It’s funny how things happen. And it’s only in hindsight that we can look back and see trivial decisions having an outsized effect on the future. Like that time we were invited to a fancy dinner on the periphery of Fashion Week – little did we know that night would become Citizen Wolf’s butterfly effect moment.
Although we make clothes, we (very proudly) sit outside the traditional fashion industry – we don’t have seasons, we don’t do runways and we certainly don’t have inventory. And because ‘far-shun’ isn’t our background, we naturally shy away from the air-kisses, champagne and daaarlings that personify the industry.
All to say that we don’t really attend fashion week/s. But last year, Eric (one of our cofounders) decided to go to dinner at the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW, and that fateful decision has now changed the Aussie fashion industry for good.
WHEN SERENDIPITY CALLS
Eric and Kit had never met, and in all honesty, their paths never would have normally crossed.
That night Eric was seated next to Kit Willow, designer and founder at KITX and the original innovator of the Aussie sustainable fashion scene. Eric and Kit had never met, and in all honesty, their paths never would have normally crossed. But serendipity happens, they got talking and after 9 long months, we finally launched our very first brand collab with Kit last week.
The CW x KITX Activism collab is a collection of printed Tees with something truly new and unique for our respective audiences – including KITX’s first ever menswear collection. With this collab, KITX’s patterns and graphics are combined with Citizen Wolf’s Magic Fit® technology and on-demand manufacturing. Our customers get access to high-fashion silhouettes along with printed graphics (which we’ve not done before), and KITX’s customers get custom-fit tailoring.
If Citizen Wolf is known for anything, it’s our Magic Fit® Tees. Over the years we’ve made more than 60,000 from our Sydney factory, so it’s fair to say that we’re really, really good at making Tees. But it’s also fair to say that a new range of Tees isn’t really all that exciting, even if they are designed with KITX’s high fashion aesthetic.
But these are no ordinary Tees…
WE CANNOT UNFUCK THE INDUSTRY ALONE
And just like Citizen Wolf was never just about Tees, the technology stack that we created was never just about Citizen Wolf.
In a world-first, this collab sees our Magic Fit® technology installed on another brand’s site to power their transition away from overproduction and standard size breaks. And that’s what makes this so incredibly exciting – it’s the first step towards Citizen Wolf technology becoming the operating system for a new and improved fashion industry that is default sustainable.
You may recall that we raised over $1 million last year to “unfuck the fashion industry” with a simple plan to scale beyond Tees into more products. And if you followed our campaign videos, or perhaps came to one of our investor nights, you’ll know that we’re fond of saying that Citizen Wolf was never just about Tees.
And just like Citizen Wolf was never just about Tees, the technology stack that we created was never just about Citizen Wolf. Our ambition has always been to validate the blueprint for a new business model for the rest of the industry to follow.
DISRUPT YOURSELF (BEFORE OTHERS DO)
“The status quo of the fashion system is broken. I believe Citizen Wolf’s business model introduces a viable solution to create custom made fashion with zero waste and zero over supply.” – Kit Willow, KITX.
Fashion is a hyper-fragmented industry where no single player dominates. Nike is widely regarded as the biggest fashion brand in the world, accounting for 2.3% of the estimated $2.3 trillion global fashion industry. Zara gets second place with around 1.7%, and the top five biggest brands on the planet combined account for less than 8% of the industry.
All to say that no single brand is big enough to create systemic change alone. We will only change the system when brands start working together for the common good.
From Day 1 we knew our tech would (eventually) be valuable to other brands, but we honestly didn’t know where to start. The Catch-22 to licensing our tech has always been twofold: firstly, we had to find a traditional brand willing to disrupt their existing business model, and secondly, they had to use T-shirts as their proof of concept.
Netflix is perhaps the best example of a company that disrupted itself before being disrupted by others. Initially a DVD-by-mail service, as technology advanced and the popularity of streaming increased, Netflix recognized the need to pivot its business model towards broadband. It was only by actively killing off the business that was making money (DVDs) that Netflix could become the global cultural powerhouse we know today.
To her credit, this is why we are so thrilled, and feel so honoured, to partner with Kit Willow from KITX. Like so many designers (all designers?) in the traditional fashion industry, she knows just how broken the default model of overproduction is, and that systemic change is long overdue. She says:
“The status quo of the fashion system is broken with too many natural resources being consumed to create an oversupply of fashion that gets discarded, ending up in an ever increasing landfill pile. I believe Citizen Wolf’s business model introduces a viable solution to create custom made fashion with zero waste and zero over supply and I’m so excited to be partnering with them on this capsule collection to introduce this new technology to the KITX customer”, says Willow, designer and founder of KITX.
Amen.
WHAT’S NEXT?
As mentioned, at the moment our Magic Fit® technology is incredibly good at making T-shirts. But Tees are only one (often small) part of the overall product mix in any traditional fashion brand. We cannot credibly claim to be changing the industry if we only make Tees, regardless of how many partners we find for Magic Fit®.
So, as we scale Citizen Wolf’s technology to make more products like button-down shirts, we will also offer those same categories to our partners like KITX. Over time, we believe this beachhead strategy will be a win-win-win for Citizen Wolf, our partners and the planet alike.
Until then, if you believe in a better fashion industry, then please help us make this collab a success by purchasing your very own slice of Aussie fashion history today.
Pre-orders are open for the next 2 weeks only until Feb 19, 2023.