Behind the Seams

So, a year ago TUBU became real in a proper way. 

Having no actual experience with apparel production apart from studying, reading about and researching it, the help of designer-extraordinaire and friend Hanna Ter Meulen was enlisted.

Hanna started her fashion design career in London at the Royal College of Art which led to working on Savile Row, a street in London renowned for its unique history of bespoke tailoring. A stint in Paris at Sandro followed for Hanna, then several years in Amsterdam at Calvin Klein. Still full of wanderlust, she moved to Copenhagen where she headed up the menswear team at Norse Projects. Hanna is now the co-founder and head of product at Early Majority, a Parisian active-wear brand for all eventualities. 

Hanna is seriously cool. She is the one who helped design TUBU’s first modules (i.e. garments). She took a selection of somewhat naive sketches, listened to visions and ideas with care and compassion and brought so-called tech-packs to life (these are digital sketches of garments, designed specifically for the manufacturer). She helped source both yarn and factory, and because of her incredible knowledge and network, the TUBU prototypes now exist in real life. Without Hanna, no TUBU 🥲

We are currently in a process of user testing these prototypes. This means that we are quite literally putting these garments on as many bodies as possible, asking questions and listening. This process is called design iteration.

We have had a lot of questions about when we are launching things, and we are so happy that people are excited and curious!

We are, however, being deliberately slow in a very fast paced industry. And the next «thing» that we are set to launch is not a textile product, but we can divulge that is has a lot do with caring for what you already have (i.e. mending and amending). Visual hint below. Plus here.

We live in a product driven world. To a lot of people, ideas are just ideas — until they actually physically manifest. And we can relate to this, of course. There is so much potency in tactility. But there is also a vast amount of beauty in the simple philosophy of getting dressed and the minuscule choices attached to picking certain qualities, textures and shapes over others. 

Some might say: Oh, I’m just not that interested in clothes. And that’s fine!

But in the end, we all need and wear clothes — especially us living in the most Northern regions of the world. Clothes are vital signifiers of identity. They can communicate our identities, our religious views and political stance — or merely keep us sheltered from the surroundings. We don’t have soft fur like animals, although that would be quite neat.

The world is quite overwhelming at the moment and it’s ok to feel confused. Soft pieces of apparel will not save the world, but it will definitely keep you warm and comfortable — and perhaps even make you happy.

And that’s also something.