an interesting story, and it's it's not necessarily a big negative. But part of the reason I set it up actually was because of Rafa. I don't think I've ever shared this story. So Rafa made what was once the best bib short in the world, which was the original Rafa Brevet Bib Short. And it was like you weren't wearing anything, it was incredible. And I was like, okay, I finally found a bib short that works for me. And then about a year later, they brought out the Breve 2, and it literally undid everything that was great about the previous product, you know, everything. It didn't fit properly, it was like awkward, it was less good fabrics, and and I just couldn't understand how it was possible for a company to have like struck gold with this product that was so, so good, and then in the next iteration, just break everything about it. And so that was the actual tipping point where I was like, right, I'm gonna do this myself now, but enough. And so, um, and so yeah, I think from starting costume, the main thing had to be that every piece would be a wow. People would get the product and it would just be you couldn't really pick holes in it. That had to be the kind of the key thing, the quality level. And that's also critical for the model as well, because people aren't going to pay full price and wait six or eight weeks if it's not a 10 out of 10, which by the way, our bib shorts actually are. And then the second aspect of it, then I also felt at the time this is less important now, but I also wanted to inject some sort of creativity and some scarcity because I felt like I was going on these rides and people were just turning up looking like Identicit. And that didn't really speak to me either. And from people I'd spoken to, there was a certain demographic who felt very strongly about. And there were obviously some brands who have gone more down that direction and doing extremely well with a very sort of almost fashion-led approach. But the scarcity actually ties into our business model, right? It's not for hype, it's because we're literally limiting how much we're selling in these batches, because that's then what enables us to sell through 100%, not have the overstock, not need to discount, have much more margin to then make the better product. So the whole thing is like a, you know, like a flywheel, essentially, once it's up and running.

Speaker 14:14

Well, thanks for that exclusive about Rafa. That's that's gonna share that with us. So when you first set up, then if someone said to you, was your USP, what would you have said?

Speaker 1 14:26

Um at that point, I would have said the sustainability because I thought in the earlier stages that that was, you know, I could just see how bad the waste problem was, I could see how bad the greenwash was, and I felt like it was a real way to differentiate us because we really were gonna, well, we really are the best case scenario. Like we are, I can't say this categorically because I don't have all of the data, but certainly I can't see how anyone could be more sustainable than us, right? Every single aspect of the brand has been built with that as a core pillar, whether it's the product development, the design, the batch sizes, the companies we work with for manufacturing in Europe, the fabrics we source, our packaging, every single element of it that says that has to be the very first thing. Is this really needed? Is it better than what's already out there? And are we making it in the best way possible? Those are like, we don't make we don't make socks, for example, right? Like an obvious thing to do, especially with our artist editions. People are always saying, Oh, come on, do some matching socks. It's like, well, socks are a solved problem, right? I don't need to do matching socks because I'm just making more stuff someone else has already done. Every other product in our roster, I can put my hand on my heart and hold it out in front of you and demonstrate something that's better or different, or in some cases both. And so that was like that was the kind of key metric for me, I think.

Speaker 15:47

When I look at your brand, I think that there's so much to talk about. If you've got performance, comfort, sustainability, artist collaborations, and a completely different production model. How do you decide what to tell your audience first? Because I know your backstory and I know all about what you're doing to be as sustainable as possible, but you're not always leading with that.

