AW24 - Production Notes
09/20/24
After nearly a year of building out new production processes, developing new styles, packaging, general apparel logistics and distribution, we now have the 2nd global delivery of Cease products.
This delivery features 2 new styles; the Standard Pullover Hoodie and Standard Zip Hoodie. We reintroduced the C-Seam Sweatpant and Afterhood in new colors. Our new colors for this delivery are Moss, Cocoa (Dover Street Market/online exclusive) Burnt Orange, and Navy.
With the Standard series we had the goal to make the most simple but well constructed, long lasting and aesthetically pleasing sweatshirt to us. We often lean into coverstitching our sweatshirts, as we feel it is important because the weight of our fabric it helps with longevity to be extra secured and it is a nod to traditional old-style sweatshirt manufacturing. Any of our products that feature these coverstitch seams are sewn twice. Fabric is sewn together with one serge seam, we then go over the serge seams again creating a “tunnel” of stitches around that seam. With the coverstitch it ensures all seams have maximum strength and a strong classic look. All seams on the Standard sweatshirts feature this stitch.
We use a Made in Japan - Universal brass zipper with a Nickel finish on the zip hoodie. We choose this zipper because it has a nostalgic feeling, something you would find on a vintage sweatshirt. Everything from the finish, the cotton tape, and the top stop. It is essentially a reproduction of a 1950s American made zipper. Although they cost a lot (3x as much as your industry standard YKK zipper) we feel it is important to have these details. We made some minor adjustments to our Afterhood style, improving the fit of the hood, opening up the front a touch to curve around the neck and fall down the back of the wearer a bit better. We also cleaned up the seam allowance where the hood is attached to the body so there is less bulk in the neck area. Our signature C-Seam sweatpants have an added 1in to the inseam, as some know with our Heavyweight 20oz fabric it is prone to shrinkage, we found that the extra inch was needed for some wearers after wash.
This delivery we experienced some stock shortages. Since we do many colors in relatively small quantities for apparel production, we are running less yardage in our fleece than what is commonly ran through dye machines, so the machines aren't as efficient as they could be. This ends up with the machines having some work-loss and we are left with less fabric than originally ordered. We are fine tuning this.
As previously mentioned we always want to make the best and long-lasting apparel on the market and will continue to update styles if we find there is fit or durability issues.
AW23 - Production Notes
12/17/23
Today we’re launching the first official Cease collection worldwide. This collection features four hooded sweatshirts, four sweatpants, a jacket and three T-shirts.
The foundation of Cease will always be our Made in USA fleece. However, for this season we chose to introduce our first outerwear piece. This jacket was designed and based around a vintage climbing belay jacket, which we feel is one of the most iconic outerwear silhouettes created. Our spin on it was to make it reversible and update the pocket construction to our liking. One side of the jacket features a double quilted Cease hyphae logo pattern which gives a blur effect when viewed from afar, but also appears as a quilted pattern when seen up close.
This Autumn/Winter fleece offering consists of four colors: Orange, Grey, Black and Natural. These will always be staple Cease dye standards for fleece as we continue to develop and produce different colors. When developing this program for Cease we drove to the Southern States to visit with our fabric suppliers and sewers. We learnt a lot from these interactions as these people have been in the business of producing apparel and textiles in the USA for the last fifty years. They have many production stories to tell, working in the heyday of apparel manufacturing for big American sportswear brands and describing how smaller niche brands like ourselves keep them busy now. We wanted to see everything in person to understand the process and to develop real relationships with the people that make our goods, every step of the way. We felt it was important to see samples in person and speak with sewers because this fabric is notorious for its higher shrinkage upon first wash and difficulty to sew due to its thickness. Our fabric is essentially a "beefed up" version of the original Champion Reverse Weave from the 1960s. This is what we were told was the initial DNA of the fabric by our Knit and Dye manufacturer. We were curious to learn whether certain dye colours would affect shrinkage too. Seeing every step in the dyeing to finishing process - all done under one roof - was interesting to see. A stand out was watching the fabric get napped on this huge napping machine which is what gives our fleece it’s extremely soft and fluffy feel when on body.
Every part of Cease products are considered and we avoid short cuts in cost if they compromise the design. For example, our drawcord is knit in one place, sent to a separate dye house from our fleece, swatches from our fleece dye house are then sent to the drawcord dye house and are dyed to match the fleece and then sent to our sewer. This all happens in different states. It’s a more complicated process producing goods in USA, where there is far less infrastructure than one may find producing with a fully vertical supplier overseas. For us, we want to know where every component comes from on our fleece garments. From Cotton to Yarn to Knit to Dye to Sew.
We spent time for this release to develop packaging that doubles as a 2-in-1 shipping mailer and garment packaging. It is made of unbleached kraft paper to make for ease of disposal and added durability. The packaging is Made in the USA by a bag company that often works in the industrial and farming industry. They have been producing bags for these industries since the 1940s.
We look to the past and lean into traditional forms of domestic manufacturing in all facets of product to build Cease and will always continue to do so in the future.