Our second Account Spotlight features our 11-year partnership with Carbon2Cobalt. We recently asked Denice Dir, Design Director, Men’s and Women’s Apparel, what makes the partnership so special.
ACCOUNT NAME: Carbon2Cobalt
EMPLOYEE NAME: Denice Dir
Denice Dir with her daughter
TITLE: Design Director, Men’s and Women’s Apparel
NUMBER OF YEARS WORKING WITH QUICKFEAT: 11 Years
WHAT SERVICES DOES QUICKFEAT PROVIDE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT?
Quickfeat develops and makes gorgeous knit sweaters for us, a signature category of our collection. They also produce our woven shirts, pants and cut and sew knits. We are visited at least twice annually to review our wide assortment of in-process product development and share new concepts that are on the horizon. We are frequently given knit downs and fabrics to select from, and it is during these meetings that we brainstorm different knit stitch and fiber techniques to make the product singularly special to us.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT WORKING WITH QUICKFEAT:
The level of trust we have with Quickfeat to maintain delivery and quality from their processes to their finished product is second-to-none. We are continually amazed by their impeccable sweater technicians. Matt Cooper (our CEO/Founder) and I have been known to snap photos of people in line at airports or tear out pages of magazines and ask the Quickfeat team to duplicate with our own spin. It always amazes us when they are able to interpret our vision with only bits and pieces of information. That said, we have seasoned sweater designer, Erin Plaster, in house and they can pivot and seamlessly partner with her to execute her very concise vision. I believe it is truly a partnership that both sides value a great deal!
HOW DOES QUICKFEAT DIFFERENTIATE THEMSELVES FROM OTHER MANUFACTURERS?
Quickfeat runs a very tight ship, which is comforting. The controls that are placed on processes ensure that there is very little waste and as a result, we’ve had very few production issues with them. In this way, we receive the quality and experience of a giant factory conglomerate with the service and partnership of a smaller factory organization. They help us to be agile, which is paramount in the current retail climate. When we find an item is selling well for us, they are able to quickly reproduce to get more pieces produced in season. When we launched our Women’s line, we weren’t sure what pieces our customer would gravitate to and we needed a partner that could help us with low minimums. They acted as a partner and helped us negotiate low MOQ’s so that we could quickly react to our new customer.
ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD ABOUT YOUR PARNTERSHIP WITH QUICKFEAT?
Quickfeat feels like family – from the company dinners to the silly emails we sometimes send each other in the middle of the night. They mean business, but they also know how to make it an enjoyable experience.