Speaker 1 16:10

So what happened was we led with that initially, and then what I realized back then was that I would I'd been a little bit naive. Now it seems obvious, but at the time um I'd been led by the research I'd done. I'd done quite a lot of research with within different communities I was linked with, and then the broader outreach. And I hadn't realized that big people basically lie. People will say in surveys and in focus groups and everything else that sustainability is really important to them. But when it comes to actually spending money, it's third on the list, maybe at best. You will find some people where maybe it's second on the list, but it's not the reason people are buying clothing right now. It will become slightly more important over time for sure, and having it there as a as a sort of day one central element of our brand will definitely be a tailwind and is a tailwind. People are coming back and purchasing again because of that. But by and large, it's not why people are buying. And so I realized after about, I don't know, maybe 10 months, 12 months, that we needed to pivot. And that pivot really was comfort because ultimately, you know, if you're not comfortable on your bike, which a lot of people aren't, and people just accept that that's how it is and don't even realize there are ways to be more comfortable, whether that's a bike fit, whether that's better bib shorts or whatever it is, people just accept that this is how it is if I want to ride. And that ties in with the marketing as well, right? The whole suffering, you know, that whole image and mystique of uh, you know, the hard man of cycling, et cetera, which is all nonsense. So, yeah, so comfort was the thing. And because we were already skewing heavily towards kind of all dax ultra long distance, you know, that fitted our archetypes perfectly. Um, I knew when I launched that the bib shorts were the key piece. It's the thing that whatever kind of cyclist you are, everybody wants the best bib shorts, right? If you're just doing 20, 30k down a tow pass, or if you're doing 2,000 kilometers on an ultra, the the comfort is the most important thing. And you wouldn't believe that if you looked at all of the way things are marketed generally. It's you know, it's it's aero and it's watts and it's uh all these things. If you're not comfortable and you can't do those things because you're uncomfortable, Sarah being the perfect example, then everything else is an irrelevance. And I think the most important thing is that these things aren't mutually exclusive, right? Just because we're making what we're saying is the most, or what a lot of people are saying is the most comfortable kit, doesn't mean we can't also be really aero and performative and all these things, you know. We're just choosing not to market it in that way. And so uh and so yeah, I would say, I would say comfort is the kind of the one. If you said what's the one facet about costume, that's the one I would pick.

Speaker 18:50

And do you so do you think that's that's what's changed the most about how you talk about the brand since you've set up?

Speaker 1 18:57

Yeah, I think so. I think everything else has stayed quite consistent. We've always really been very accessible and inclusive. Like we're not trying to be clicky and we're not, you know, we're not using specialist terms too much. And, you know, we're we're everything from size inclusivity to we're have a really big day one sort of focus on female cycling, you know, whether it was the launching the drops, the drop seat bibs on all of our bids or the ponytail cap or the way that we choose to advertise, you know, we always try and use realistic body shapes. I get messages from women all the time saying, like, just want to say I haven't actually bought any of products yet, but like, thank you for using realistic models, you know, just that side of things, it can make a huge difference to people who don't really feel like cycling is for them because of the way it's advertised and marketed. I have to say it has gotten better in recent years since we launched. I think on the, you know, on the race, the skin colour side of things, I think that you you see a lot more representation in that area, which for us is it's actually quite having to do with doing so much with so little resources that sometimes these shoots come together like with a day's notice. And even just finding anyone to model can be tricky, let alone trying to sort of ensure representation. I think we do pretty well, but those are always areas where we can improve, things like the size guide. So I think we're we're trying to balance being the absolute best performance, comfort, quality, but without marketing it in this like hyper-aspirational way, basically. Because everyone that I talk to, even some of these incredible athletes, even they feel like everything's just too aspirational, you know.

Speaker 20:41

Yeah, well, that's gonna be my next question, actually, because you you talk about pushing the boundaries of how outdoor apparel is made and marketed. So, what does that mean in terms of marketing? How do you see that you're pushing the boundaries?

Speaker 1 20:57

I think by making it so that people don't feel it's out of their reach, you know. Not many people have access to a beautiful mountain coal around the corner, not many people have a 10 grand bike. Um, obviously a lot of people do, and that's great, but just focusing on those people in your marketing, it doesn't actually make people feel in most cases, oh, I really aspire to that. It makes them feel like they're not worthy, they're not going to be able to do those things. I think that the aspiration side of things is positive and important, and it can be really good, but I think it's gone way too far in that direction in the last, particularly the last sort of eight to ten years, and and influences really haven't helped with that either. And what are influencers? Influencers all come from the overstock issue as well, right? Because these brands are just sitting on so much dead stock, it's just gonna get thrown away anyway. Why not just give it to this attractive person that's got all these followers? You know, none of that is positive at the end of the day. It you know, it's been a great way for some brands to build their reputation, but it in Doing so, it's also been very damaging for the environment, it's been very damaging for a lot of people's self-esteem, it's been damaging for cycling, um, in terms of trying to bring new people into it. And unfortunately, the industry is paying the price for that now.

