MADE HERE
Community Clothing was established with a simple goal; to sell great quality affordable clothing and by doing so sustain and create great jobs in the UK’s textile making regions.
Every single garment that bears our name is made here in the UK.
Our manufacturing philosophy is simple: we work with one great UK factory for each product and material that we need in long-term mutually beneficial partnerships. Today we work with 28 partner factories, including spinners, weavers, knitters, dyers, finishers, embroiderers, textile printers and garment makers, mostly in Lancashire, Yorkshire, the East Midlands, Scotland and South Wales. Most of these factories are family owned (one is in its seventh generation), and most have well over a century in existence, the oldest dating back to 1776. All are businesses with deep roots in their communities, and all have fantastic dedicated and highly skilled staff, many with lifetime of service.
MADE WELL
We make every Community Clothing product as well as we believe it could be made and we are confident you won’t find as good a product at even twice the price.
We offer a seasonless collection of modern basics engineered for perfect utility. We seek constantly to find ways to improve our products; whether its refining the fit, improving the durability; reducing the environmental footprint; or making them more repairable. Our goal is product perfection not endless newness.
Our garments are made almost exclusively from sustainable, natural, biodegradable materials sourced responsibly from long established growers and producers. We are transparent and honest about all of our sourcing.
It is our aim to design and manufacture every garment such that it should give you a lifetime’s enjoyable wear.
MADE WITH PRIDE
At Community Clothing we talk a lot about pride. We believe that a good job is essential for personal pride and that prosperous industry is an essential part of civic pride. We are proud of what we do, and we know that our customers feel pride when they buy and wear our clothing.
Our partner factories are staffed by highly skilled and highly valued men and women who take great pride in their work. You can almost feel it in the products they make.
Community Clothing works in towns and cities with a rich textile heritage. The textile industry built these places, it provided their sense of identity and also provided the glue that held the communities together.
MADE AFFORDABLE
We want everyone to be able to afford to buy excellent quality, sustainable and ethically made clothing.
Our unique business model cuts out all the usual costs of designing and selling clothes meaning that we can make our products in the best UK factories, from the best materials and still sell at an affordable price.
Our unique business model has five key threads:
1. Off-Peak Production
Even the best UK factories have significant downtime between seasons. Our seasonless off-peak production model means factories make when they have spare capacity. This works for factories – maximising their utilisation, increasing efficiency and lowering their costs; and it works for our customers meaning great quality at a low price.
2. Iterated not Re-designed
Our model is one of iterative improvement not constant re-design. This approach maximises product quality and cuts out the huge costs of designing, developing and photographing new styles every season.
3. Long Term Local Manufacturing Partnerships
Stable local supply chain partnerships and long-running product maximise economies of scale and production efficiency. 100% local garment production means total traceability, minimised transport costs, minimised carbon footprint, and minimised duty and customs costs.
4. Let the product do the talking
We believe we make a fantastic product. So much so that we are happy to let our product tell its own story. At Community Clothing we don’t pay influencers to wear or promote our clothes, there are no freebies for celebrities, we don’t pay a PR agency to get us press, we don’t shoot on expensive models in expensive locations. Instead you will find our clothes beautifully modelled by men and women from the towns in which our clothes are made. We shoot without hair and make up and we don’t retouch, which keeps costs low but more importantly is real and honest.
5. Direct to you
Direct-to-Consumer online selling cuts out all the traditional wholesale and retail costs.
All of this means that our prices are typically around a third to a fifth of the price of comparable quality clothes bought from well-known brands. We make ethical, sustainable clothes an affordable choice so that everyone can buy clothes they feel great about wearing and play their part in restoring economic prosperity in places they care about.
MAKING AN IMPACT
So far we’ve created over 145,000 hours of work, that’s the equivalent of over 80 years of full time employment. And we’ve only just begun. With your help we think we can create thousands of fulfilling, rewarding full-time jobs.
