Ciele Athletics, the high-end performance running brand from Canada, offers high-performance, durable and lightweight headwear and apparel collections built for performance and protection, designed for runners and adventurers of all kinds. Its apparel and iconic line of caps are sold in over 30 countries, including more than 600 boutiques in North America and 300 international locations. The company has recently announced its Benefit Corporation (B Corp) certification, a label awarded exclusively to companies that voluntarily meet the highest standards for social and environmental performance. Co-founder Jeremy Bresnen speaks to Fibre2Fashion about headwear, major markets and growth story.
When was Ciele Athletics founded? What products did you start with?
Ciele Athletics was founded in 2014, in Montreal. We started with headwear as we saw it as an overlooked category within running that had a lot of potential. We hoped that there was an opportunity to focus on running headwear, take inspiration from our design and action sport backgrounds, and create something really special. We wanted to make technical products that we could see runners, and ourselves, wearing all day long.
How has the brand evolved since then?
Since the inception we had visions of launching into other categories – but it took us a while to get there. We say often, internally, “baby steps.” We had to grow within headwear to get to a place where it felt comfortable adding more to the mix. We launched our run-ready not-so-basic tee in 2020, and have now launched a full line of technical apparel with our Elite collection. There are also other categories that we have been able to apply our design approach to – like footwear, sunglasses and socks – working on collabs (what we call joint adventures) with other brands in the run and active space.
What makes Ciele Athletics different from other sportswear brands?
We had plenty of discussions about what was important to us as individuals, as a brand, and as a company – prior to starting Ciele Athletics. We have always tried to do ‘good’ with every step of the way. That is not always easy, and it has made a lot of projects harder to start, longer to get to a point where we were happy with it, amongst other challenges – but it meant that we have been proud of everything that we have done along the way, everyone that we have had the opportunity to work with, and we see where we can make improvements, in particular in our impact on the environment and to society at large, as we continue to grow.
Which are your major markets?
Our home country Canada is a huge market for us, as is the US. Primary markets after that are Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. We are truly humbled by the support we are receiving globally with stockists in 30 countries right now.
How has sportswear as a category grown in the last few years?
The overall interest in sportswear has grown significantly over the years, and you see more and more lifestyle and fashion brands jumping into the space. This has also led to more lifestyle and fashion retailers carving out space for sportswear and starting to tell their own stories. It makes for a really wide mix in terms of what consumers have access to. It has been around for more than just the last few years, but there is also a high interest in technology and fabric from both a performance and a lifestyle standpoint.
Which are your top performing product categories?
Headwear is the top category, and it will remain the category that we put the most of our resources into.
What has been your growth story for the last two years?
Coming back to something we said earlier, “baby steps” has been an internal mantra since 2014. We reached a point where we had to take some larger steps in the last two years – being as calculated as intentional as we could be. There is no way around it – the launch of a technical apparel collection is a large step. Moving the vast majority of our headwear collection to be Fair Trade Certified is a large step. Stepping into 2023, all of our headwear is now fully recycled, and our not-so-basic tees and tanks are made of a mix of recycled polyester and recycled cotton. Our Elite collection is made of mostly recycled fabrics. All of that is a large step. And we are nearing the end of the construction of our first-ever flagship store in Montreal, which is again a large step. Over the last three years we have more than doubled our team, with a few open positions in preparation for the store launch. It is all very exciting, and the growth has also enabled us to make decisions that we had to build up to, like the near elimination of virgin synthetic yarns.
What is the brand’s strategy going forward?
We currently have a good mix of retail stockists, an e-commerce business with multiple ship points in our key markets, and our own brick-and-mortar that will be opening up in a few months’ time. As we look towards the end of this year and into 2024 and 2025, we are going to be launching collections made of technical natural fibres and will continue to push in that direction. At the same time, we will continue to reduce, if not eliminate, plastic from our products and packaging. Some of that will take time, but we are not stepping away from the responsibility.
Published on: 30/01/2023
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