Speaker 22:12

You mentioned something interesting when we spoke before about despite the fact that you're solving or aiming to solve many of the problems the industry talks about, um, that you've often struggled to get people to pay attention or or talk about it. What do you think that is?

Speaker 1 22:30

It's a really good question. It's a difficult one to talk about because I know what we're doing is incredible. I can divorce myself from this and my imposter syndrome and all of that nonsense, and I can look at it completely objectively and say, this is proven, it's exceptional, it's answering all of these issues the press have been writing about ad nauseum for the past five years. So why are people not now writing about the solution? You know, it's it's fascinating to me. And I think it's very easy to fall into it's very easy to fall into conspiracy theory traps and be like, oh, everyone's against us, you know. But the fact is a lot of the press is driven by ad money. We don't have ad money. This is also why our 10 out of 10 Bib Short review is you know is exceptional because we don't have any advertising budget. We had an advertiser Road CC. When they gave us that 10 out of 10, you know, it was completely on merit, a bit like the Sarah Ruggan story. And obviously, whichever way you look at what we're doing, it casts a negative light on the practices of the broader industry, right? There's no way to escape that. And those are the people that are paying a lot of the advertising money, and that's how the world ticks. There's one particular publication who are actually based in Bristol, who literally won't write about our products. We put them through to them countless times. You know, we are we have Bib Shorts that have never scored less than a 10 out of 10, that have won numerous awards, that have a 4.9 interest pilot, that have Sarah Ruggins using them, and they won't even put them in a group test. Their excuse was, oh, we use technology to look at how talked about things are because we need to know what our readers are interested in. It's the biggest load of nonsense I've ever heard in my life. What sort of excuse is that? Like, why are you not educating your consumer about this amazing new business model where you're getting more for your money that have 10 out of 10 products that are based in your city, that deal with the sustainability issue? It's absolute nonsense, pure nonsense. So I'll be honest with you, I don't really care whether they review our products. We're doing very well without them. They'll never see an advertising money from us. So they're cutting our own nose. You know, all of these other brands are struggling. You know, we see all the losses people are making. We're growing 100 and currently 125% organically this year without paid ads. Um, one day they're going to want our ad money and we're not going to give it to them because they didn't support us. So it's, you know, it's a quid pro quo as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 24:51

I think disruptive ideas may be harder for people to talk about if they make everyone else feel uncomfortable, I suppose. But you'd like to think that there would be enough independent journos and and people that want to talk about good news stories and positive things that it would generate interest.

Speaker 1 25:08

Yeah, I mean, and to be fair, we have had some good coverage, you know, like Spring PR, who did RPR, you know, they've done a great job. And from Forbes to to you know, mags like Ruler and Cyclist Mag, and you know, we we have had some good coverage, but it's been a struggle and it hasn't been as broad as I think it deserves. You know, we just had this artist batch last month with Adam Bohr, which is like the best thing we've ever done. As far as I'm concerned, it's the most interesting thing on the market at the moment. This Politech Gilets also just scored 10 out of 10, and it's like quite rare to see an out-of-wear garment have this level of like design on it. They're normally very plain and black and everything. We got almost no coverage from it. We had all these beautifully produced video content interviews with the artists, you know. Like, I mean, I ask I'd say to people, go and have a look at edit nine on our website, like it's so well put together, so really well, but I don't think we had a single piece of coverage from a single industry, especially it's industry press outlet. So it's fascinating, incredible.

Speaker 26:06

Ultimately, I'm talking about communication, it comes down to whether people kind of believe it or not. And you've built a business around doing things very differently. So, how do you earn the trust from your customers?

