Anyone who has ever set up a new manufacturing business knows how difficult it is to raise money especially when you need hi-tech knitting machinery to make your product. Here’s an example of how the internet generation goes about it... 

US based sustainable outdoor clothing company Appalatch aims to make ‘slow fashion’ fast and it plans to do this by letting its online customers record three measurements so that it can then knit them a sweater and deliver it to them. Appalatch co-founders Grace Gouin and Mariano deGuzman want to be able to design and make a bespoke wool sweater in an hour, which can then be shipped to their customer.

From a knitwear manufacturing point of view the concept is not new – there have been a number of such ventures loosely based on Shima Seiki’s ‘Factory Boutique’ concept launched in Japan in the 90s.

However, what is new is that Appalatch recently launched a campaign with Kickstarter, a community funding website, to pay for a used Stoll flat machine for $50,000 - and with 21 days left to go, the company has already raised over $26,000 from over 200 donors.

The company is said to have decided to take the Kickstarter option rather than borrow money from a bank or friends and family, because it offers them the opportunity to spread their message while raising money – a clever idea.

The idea of Appalatch was incubated while Mariano deGuzman was a graduate student at Harvard. Focusing on the idea of ethically made American clothing, Mariano left for North Carolina, the heart of textile manufacturing in America to take up an internship at a sustainable apparel brand.

While learning from pioneers in the organic clothing movement, Mariano met Grace Gouin, a designer driven by the idea of creating thoughtful clothing that is not only fashionable, but also highly equitable throughout the supply chain. Together they started working full-time on Appalatch in 2012.

“After spending a year building a rock-solid American supply chain that can scale up with demand, we released our first line of wool basics for Spring 2013 followed by wool sweaters, blankets, bags and socks for Fall 2013,” the company reports on its website.

“For custom-made sweaters, we will be using the same supply chain that we have used, as well as using the same machines that we have worked with in other projects. Because of this, we have already built the relationships and the knowledge to undergo this campaign.”

There are some challenges that the company says it faces:

“Sourcing 21.5 Micron American Rambouillet Wool: Sheep is normally shorn in April/May and wool as fine as what we are using is tough to come-by. We have spoken with farms and wool pools to ensure that we will have the supply we need to make our initial delivery of sweaters. If demand is greater than the supply of 21.5 Micron wool available, we will alert people of any changes before they contribute to the campaign.

Delay in purchasing the machine: There are just a handful of machines that are in stock and ready to be sold to us. We have our eye on them, but they won’t let us have one until we pay for it. In the off chance that someone buys all the machines before we can purchase one, we will update contributors to any changes to our delivery times.

Unprecedented Demand: We’ve set the initial run of custom fit sweaters at numbers we can manage. In the hopeful chance that we go above and beyond our funding goals, we will add on additional award levels notifying funders of any changes to delivery times.”

This certainly is a different way to fund a business and a hi-tech knitting machine. You have to admire the spirit of this company and its goal of harnessing the power of the web to bring like minded individuals together to make things happen.

Check out Appalatch’s Kickstarter movie...

Check out Appalatch’s Kickstarter campaign at:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1289210625/custom-fit-sweaters-ethically-made-in-america

Further information on the company:

www.appalatch.com