Now that summer is over, it's time for Ludis to take a step back and be transparent about what we've been through. As you probably know, we've been through a rather unusual time due to the health crisis, which unfortunately isn't over yet, and like many other businesses, we haven't been spared.
March 2020
While 2019/2020 was our first year as a business and clothing brand, we learned a lot, especially about the process of making a clothing collection, which doesn't happen overnight. It typically takes 6 months of work between:
- Developing the collection design with Pierre, our designer, who puts any ideas we may have onto paper.
- Making prototypes with our partner seamstress, in order to have a first glimpse of the models in the collection
- The production of prototypes in our Fil Rouge manufacturing workshop, with whom we finalized the technical details before launching production.
- Production which generally takes 2 months.
In order to release a new Men's collection and a first Women's collection for May 2020, we logically started the process in November 2020.
While we were on schedule, the lockdown came in March 2020 just as the Fil Rouge prototypes were being validated. The workshop therefore stopped its activity for two months, as did the whole of France. The consequence for us will be a two-month delay in the release of our collections: they will therefore not be released before July 2020.
May 2020
The government has officially announced the end of lockdown for everyone, so the Fil Rouge manufacturing workshop can resume operations, and we can restart the process where we left off. However, we've just learned that our fabric supplier, Nooteboom in the Netherlands, is out of stock of the fabric we ordered for the Women's collection. This fabric has been requisitioned, and rightly so, for the manufacture of masks.
We therefore urgently sought a new supplier to bring this first women's collection to life. After several weeks, we managed to find two suppliers, one in Greece (Davaris Textiles) and the other in Spain (Novanlansa). These suppliers were able to deliver the fabric we were looking for: similar to the one initially planned and OEKO-TEX certified (a fundamental criterion for Ludis).
Fil Rouge will therefore have to remake prototypes (the fabric is no longer the same), so the Women's collection is still delayed and will not be released before August 2020.
Additionally, and this is entirely our fault, we made a mistake when ordering the striped fabric for the Moussaillon and Beige playsuits (see photo). It took us a few days to correct it. If you have any feedback on the prototype resulting from this mistake, please leave it in the comments. 😉
Production of the men's models can now begin, with a release date scheduled for July 2020.
August 2020
Starting July 30th, we are gradually starting to receive the models from our new Men's collection . However, the Fil Rouge manufacturing workshop is forced to stop its activity once again following a positive case of Covid-19 among its employees. The production of the latest models in the Men's collection and the production of the Women's collection is therefore delayed by another week.
To conclude, the delivery of the latest model in the Women's collection, the Lisa playsuit , took place on September 22: the official day that marks the end of summer, like a symbol.
The consequences
The consequences are therefore simple, we were not able to enjoy the summer and have the season we had hoped for. While at the beginning of summer more and more of you were interested in the Ludis concept, we were not able to deliver models in sizes M and L for Men, we were out of stock for the Moussailon and Explorateur models and our first Women's collection was still far from being there.
In addition, and we told you about it in January 2020 , we had planned to tour France with our two new collections in order to present and have as many people as possible try on the Ludis playsuits. While our participation was scheduled for events in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Biarritz and we were in discussions to participate in other events in other cities, everything was canceled following the health measures taken by the government. These events are essential for our brand and therefore the cancellations had an impact on our development.
Conclusion
This article is in no way a criticism of the measures implemented by the government in response to the health crisis; health is and will remain the priority. We simply wanted to provide a factual account of what we experienced during this period in order to explain to you, with precision and transparency, the reasons for our delivery delays.
By the way, if you have any questions or need additional information, we will be happy to answer you in the comments.
In the coming days we will write an article on the lessons we have learned from this crisis and the positive effects (yes, yes there are some) it has had on Ludis.
See you soon,
Mathias & Lucas 🐍