Speaker 1 26:21

That's the single hardest thing with this model. I always talk about the sort of tri-trust evangelized triangle, right? So once people have tried the products and seen them, there's such a wow factor. I have people writing me two, three paragraphs on like I've been cycling for 25 years, I've been using XYZ brands, you know, all the big biggest and best. I wish I hadn't been on the fence for a year waiting to purchase, you know. You can you can see some of them on our trust pilot. People wax lyrical about it. And so because it's um it's a sport, people ride on their own a lot, but then they also ride with clubs and they ride in groups and they go and do these events and all that because people are always interested in what other people are wearing and using, especially when it comes to things like saddle comfort. And so uh and so once we had that initial 10 at a 10 review and people start buying and then start talking about oh, they really are that good, that growth has been almost entirely organically. So we've been experimenting with some paid ads recently, but I'm talking like hundreds of pounds right per campaign, just to try different creative approaches that are slightly different, test and refine, test and learn phase. So you can say, I think without without sort of misguiding people, that our growth is completely organic. And considering the struggles that the industry's been having generally, to you know, to be posting multiple years of three-figure growth, you know, it's easy to do in the very early days, but we're four years in, and as I say, we're 125% up year on year. If you do a roll in 12 months, it's a lot more than that. Our average order value went up a third last year, which is you know an interesting metric to be able to move by that much. We're in 34 countries direct without doing any paid ads there. That's all organic. So it's not just a UK thing, India, Thailand. I mean, you name a country, we're pretty much there. So I think a certain category of cyclists has just been waiting for this to come along, basically. I think there are a lot of people that are disaffected and disenchanted with it, and the products are are clearly speaking to them.

Speaker 28:14

Yeah, I mean that I mean that's got to be the best marketing method possible, though, hasn't it? Really? They're all doing your work for you. I was going to ask, how do you train people to believe what you say? But what you're saying is that you don't. They believe you because when they get the product, they see that it's true and then they pass that on to other people. Ultimately, I suppose you will build scale through that because enough people are going to tell enough other people about your brand.

Speaker 1 28:41

Definitely. And that has been happening. I think the size of the business and the output, what we're doing and what we're putting out there versus the resources that we have is just there's so much low-hanging fruit that we're missing, particularly on the kind of marketing side. And we could turbocharge that, you know. But to do that realistically, I'm going to need to raise external investment, which I've been holding off to do. We did a crowd queue round, which was by and large a lot of our consumers, our customers. So we we hit 100% before the day that it launched publicly. We'd already hit 100% just from our customers. And I was intending that to be the last investment and sort of then semi-bootstrap that growth to profitability and and so on. But kind of reached a point now where I'm going to kill, I'm going to kill myself. If you look at the brand and all of that output, it's basically me, a couple of freelancers, very good freelancers, but still who aren't even full-time. I'm just bringing on someone now to help me with the our sort of new strategy for third-party retail, um, which is also interesting. But yeah, I think to kind of to move to that next step, I'm going to have to seriously consider external investment. So that in itself is difficult because that takes you away from the business. You know, I've been there before, I raised a lot of venture capital before with a previous business, tech business that I had. And for this, I would be very cautious in terms of finding the right partner, not just any money. It would have to be the right money. So yeah, it's a it's an interesting time, you know. And I think if I look at what our plans are longer term, particularly in terms of like other categories and so on, then yeah, realistically, I'm I sort of know deep down I'm gonna have to take that step. But yeah, maybe not stay.

Speaker 30:24

I guess so far a lot of what we've discussed is about resisting the pressures of of the industry. So as costume gets bigger, how are you gonna maintain your values? Can sustainability survive scale? What do you see as the future of of retail?

