Part 4: “I wish you all the best with it … but”

Made for the Stands – the story behind Casualline · Part 4

Up to this point it was about hurdles that lay in the process itself. Patterns that weren't right and pushed-back deadlines. What we hadn't reckoned with was a hurdle of an entirely different kind.

First off: most reactions to our plan were positive. Plenty of people were honestly happy for us, and some offered help off their own bat, without us having to ask. We're still grateful for that today.

Even so, that typically German skepticism was almost always in there somewhere. Not openly dismissive, more reserved. Whether that's really going to amount to anything. Whether you really want to put yourself through it.

“I wish you all the best with it … but.” That's our favourite line from that time. Everything before the but you can save yourself.

And then there were the cases nobody had prepared us for. Friendships broke over the subject of our own label. Not with a bang, more of a slow drift. Who doesn't know it: you change something in your own life and notice that people you'd counted as close companions aren't all that well disposed towards that change. I suspect some of you know pretty exactly what I'm talking about.

It didn't wear us down. We defended our decision, again and again.

The argument for it is obvious once you look at the market. Casual brands worn here come almost exclusively from England and Italy. German brands are practically nowhere to be found in this quality and price segment. That's exactly the gap we're moving into.

Which raised a question: at what point is a brand actually “Casual” in the football cosmos? There is no fixed definition. Restrained branding is certainly part of it, no big chest prints, plus material that justifies its price, because the piece simply isn't done after one season.

In the end, though, no brand gets to decide that for itself. The English and Italian classics never declared themselves Casual brands, they were made into them on the terraces. By people who wore them week after week. Whether Casualline ever gets that status is therefore not in our hands, but in yours.

Which brings us to the second running theme: the price. In the family just as much as among friends and acquaintances. Why does a hoodie cost that much. Whether it isn't pitched too high.

We explained it every time. For one, our investment is in there, and not the kind you cover out of petty cash on the side. For another, we're convinced that our standards really were delivered on in the execution. The fabrics we picked and the workmanship, every detail we wrestled over for months.

That discussion sorted itself out over time. The more often someone had one of the finished pieces in their hands, the more understanding the exchange became.

And then there was something that pushed all the doubts and all the discussions into the background. More than sixteen of our lads and lasses agreed to back us up on the trailer shoot. No compromises, no ifs or buts. How grateful we are for that is hard to put into words.

How that evening went, we'll tell you in the next part, which is also the second to last. The final two parts come at a tighter pace and will both be out before the release on 10 August.