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A few weeks ago I launched a clothing brand centred around photography taken from the riders perspective. It’s taken a while to get to this point, and it certainly hasn’t been as straightforward as I would have liked (who’d have thought?!), but this wasn’t my first attempt at trying to contribute to the cycling community. In fact, my first attempt was a bit more ambitious than printed t-shirts and hoodies.
About a year ago I got the idea to develop a water-resistant riding shirt after realising that I almost always ride in some kind of check-shirt, unless it was raining. So I started sourcing the kind of materials, finishes, and details that were needed, as well as researching manufacturers that could produce to the necessary quality. After a lot of time, and many samples, I had a product that I was happy with, as well as a side of t-shirts that I could offer as well (because you’ve got to have t-shirts!).
The next step was meeting with small shops to see if they’d be interested. Which they were! (It helped that I’d done some surveying to confirm that there was an interest in the product) But they also explained that they only bought from distributors, and not directly from the manufacturer. So that meant meeting with distributors, and that’s where things went downhill… they told me that they only stock “established brands”. So despite my surveying and retailer confidence, they just weren’t interested.
I got a little despondent. But I still had the brand and the t-shirts, which I was still largely confident in, so I decided to carry on with just those. A few changes were needed to make them more interesting, which is where the photography came in. But after a few extra months of work, I’m happy with the result.
I’d really appreciate it if you could check out the site (www.frinje.co) and please give any feedback you can think of. It’s still early days, so I’d love to be able to have the community help shape the brand as it develops, and hopefully in time it’ll offer more than just printed t-shirts and hoodies. But mostly, I just want to know if they look good.
Thanks for reading.
Very nice and understated. Good prices too. I will be getting a couple of those T shirts at the end of the month. Cheers
apart from the stealth advert.
don't like the green on the website (on mobile)
Well done for getting this far, good on you for doing it.
I had a very quick skim of the site, I guess this is what most online shoppers do rather than detailed evaluation. The site is clean and I like your products. I kind of like the zig zag logo which is just as well as it is prominent on every product. If I didn't like it I wouldn't really have any purchase options. Do you think there might be a opportunity for a product with slightly more subtlety to the logo?
Nice work.
There is a typo in the second paragraph (missing 'as' I think) and sentence should be re-phrased (maybe drop 'as well as this..' and just state your environmental policy).
So the technical clothes have been shelved for now? Prob find them more interesting tbh but hoodies / T-shirts look good.
Hmmm tehy're OK but nothing jumping out at me if i'm honest.
I don't care about the climate issues, or that they were made using solar energy, i just want 'nice' things.
Why is the sizing in CM ? they look a bit Fruit of the Loom in a cut/shape context. Which IMO is not a good thing. You want a little 'shape' in the cut i think ? Especially as your target market is cyclists who should potentially be less fat than your average guy.
Needs a physical address and some background info.
No way I'd be buying without any idea of who and where my money is going to.
The logo looks a bit like you are a closet nazi who is discretely rocking SS lightning bolts.
Nice.
Website design goes well with the product, and I like the design of the shirts.
Personally I would only be interested in purchasing technical breathable versions of the shirts. I find it very hard to buy long sleeve riding tops especially that aren't gaudy logo ed monstrosity's, where as nice casual t shirts aren't so hard to come by,
Bookmarked and good luck.
Especially as your target market is cyclists who should potentially be less fat than your average guy
Speak for yourself.....
I like the T-shirts and like the fact they are 'ethically' made. I may well buy one, but sizes in Inches please, as despite being a civil engineer who solely works in millimeters and meters, and log all my runs and rides in KM's, i do not understand sizes in CM's!!
Other than that, keep up the good work.
The logo looks a bit like you are a closet nazi who is discretely rocking SS lightning bolts.
My first thought was that it was an homage to the Grateful Dead!!
Arguably the site is a little complex / artsy for something that is ultimately just selling t-shirts. If possible, it would be good to get the technical clothing developed and available for sale as it would probably be of more interest. Your waterproof shirt in particular sounds like a fairly unique proposition, while as mentioned already, there isn't exactly a shortage of places to get t-shirts & hoodies.