Speaker 1 30:42

I mean, we could a couple of hours on that topic, couldn't we? It's fascinating. I've just been actually invited to a sort of high-level steering committee group on fashion materials, which I can't really talk about, unfortunately, but it's really interesting, mix of people, including some high street brand names, fashion brands, and little old oak costume from Bristol, which is a bit of a pinch yourself moment in some ways, but it shows that what we're doing is really getting some attention, right? Like this model. Obviously, regulation is coming, so the sustainability angle, you know, there's been so much greenwash, there's been so much time and energy and money spent trying to not make the changes that need to be made, which is madness, really. But that is actually now slowly starting to happen, probably still not quickly enough, but they're going to need to be some changes. Degrowth is obviously a critical word in the fashion space. From our perspective, what you've got to think about as well at the moment is that our batches are only 350 pieces, and we're only doing a batch a month, you know, so it's really dot within a dot. That model can absolutely scale to a point where we're a significant size brand without having any sort of real impact on because ultimately it's about the waste, right? I I'm reading a book at the moment and it's um another fashion brand, and they're talking about, you know, they're still making clothes, they're still putting stuff out there, but their decision was essentially we could either shut up shop and not do this, and those things are still going to happen anyway, or we can create a blueprint for a better way that other people can then hopefully learn from and follow and then make great products along the way. And that's very much my mentality. Like the whole point of what we're doing, really, is to create a blueprint. Like I'm trying to make great cycling apparel as well, right? Obviously, that's the proof point for the model. But really, what I'm trying to do is create a blueprint for other fashion founders to come in and say, oh, why would we do it like that when actually this is so much better in every way, right? We're making better products, we're making better margin, we've got more engaged consumers, we're we're not polluting the planet as much. You know, we can be more creative and have more flexibility. The the model, that that pre-order model essentially compounds every other benefit as a business in this sector. You know, it's there are no negatives, it's just positives, whichever way you look. And I think ultimately the reason for that is taking so much waste out of the system. And that's the thing that has to change in the fashion industry moving forwards. You know, we cannot continue down this path of just endlessly creating products that are never going to be sold or worn, regardless whether it's virgin materials or whether it's recycled or whatever. There's so much focus on the fabrics and the technologies and stuff. They're just sticking plasters. The problem is the overproduction. The problem with that is the business, commercial reality of the model that forces that. That's what our pre-order model changes, essentially.

Speaker 33:34

Something needs to happen to the fast fashion industry so that everybody realizes that the responsible way forward is the best way forward. Because at the moment it feels like there's sort of a push and pull between the two sides. The big manufacturers want volume and to race to the bottom. And you're doing the opposite.

Speaker 1 33:52

It's a difficult subject because um this model's not going to work for everything and everyone. So this isn't like a sort of switch to this in the everything solved type deal, you know. But there are ways that inventory forecasting can get better. I think there are already some people out there that are kind of working on technologies that will help. I think on-demand production has its place, but I don't think it's going to be that side of things is going to be scalable enough, scalable enough for High Street, for example. You know, I still think physical retail has a place to play for us as well. And I'm, you know, I'm looking at ways that we can combine the best of wholesale with the best of pre-order in a way that um, you know, does all of the things that a retailer needs, like driving the footfall to the store. And, you know, we're our biggest problem right now is actually getting stuff in front of people in the first place. You know, when people see it and feel it and try it, it's so obviously clear that it's better. You know, that wow moment, I keep coming back to that. Um the the wholesale model just is not fit for purpose for most people right now. People are just not making any margin. So yeah, I think the whole thing really needs a big rethink.

Speaker 34:58

Let's let's talk about what's next. Is your ambition ultimately to to build a better cycling apparel company, or are you building a new way of thinking about product design, manufacturing? Are you thinking that that might extend into other categories?

