Because of my ADHD-type brain, I often don't follow the latest news from every source.
So when I checked in on Swrve, the California-based cycling-oriented clothing makers, I was surprised to see an announcement that was actually dated February of this year.
Swrve is closing down.
They are slowly selling off what stock they have left, at somewhat discounted prices, until they get down to the dregs. Then they will blow out what's left (by then it will be pants for 28-inch waists and some leftover pandemic masks), turn out the lights and go home.
In their announcement, they explain why they're closing down. Basically they had a good run for fifteen years. Then, though they don't allude to this in their memo, the pandemic came along and made all of us wonder why we were spending $125 on a pair of jeans, especially since our jobs were lost and the government checks hadn't started rolling in yet.
They say that the landscape has changed, and indeed it has. But not only because of Covid. The landscape changed for a million little reasons -- a thousand tiny cuts, as they say -- that signaled the end of the last bicycle boom, the last great gasp of Big Oil, the rise of electric vehicles and the revitalization of the car industry, and the beginning of late middle age for an entire generation.
The fast is, if you don't live in a bikeable place, you're not riding bikes so much right now. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but Portland is losing the momentum of previous decades and losing the ground gained on bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. We're losing safe place to walk and ride for so many reasons, and have been since we began to "bounce back" from Covid. Bouncing back is looking different.
Hell, my body looks different after Covid, Long Covid and so much change.
Instead of keeping up with newly emerging realities, Swrve tried to stay in its old lane for too long. Their largest pants do not extend beyond a 38 inch waistline. (I have had to regularly go through my old Swrve pants and add gussets in the back to accommodate in increased girth. I stopped caring about what that looked like long ago, because I no longer tuck in my shirts.)
They insisted on limiting their sizing range to the young and skinny, long after I and others had grown beyond it. And they insisted on selling clothing that fewer and fewer people could afford in a post-Covid world.
Adapt or die.
Or, more accurately, you can adapt and it's probably a good idea.
But you will still die.
Save your resources for things you can use for a long time and then pass on.
Happy riding.
3 comments:
I had been attracted to Swrve stuff, but yeah, f their sizing. I tried on a pair of their knickers during the end of my Cross Continent Bike Tour, and they were too tight. I figured that if I couldn't fit into them after four months of riding about 60 miles each day, I'd never fit into them. Not everyone is "Slim Fit" and stuff like this just makes people feel guilty and try to attain a body type they probably can't.
-Shawn
https://urbanadventureleague.wordpress.com/landing-page/
I called Swrve early on in my love affair with their stuff, and asked if they planned to expand their sizing range. I was told that, not only would they not, but that their branding was aimed at "fit people who love the outdoors."
So yeah, F their sizing.
I ran into this issue back when I sold Burley rain gear, and the rep told me that a Woman's XL was meant to fit a woman about my size (at the time, 5' 7" and 160#). I told the rep that most women my size would resent being told they needed an XL in anything, since that's not especially large for most women.
He told me that in the cycling world, that IS especially large for a woman.
This is what racing trickle-down gets you: Clothing for anorexic Europeans and no one else.
Just wait til more of us get old and fat and we'll see where those once-hip companies end up.
On one hand, I appreciate Swrve's "honesty" and "candor" instead of saying something like "We'll look into that" and never doing so. On the other hand, f that idea that "fit people who love the outdoors" equals skinny.
My pet peeve is the turn A LOT of clothing companies have been doing with terms like "active fit" or "athletic fit". I don't mind them calling it for what it is, slim fit. But it goes along with what Swrve told you--if you are "active", you'll be able to fit into these clothes.
-Shawn
https://urbanadventureleague.wordpress.com/landing-page/
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