The 10-year hoodie
The Flint and Tinder folks are back with another Kickstarter campaign and this time they are selling a hooded sweatshirt with a ten-year warranty. It’s a premuim-quality sweatshirt, made entirely in the USA, and if rips or comes apart at the seams in the next ten years, just send it to them and they will mend it and send it back.
The Flint and Tinder team overheard a conversation in a factory we were visiting. Someone was talking about using coarse thread with delicate fabric. Doing this accelerates the process of wearing holes into a garment as it goes through the dryer time and time again.
It’s a common trick of the trade. It’s one of several techniques companies secretly use to ensure that if you like what you’ve bought, you’ll be forced to replace it soon.
In the manufacturing industry, this is known as “planned obsolescence.”
It doesn’t have to be this way though — far from it. Eager to prove a point, send a message, and make a sweatshirt that could last a lifetime (the way your favorite sweatshirt should), we set out to make a premium piece that’s so well constructed customers would rather have it mended (free of charge, of course) than replaced.
Backed.
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