Don't like the misspelled brand name.
Are you UK based? If so, don't like the missing 'and' from the middle of 'Go Explore' or the US spelling of 'Catalog'.
If you're US based, then those two things wouldn't bother me.
Doubt I'm your target audience though, so good luck!
I just saw grey clothing with a picture on it, can't tell the quality from the website but to me they don't look the best.
Can't you offer a more exciting range of colour options? Personally I wouldn't buy grey clothes.
Good luck, I hope it works for you.
You lost me at cyclewear clothing brand that sells only non-technical t-shirts and hoodies.
Price OK
Ethics good
Clothing for riding a bike in - fail
Lastly, if you want to make the imagery on the clothes your selling point, don't make it small and obstructed by your logo.
Had a look but as its all the same there is nothing that takes my fancy.
A few thoughts on the site, and a few on the designs:
- When you land on the site (I'm on an iPhone here) you get a dark grey picture, overlaid on which is some dark grey text. It's as close to unreadable as you can get and it's not clear whether I should click on it. I sat there for a bit waiting for more content to appear…
- …but it didn't. I had to swipe down to see if there was more content and, oh, there it is. Don't do that: put your content right up front.
- The body text is also too low contrast, especially for its small size. There are guidelines for this sort of stuff. You need more contrast and better readability.
- Other than that the site is fine: standard e-commerce engine, so you can't go too far wrong.
- My main thought on the designs is that they're all 100% reliant on your brand, and your brand isn't established. If you don't have an established brand that people will want to display, you need one of two things: either desirable content which you apply your branding to (which isn't the approach you've taken), or branding that has such stellar graphic design that it stands as a desirable design in its own right. Without going into the reasons why, I personally think your graphics aren't good enough for the branding to stand on its own. But, that said, I think you've got a logo which could be evolved into something with more life: the concept's there and I think you could get some versatility out of it; things like softening that zig-zag, stroking everything less uniformly, playing on having different content either side of the zig-zag to make the whole "fringe" concept work, that sort of thing. Plenty of potential to evolve.
I'm inclined to agree with the above comments of it a) all being a bit grey and b) having a nagging similarity to certain undesirable early 20th-century iconography. Deliberately misspelling a brand name is fine, because you need to be googlable, but I can't help thinking "Frijj".
Like others, I'd prefer to see the technical garments than some T-shirts. Kickstarter it, maybe?
Stick with it, though. It doesn't seem like a bad start, all things considered.
Sorry, way too bland for my taste. Also as stated above looks like cheap quality fruit of loom type stuff printed up.
Show some different "cut" garments for slim athletic types and you might catch my interest but not yet...
Great going so far,
1) You say from a rider's perspective, is this your perspective or you've spoken to others?
2) Nothing seems to jump out at me to be honest
3) Your logo on the print itself could be construed to be a stand out for your brand or distracting, for me it's the latter unforuntately
4) your T's really should be technical in some manner... eg Dakine do a great cottonish tech tee not sure what goes into producing it from a environmentally friendly perspective
5) I like your environmental credo but perhaps maybe give your audience more background to this else not sure I believe the hype.
But well done for pursuing your dreams/goal
The highest res photos aren't high enough res for my tastes. I still couldn't really see the photography element.
Otherwise, it looks fine to me (although I don't tend to buy t-shirts where branding is the main element).
Good luck with it!
Not bad but I would like to see the zigzag effect much less overstated as it really negates from the actual pictures.
I wish you all the best with the venture by the way and why not send a sample to STW HQ for a little exposure on the news page?
Good luck with it, but personally I have no interest in non-technical cycling based clothing. As above, I'd imagine that I (and much of STW dwellers?) are probably not the target market? Would there be more crossover with the MBUK-type market? Do you have a target age range?
First off, good luck! If your web business is successful distributors will hopefully start to consider you to be established enough to pick up your brand.
