4 years of DressCode Shirts
I’d like to start with a huge thank you to our customers, supporters and cheer leaders, the past 12 months have taken us to some great places. Without your support I wouldn’t be writing this, DressCode probably wouldn’t even exist TBH and yet here we are marking 4 years.
The time has flown. Now I’m going to stop this narrative here for a good reason. I don’t want this post to be a self-indulgent brag or boast, if you want to know more about what we’ve done check out the blog posts and our social feeds, they chart all of it.
The past 12 months
We’ve got plans, some of them bigger than others, but all of these plans need funds, so we’ve been exploring investment. For anyone who’s been through this process you’ll already know what a complex and confusing space this is.
From outside there’s lots of bonhomie, but dig under the surface and you discover huge, and often unrealistic goals and expectations (these can be on either side). It is a physical and mentally brutal process, I’d liken it to a kind of business marathon, where you have to focus on the end point as the current bit is simply hard work, that can be really painful.
Thankfully there are good people to be found in the crowds of supporters, you have to spend a lot of time searching them out, but they are there.
A good match
We found a good match, a business who shared our vision. We presented our plans with our trademark DressCode enthusiasm. We agreed an investment in principle late ’21/early ‘22 and that felt really good.
I’ve got to be honest, there was some imposter syndrome creeping in for sure, but that was to be expected, we were about to embark on a serious learning journey that would test all of our skills and more. But we were also forming a bond, a partnership and that meant two way traffic – knowledge, support and enthusiasm travelling in both directions.
Then the war in Ukraine began, the fund we were working with were geographically close to these terrible events. Everything stopped and it became clear that the future would look quite different, the fund scaled things back big time. Not for one second am I going to even start to draw any form of comparison, what the people of Ukraine have faced day in, day out, has no comparison in my view, so I’m not going there.
What next?
We explored other investment and funding opportunities but they didn’t pan out, mainly because the investors wanted different things to us.
This was a major crossroads in our journey, we have established some really good relationships, offers came but when they landed they looked a little different from what we were expecting. We chewed them over, it wasn’t easy, this was a pivotal moment, but we listened to our gut instincts and believe that we’ve got the right decision, so we will continue to grow organically.
But that still leaves the question of what next?
2022 has shown every person on Earth, regardless of location, that we have to change our habits. We have to stop taking the planet for granted and start to show it the respect it deserves.
As a business, we had already embraced a lot of technology, materials and processes that reduced the impact of making our shirts on the planet with our Climate Code work. But we wanted to do more, we explored a few ideas and decided that there was an opportunity to overcome some of the barriers and be more sustainable, we have called this next step ‘made on demand’.
What is ‘Made on demand’?
Instead of us designing, making, storing and distributing shirts we are switching to a “made on demand” model. The heart of the business remains unchanged, we are Geek and we are Luxury, sharing that love of tech in the designs we produce.
We will continue to design the GeekLuxe shirts for which we are known, but from here in, we’ll only make what’s ordered by you, our customers. This means we can minimise our consumption of resources and further reduce our environmental impact. Things that we know you care about.
Limited edition designs
Made on demand is also an opportunity to order our designs in any size! The shirts will be made by hand following the principles we have developed for our Climate Code products – digital print, renewable energy and sustainable wood-pulp material.
There are 2 groups of shirts – 1- New printed designs, where the shirts will be delivered 12 weeks after the closure of the order window. These include…
DressCode 4th Birthday Day design
Deadline - Orders must be placed by 9th October 2022
DressCode 4th Birthday Night design
Deadline - Orders must be placed by 9th October 2022
Deadlines
Each design will be available for a limited period, during which customers can order the shirt. If a design doesn’t make the numbers, we’ll let you know that it isn’t viable to produce and offer a full refund, so there’s nothing to lose.
Quality…plain and simple
If you’re looking for a high-quality shirt in a flat colour, made to your requirements – collar shape, arm length and cuff design, we have the solution (Group 2). As part of our ‘made on demand’ production, we are now able to offer you a range of flat colours, several collar shapes/configurations and cuff finishes. All made to the same exacting standards of our printed DressCode shirts. Turnaround is typically 2-3 weeks, find out more here.
The next part of the DressCode journey
I hope that you’ll be with us for this next part of the journey. If you’d like to know more about any of our new services, be sure to check the website and our social feeds.
Love the design
If something has caught your eye, please share it with your friends online and on social – especially our new birthday designs. We will only make shirts that our customers desire.