Apparel — apparel in general, not just cycling-specific stuff — is predominantly manufactured in bulk, with orders placed through contract factories well before anything will actually be offered for sale. It’s done this way because it’s cheap, but it also carries a lot of downsides, like the uncertainty of forecasting, long lead times, and literal mountains of waste. Maybe there’s a better way?

US-based brand Kitsbow certainly thinks so, and while their sewn-on-demand business model has hurdles of its own, there certainly seems to be an awful lot of upsides.