continued here...
The fact is, though, that if you think that a company sewing high-quality apparel by hand in Vancouver is going to be able to come out with parallel lines of apparel inside of two years, you just may not appreciate how difficult it is to start and grow a business like this that will last. Should every company be expected to make products for men and women and be condemned if they don't? Would any of this criticism have occurred if NF just said 'we make MTB clothes for men, and hopefully women too, in the future'? I don't know. Travis' point about the market being predominantly male is correct, although his number - 95% - is not. Our readership is 89-92% male, depending on the month. We're not proud of that. I haven't counted recently while out riding but I'd guess the proportion is closer to 80/20 many days, sometimes reaching up to 65/35. There's no question that many more women are riding. There's no question that's great news for this industry. There's no question the female market is underserved and women and minorities are under-represented in all kinds of ways. I do question, though, as Dave did above, whether this is an appropriate - maybe a better word is 'fair' way to point that out in this case.
But for Travis, Ying, and NF, I suppose the lesson is that even young companies will be subject to that kind of criticism - whether fair or not - and it's an opportunity to learn from that and adjust as they move along.
Reed and trumsptiny, I appreciate that you voiced your opinions in a reasonable manner and had the backbone to reply to commenters that didn't agree without getting inflammatory. For yourselves and others reading, I would simply ask that you consider a few things:
1) are you holding other companies you read about or support to account in the same fashion, keeping in mind that NF is less than two years old and has already shown a level of transparency that exists in less than 5% of companies in our industry?
2) do you expect that the other mtb apparel you own was sewn under equally humane conditions by people earning enough to sustain a decent quality of life? It's possible, hopefully probable, but do you know?
March 9, 2020, 9:30 a.m. - Pete Roggeman
continued here... The fact is, though, that if you think that a company sewing high-quality apparel by hand in Vancouver is going to be able to come out with parallel lines of apparel inside of two years, you just may not appreciate how difficult it is to start and grow a business like this that will last. Should every company be expected to make products for men and women and be condemned if they don't? Would any of this criticism have occurred if NF just said 'we make MTB clothes for men, and hopefully women too, in the future'? I don't know. Travis' point about the market being predominantly male is correct, although his number - 95% - is not. Our readership is 89-92% male, depending on the month. We're not proud of that. I haven't counted recently while out riding but I'd guess the proportion is closer to 80/20 many days, sometimes reaching up to 65/35. There's no question that many more women are riding. There's no question that's great news for this industry. There's no question the female market is underserved and women and minorities are under-represented in all kinds of ways. I do question, though, as Dave did above, whether this is an appropriate - maybe a better word is 'fair' way to point that out in this case. But for Travis, Ying, and NF, I suppose the lesson is that even young companies will be subject to that kind of criticism - whether fair or not - and it's an opportunity to learn from that and adjust as they move along. Reed and trumsptiny, I appreciate that you voiced your opinions in a reasonable manner and had the backbone to reply to commenters that didn't agree without getting inflammatory. For yourselves and others reading, I would simply ask that you consider a few things: 1) are you holding other companies you read about or support to account in the same fashion, keeping in mind that NF is less than two years old and has already shown a level of transparency that exists in less than 5% of companies in our industry? 2) do you expect that the other mtb apparel you own was sewn under equally humane conditions by people earning enough to sustain a decent quality of life? It's possible, hopefully probable, but do you know?