Speaker 1 35:15

Definitely. Yeah. I mean, the reason it's called costume in the first place, you know, it's not linked to cycling. It's really about this sort of idea of like when you're doing those active things, it's almost like you feel quite heroic and um obviously it's not spelt in the same way. They want to be too literal about it. Actually, the branding sort of came about from the art world space. Like the concept I had was like the White Cube Gallery. So the branding had to be strong and stand on its own. But then with our art collabs and things, it also needed to be able to sit like a gallery brand would. And that's why when we do these collabs, we talk more actually about the artists and their processes and all of those things before we even talk about product. So I think that's interesting. But yes, to answer your question, the plan has always been activewear, um, outdoor focus, activeware. But we we are also looking at some other other categories. I think there's a lot of crossover more than there used to be now with certain sports. And um if you look at all the breakout brands of the last decade, you know, fashion brands, a significant number of them have been activeware brands. I think, as I said, it does lend itself very well to innovations, whether that's in the product design, you know, all of our products are quite innovative in terms of the design of them, but then also particularly the fabrics. And where our model is unbeatable is that we've got so much more budget for the fabrics and the trims and the manufacturing. You know, you I like to say you can't compete with us because you can't like other brands, even the biggest brands, simply don't have the ability to pay what we're paying for our products because of all the waste, because of the return, you know, 30 to 40% returns, we get two to three percent returns, you know, the long tail of discounting, the wholesale costs, the customer acquisition costs, which can be 50 to 100% of the cost of the product in the first place, you know, it's it's just insane. And so if we take that same mentality and product design philosophy, the exceptional, unique fabrics, the performance of those things, the design elements, um, the sustainability, there's absolutely no reason why that won't work in running or yoga or gym. And um, we have such a head start at this point. We've built the supply chain, we've completely rebuilt it a second time and refined it, made it even better. So we're on version 2.5 now of this model and the supply chain and the the flywheel to make these batches work. So yeah, I think we're in we're in pretty good shape to be looking at that.

Speaker 37:37

So that sounds like there's something definitely in the pipeline then. And I had to say that that was very forward-thinking of you to think of your brand name and what that might mean five, ten years down the line, because obviously a lot a lot of people don't. And as the uh as the car phone warehouse will will confirm, uh it's it's worth doing that at the outset.

Speaker 1 37:57

I've got I've got several trademarks already trademarked in the bag, ready to use three, four, five years in three or four or five years' time, which is uh I've always loved that aspect of um brand and brand building. So I'll just sometimes have like a random idea and then come home and file a trademark. Yeah. We've got a launch coming next month, which is um a new minimalist jersey based on Sarah's what she's wearing. So it has no pockets at all, right? So we've gone from like making the jersey with the most pockets on the market to now making the jersey with the least. It's actually almost impossible to buy. I don't actually, I'm not gonna say impossible because I've not researched every brand, but there basically isn't a pocketless technical cycling jersey that has exactly the same quality level and performance. Um so yeah, we're launching that next month. And uh yeah, I've I've done quite a nice trademark for that one. Can I reveal it now? Yeah, so it's it's lose the label. So the idea is like we've literally lost the label. So we've there are no it's the minimalist jersey. We've like they're printing the label on the inside of the fabric, so it's like minimal, but it's actually more about it's designed to do everything. It's for someone that wants to poodle down the, you know, and not have to carry stuff. It's then for like people like Sarah, ultra cyclists who are racing, who have all of their stuff on their bike bags, you know. So I've got like at the moment, I've got seven or eight different cyclists from a mountain biker in the Lake District to an ultra racer to someone that just sort of pools around and does these great little city rides to a gravel rider, to someone that's about to do a big Audax, all wearing the same product, showcasing all the different ways. And the idea is it's just riding bikes. We don't have to keep like giving these things labels and like a product for this and a marketing angle for that, you know. So I'm I'm I'm more excited, I think, about that than I have been about anything else we've done so far.

Speaker 39:43

Great. I love the the idea behind it. We're really look forward to seeing that. I think that's that's probably a great way to end, Ed, you know, looking to the future and something new on the horizon. So I just wanted to say thank you for fascinating chat. And we look forward to one cheering on Sarah in the rest of her incredible challenge and seeing how the challenge laid down by costume to the world of cycling and beyond influences the wider worlds of retail, manufacturing, and sustainable business. So thanks very much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 1 40:17

Thanks for the invite. And I think even if you're not into cycling or cycling apparel or whatever, I would honestly say just pop to our website and then click through the link to Sarah and just read her story because what she's doing, it transcends cycling, really. I think you cannot fail to be inspired by her and her story. There's also a live tracker link so you can actually click and see where she is right now whenever this goes out. But yeah, you know, you even if you couldn't care less about Lycro or cycling, just check Sarah out because um what she's doing really defies belief.

Speaker 40:49

Yeah, she she really is. And we'll put all those links in the show notes and we'll make sure we get this podcast out before she crosses the finish line. Cool. Thanks, Colin. We appreciate it.