Personally there's too much grey for me. Also I didn't spot the "view all" link on the main page until my second visit, so I initially thought you were only offering 1 hoodie and 3 t shirt designs. Also it seems odd for a web store not to have an "about" page of some sort. I think adding a personal dimension would be a good idea, there's nothing to say whether Frinje is a little startup, an ethically-branded sub brand of some other company, or what. Explain your links to cycling and sell your environmental commitment.
Edit: Oh on several of the product pages if you click on the product image you get a gallery where there's another image available (a close up of the design). Why aren't there thumbnails of each image shown on the product page itself (at least on my browser)? I only discovered this by accident.
Everything looks ok but t-shirts and hoodies are of no interest to me. However the shirt you mention in the OP might but you don't have that in the shop even though you have done all the groundwork?
Cool idea! If you can get Paramo to sell you some of the fabric they use for their “jeans” that would be ideal for a windproof water resistant check shirt with stretch. Mountain Hardwear also do a stretch polyester check shirt, but they’ve very hard to get hold of here.
Might be worth seeing if their factory in Colombia will do a short production run for you?
Haven't Dakine, Race Face and Scott all done technical checked shirts?
I'm sure they did them for about £80 a while back.
Just jumping ahead, the returns policy doesn’t seem very clear. Is it no quibble? Mention is made of checking the size guide, does that imply returns won’t be accepted simply if they don’t fit to the purchasers’ preference or build?
And echoing some of the comments above, they do look a little like a generic t shirt printed up. The laid flat on a surface doesn’t really do them justice if they are better than that. Maybe get a model wearing them?
Zigzag is too harsh, maybe a meandering trail, or even a wiggly line relevant to the photo in question?
The designs are cool, personally I would like a "park" range with big senders in view, would get me to buy some.
Decent prices though
Do you even read any of these comments or were you just hoping to get some sales? I notice your only other post is the survey you wanted completed a year or so ago and you didn't come back with any comments on that.
That logo could be perhaps flipped and angled so it looked like a tree perhaps make it a bit more outdoorsy and a bit less ss'y
Fair shout for having a go at your own business. The website is ok and I like the ethics etc.
Maybe it’s just me, but the colours are all quite dull and the product looks all creased up on the photos which doesn’t lead you to think it’s very high quality - which for £24 for a non technical t shirt it should be.
Personally I wouldn’t wear that kind of design casually (but I’m sure some people would) - technical t shirts / clothing for riding in however I’d be more interested in.
Personally I wouldn't pay £24 for a cotton tee shirt. i might pay £24 for a tee shirt made from some kind of technical fibre but i guess that wouldn't fit in with the ethics of your brand.
Who rides in cotton anyhow? Gets clammy and wet and stays like that!
But it's not cycle wear, just t-shirts and hoodies. Who do you want to buy your products?
Who rides in cotton anyhow? Gets clammy and wet and stays like that!
I don't think it's meant to be ridden it, it's 'codeware' (a name I just made up) like a broken riders tee, if you walk into a akward social situation and you spot someone wearing something like this you know they're probably a rider, they know it too, but you don't have to look like a Div wearing a Monster Energy hoodie (and anyway they could be a MXer the HORROR).
I like the look of the stuff, but the website fails my credibility test.
No physical address, or telephone numbers - hey, why not just spend a couple of quid on a Shopify e-commerce site, take in a few grand and disappear?
The payment logos at the bottom scream dodgy to me - using established brands to try to establish creditability is a known trick of scam sites.
I like the photos but the logo detracts from them. What’s the logo supposed to be?
Zigzag is exactly like the beginning of one of my migraines which put me in bed for a day if I don't get the drugs quickly enough so wouldn't be my choice
Nice site. But you wanted feedback so:
If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating the technical stuff why aren’t you selling that too? If that’s where it all started it should feature, even if it’s a ‘coming soon’ style teaser to tell visitors it’s in the pipeline just to get them coming back. I was only saying today I need short sleeved MTB tops.
You need more than an email address in your contact info, you need address and phone number.
Payment processors don’t need to be at the bottom of the page, they’re only relevant when someone’s looking to check-out their basket.
