Tuesday Treats 89: Exempt Clothing

Your once a week dose of retail therapy from Singletrack’s Premier Dealers, stockists and advertisers, Tuesday Treats gives you a quality serving of independent bike retailing and a chance to win big in this week’s prize draw.

This week, we’re revisiting: Exempt Clothing

This week the controls are handed over to Chris King at Exempt Clothing, last appearing on the good-ship-Tuesday-Treats back in January 2013. These guys are motoring ahead with product developments …

What have you guys been up to since we introduced you last year?

2013 was a manic year for Exempt Clothing. We expanded our range significantly, in addition to a brand new t-shirt collection, launching Exempt Bamboo Tech t-shirts,  Sound Wave hoodies and released a whole bunch of accessories including caps, bags and the unique Swobble hats with interchangeable “swobbles”.

Importantly to us, the entire 2013 collection was screen printed in-house by hand in our very own workshop and that’s something we’re continuing with, going forward. It’s so nice to have complete control over how are products are produced.

What about these new team additions we’ve been hearing of?

Team Exempt has been flying with Lachlan Blair having an awesome season representing on the DH World Cup circuit. He also went 2013 unbeaten in gravity enduro, when he wasn’t riding DH which was incredible.  The team also expanded with the addition of windsurfer Scotty Stallman.  He really represents Exempt’s “Free From Rules” values and at just 12 years of age, is certainly one to watch for the future.

The latest and third member of Exempt, Andrew Brabyn, has designed the entire collection. We worked with Andy in 2013 and you will see from this new range he is a fantastic addition to the team and this collection is by far the best we’ve done. He’s on another level in terms of creativity. He’ll be taking on the designing and branding of exempt going forward. He’s got some real crazy ideas and you can expect to see more of exempt with him heading branding.

Talk to us about this new product

Today represents the launch of the 2014 t-shirt range! We plan to launch a different design, in two colour-ways, every Friday (#FreeFromRulesFriday) throughout May and to be announced on Exempt Facebook. The whole 2014 collection is a massive change from previous stuff we’ve put out, especially introducing some really bright colours…

Aside from the new collection, we’re working on some new stuff behind the scenes. We’ve been testing some soft shell jackets as well as some small folding, pack away jackets. We have some sweatshirts lined up for the colder months and the “Swobble” hats collection will be expanded extensively. The “Swobble’ system allows you to customize each hat by removing the swobble (bobble) and replacing with an alternative colour.

We’re also just about to release the Bamboo Tech in a women’s fit. Same price, just the £15. We have locked that price in for the year making it one of the cheapest bamboo t-shirt’s around.

What about events? We know you guys get stuck in at grass roots and on the road…

Away from products, we’ve attended a lot of big events including the DH World cup in Fort William and Boardmasters Surf Festival. The scale of these events are insane. That’s no disrespect to the smaller events we love doing, but when you’re dealing with 20,000 people a day it’s a massive task.  We have also continued the support of the UK Gravity Enduro Series and became the official clothing supplier for them. That series has been so good to us, the whole scene is fantastic to be around and the vibe there is awesome.

What’s your plans for the rest of the year?

Event wise, we’re continuing with the World Series events doing both the EWS and DH World Cup in Scotland. We’ve also continued with supporting the UKGE in 2014. It’s the third year we’ve been involved with this series and that’s a testament to the work that Steve and Charlie put into it.

Team Exempt, Lachlan has just got back from the first two rounds of the World Cup and he’s hoping to complete the whole series. We’ve managed to get some support from Burgtec and Continental, which has been a massive help for him. It’s so hard being a privateer on the World Circuit so to have these guys on-board too is fantastic. Scotty will continue with some events on the water. At just 12 years old there’s no pressure on him, as school comes first!

Remind us, what do our Subscribers get from you guys?

Throughout May, to celebrate our 2014 T-shirt launch, we’re offering a special 25% off the new T-shirts, on launch day throughout May – We always give our customers a heads-up on future clothing and accessories ranges, so give us a Like or Follow on Facebook / Twitter.