Brand update #3

For those of you who’ve only recently got to know Asphalte, 2019 was a tricky one for us. After 2 years of quick growth, we were still not sure how many preorders we should launch and how much inventory we should carry for each item.

We finally took the decision to reduce stock down to an absolute minimum, enough to cover size exchanges and that’s it.

As for our launches, we realised that each time we put out an item we were giving somebody new the chance to reduce their consumption by choosing quality clothes that last a long time at a fair price and change the way things are done.

So we started 2020 knowing that we wanted to launch more products more regularly with zero inventory so that we can offer a real solution and not simply add to the problem.This is how it went:

Like every company, restrictions put in place in March took a real toll on us and we had to find a way to keep the lights on and our team-spirit alive.

Like many people, we started to fear for the first time that it could be all over for us. The end of the road for Asphalte. Who needs clothes when the world is falling apart?

Luckily our fears were short-lived when online trade started picking up before long. That was mainly out of necessity as going to physical shops just wasn’t possible. And we soon got used to working remotely. It’s not the same as rubbing shoulders and ideas together in person but we can’t complain, the worst was averted.

But the challenge didn’t stop with us in our Bordeaux HQ. The impact of Covid restrictions faced by our production and logistics partners were just as real to us as it was to them. Mills, suppliers and factories temporarily closed, parcels were held up, customers were wondering what’s up with that jacket they ordered. Could we deliver on our promise to make the clothes that you wanted?

After a tough few months when nobody knew which way was up, things reopened, we caught up with our backlog and durable Asphalte clothes were hitting your doormats again. Back on track.

During the 3-month lockdown, we beefed up our team and got back to business as usual. With 56,000 customers in toe, and more than 150,000 of you reading our newsletters every week, we had a lot of promises to keep.

Seemingly forgetting about the global situation we set ourselves 3 fresh challenges: testing our language skills abroad, supporting an amazing sustainable initiative and setting up our 1st physical store. Yes, you read that right.

- We got encouraging signs from the UK and Germany that there were enough like-minded people looking for an alternative way of buying clothing to make a move.

Which way? After much deliberation, we chose to cross the Channel thanks to 3 lads who took on the tough task of turning our gallic shrugs into hard-hitting puns worthy of The Sun. We soon developed an international following, yes that’s you, and our first international release quickly followed - the Perfect Jumper in September.

- Then came the time for the annual office-cleanout and we decided to organise a one-off archive sale to raise money for an amazing project that we instantly fell in love with. Moncoton is working to develop a 100% recycled denim in France - like bringing back denim to...Nîmes so to speak - and the sale raised 28,897€ to help the founder Thomas Huriez achieve this. Stay tuned as we’ll hopefully be telling you more about that soon.

- And lastly the most counterintuitive challenge, setting up a physical store for the first time: a pop-up in our home town of Bordeaux. We’ll come back to that.

This all sounds very exciting times but they were also proving to be really hard ones.

As Asphalte continued to grow, sharing things with our teams was getting increasingly complicated. For example it was now almost impossible to greet any new members of the team in person which is super weird, or to spend any time with any of our teammates. We normally spend a lot of time together, not just at work but also outside of it, and with social interactions off the menu we had to make do with virtual.

We nevertheless managed to organise a properly socially-distanced and safe event for our pop-up store in September which gave us the opportunity to meet our customers in person for the first time. It turns out that physical retail is a totally different exercise, who knew! And even though there are many upsides and good times had doing it, we quickly realised that we needed to focus on what we know best which at this stage is digital. Lesson learnt.

We got more and more nice messages from customers who’d discovered us during the 2nd lockdown, encouraging us to continue doing what we’re doing. The difference these random messages made to our morale was massive and helped the team pull through some pretty dark moments. Thank you to all those who did so.

One thing that we realised is that the lockdowns also highlighted the ecological crisis that we’re facing. Even though the link wasn’t that obvious at first, this crisis has shone a light on the massive strain the way we live places on the planet.

We dare to think that we could be at a tipping point where more of us take part in shaping a better future by consuming more sustainably. Environmental considerations have always been a key consideration for Asphalte, but these weren’t as focused as they should have been. This turmoil has actually allowed us to learn a lot and restructure many ways that we work to make these the driving force in our business.

By winter 2020:

- 60% of materials and fabrics used in our clothes are certified (farming, provenance and treatment and health of workers).

- 100% of our wool is mulesing-free.

- Your favourite Asphalte item, the T-Shirt is made of 100% organic GOTS certified cotton and the dye is OEKO-TEX certified.

We asked Fairly Made to help us trace the links of the supply chain to assess the full environmental and social impact of each T-shirt. We managed to track 4 out of the 5 links showing how hard the task really is and what areas we need to improve.

And this year we aim to fully trace all of our products, and for all materials and manufacture to be fully certified to the highest level. It’s not something that’s achieved in a day but as we said it’s now our priority.

Since last summer, we’ve released 8 items internationally.

Almost 1,500 customers who’ve taken the leap of faith and chosen to go down the Asphalte road gathered the support of

From:

839 customers in the UK

487 in Germany

24 in the Netherlands

24 in Spain

24 in Italy

19 in Ireland

14 in Sweden

9 in Denmark and a few more supporters around the world.

Who’ve bought:

635 Perfect Jumpers

248 Solid Sneakers

72 Parkas

47 Tweed Jackets

1,219 T-Shirts

121 Button-Downs

131 Hoodies

320 Ultimate Jeans....and still counting

There’ll be no slowing down in 2021, so we kicked off the year with the Derby Boots, and the Sweatshirt, the Work Jacket and a few more are up in January and February.

We’ve now caught up with the French production schedule so you’ll be able to have just as much of a say as your gallic chums on the items that we’ll be developing. Here’s our latest.

1,040 of you have taken part and had their say in 6 surveys sent through our newsletters and 92 on Instagram.

A few things you’ve told us that we’re now looking to do.

- You were happy to buck the trend with durable classics rather than quick impulse buying (90/10%)

- You told us to release the Hoodie rather than the Henley (55/45%)

Asphalte now has 77,000 customers in total, and close to 1,500 customers outside of France. Hard to believe.

2021 looks full of promise, even though it’s going to take a while to get back to normal at least we all know what we’re dealing with.

It may also see our preorder and co-creation model adopted by the mainstream and seem less weird which would be great. More competition for us but better for you and the planet (ie all of us).

We had 6 employees at the start of 2020 and we are now 40.

The more we grow, the more we feel we’re contributing positively and that we’re on the right track to fulfil our mission to change the way clothes are made and sold.

That’s thanks to you and your support.

We hope we’ll keep on hitting the mark with our clothes, our commitment to you and doing things the right way. We’re sure we’ll pick up a few more challenges along the way.

The Asphalte Team

Header photo credit: Matteo Paganelli