The logo doesn’t obviously have anything to do with the brand, it needs some king of explanation.
Having read most of the comments above I've just looked at the site again. I suspect there is something a little peculiar going on.
At the start of this thread the op stated that he couldn't get the technical clothing in to shops because he had struggled to get any interest from distributors because he isn't an established business. However, under the news tab on the site is the following.
'After a couple of setbacks (the kind of things that I never expected), I finally reached a point where I was happy with the prototypes. The fit and quality was exactly what was needed, and the fabrics had all the qualities that are expected in cycling clothing.
Unfortunately, the retailers I approached weren’t as convinced. As there wasn’t anything like that in the cycle apparel market, they didn’t want to take the risk of a new product.'
OP, rather than selling fairly generic, relatively expensive t-shirts in an already crowded marketplace, get the technical stuff made up. You've already done the hard work with the prototypes and have an e-commerce site set up.
that is exactly the sort of thing Kickstarter is for!Unfortunately, the retailers I approached weren’t as convinced. As there wasn’t anything like that in the cycle apparel market, they didn’t want to take the risk of a new product.
Also I'd agree re. the site in question, too expensive (for me) for a fairly generic looking, non-technical T. Site looks decent but lack of contact details makes it look like a scam site, and is breaking the law is it not?
100% honestly, I don’t like the graphics. A harsh zigzag of blank going across a ‘view’ makes me think of migraines! The crosses through circle also looks like you’re prohibiting something.
I am a very literal person and very awkward to buy clothes for! I either like a design or I don’t.
Now the good bit. Awesome for you trying to follow your dream/idea through. Most of us haven’t got the balls. Technical material would be what matters for me, though, but this is more of a risk for you, I guess.
Can you hawk your wares at a big event, perhaps? Get a few people talking? Get them to ride in your gear and be photographed doing so?
I’m no marketing guru, mind.....
Seroiusly, best of luck.
I like the site, but just look like generic t-shirts and hoodie with stuff printed on them. I'm not overly fussed by the ethical side of stuff and I wouldn't be paying those prices for something that looks pretty average. I was hoping to see a waterproof cycling shirt, so just hoodies and t's doesn't really make a cycling brand to me. Also made me think how much those waterproof shirts would be. In fairness, much as I love cycling, I don't really care if people know I'm a cyclist or not. So lifestyle brands aren't for me.
I'd like to thank everyone that has commented on the website, and thank you for raising the issues that I'd overlooked (although there were more than I was expecting, admittedly).
An address and phone number have been added to the contact section, as many pointed out I had overlooked.
The whole premise behind starting with just branded t-shirts and hoodies was to build awareness of the brand, before moving on to develop more technical apparel that was dedicated to riding. In all honesty, P-Jay's comment about it being 'codewear' is pretty accurate.
My main take away from this has been the need to add a "coming soon" section for the shirt, and crowdfund it's production. The problem with that is that manufacturers have minimum order quantities, and the one I had planned to use has a MOQ of 300. However, their production times would be about 3 months (that's what they claim anyway), which would mean that the shirts should be ready in time for the autumn! Just to be clear, they'd also have an RRP of £75.
I'd still love to hear any more feedback anyone may have. Especially when it comes to this crowdfunding!
Is the ride shirt coming?
'But mostly, I just want to know if they look good.'
Well since you asked...
Not for me. Bland colours and simple yet cluttered and ultimately boring 'designs'. The photos in the graphic are fairly uninspiring too.
The logo say nothing to me, and it's everywhere. What's the thinking behind it and how does it relate to the company name/philosophy?
But it's not all bad news... seems a few on here like what you've produced so there's a market for this type of thing.
p.s. i'd be much more interested in seeing the tech garments too (but keep the logo small) If you require any design assistance (you really do 😛 ), just ask
It will be now!
It doesn't even work as "codewear" if it's a brand no one has heard of and doesn't scream "I'm a "cyclist". I can go on to SportPursuit and fund no end of little-known brands selling leisure clothing loosely tied to some outdoor pursuit at more reasonable prices.