Barons has now been live for a year, and it's fitting to pause and take stock of a crazy year that has taken us through every corner of the emotional spectrum.
We often joke that we would never have embarked on this crazy project if we had known in advance how many challenges we would face. We have truly gained respect for the craftsmanship involved in making a really good shirt on a large scale. How many processes there are, how many different parts the shirt actually contains, and how many places it can go wrong.
We don't think many people are aware that several parts of a Barons shirt are developed by people in white coats in laboratories. At least we weren't aware of the full extent just a year ago. After all, it's "just" a white shirt.
Over the year, we've realized how important it is to have some experienced shirt nerds on the team. It requires some serious niche skills to ensure a successful journey from when the extra long-staple PIMA cotton is picked in the southern states of the USA to the finished shirt being worn by the man sweating through the important meeting on Monday morning. We've realized that our most important task is to ensure that we are surrounded by people who are more skilled and even more nerdy than ourselves in everything from cotton, fabric, weaves, yarn, finishing, buttons, Oeko-Tex to production.
One of our biggest challenges for 2017 was ensuring that we had enough shirts in stock to keep up with demand. We are now finally set up with a new sewing room (of course within the EU), and we have high expectations for the new collaboration. A good and stable production is crucial for us with the concept we have rolled out. We don't have a big bag of money from external investors, so we reinvest every single penny in the company so that we can become even better in the future.
2017 was the year when shirt boys became shirt men, and we are now eager to get started on 2018.
We have big plans for the new year. Among other things, we will introduce shirts with extra sleeve and body length, we will introduce two new models to our series of archetypes, we will launch a brand new webshop that will be a springboard for our international rollout, and much, much more...
2018 will also be the year when we move to new premises, so we have room for the new employees who have already joined the team and those who will come on board during the new year.
We would like to thank all of you who have dared to try a Barons shirt. We are incredibly grateful for that!
We hope that you will have your best year to date in 2018, both personally and professionally.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Joachim
