This is something that has been eating us up inside for the past 6 months. We've been working out how to handle this and we hope you understand why.
As you well know, our Wildflower Collection has been in production for over a year. As a brand we are committed to bringing you the best in fitness fashion, we try our best to stay relevant with the fitness industry but at the same time create pieces that are timeless and will stand the test of time. It is our dedication to quality and our commitment to slow fashion that we choose to do this slowly and steadily.
Throwback to February when the bulk of our new collection finally arrived, we couldn't wait to unpack and share them with you (because let’s be honest, we’re equally as excited as you to finally get our hands on these beautiful pieces!!)... and this is when we noticed a significant portion of our collection just wasn’t made to the level of quality we expected it to be.
Don't get us wrong. These are not major imperfections, but the branding on our beautiful pieces were either cracked or crinkled, and we just didn’t have it in ourselves to send these pieces out and disregard these imperfections.
Putting aside our perfectionism OCD, it took us a while to get our heads around this, hundreds of sports bras and leggings, paid for, passed QC (that is a story for another day), and completely imperfect, was this the end of Lunae? Of course not.
After many months of discussion, our manufacturer offered to remake 50% of the faulty pieces they had already sent, and left us to deal with these imperfect pieces on our own… which is totally understandable because even if they took back these pieces, they would ultimately end up in landfill.
Here at Lunae, this was not something we would ever consider. We also contemplated recycling them, but to recycle slightly imperfect but perfectly wearable sports bras and leggings felt very inconsiderate.
Our solution? LUNIES: i‘mperfect.
i’m perfect = i’mperfect
i’m perfectly imperfect
We’ve decided to sell these pieces at $20 off at cost. (yes, our production cost is quite high because we manufacture in small batches). We’re not making any profits from the sales of these imperfect pieces, our aim is to cover the cost of production and freight, and to let these beautiful imperfect pieces go to loving homes.
In line with our commitment to slow fashion, we almost never go on sale. If you, or someone you know has been eyeing a set but found the price to be a challenge, now would be the perfect opportunity to get your hands on our beautiful pieces.
As we hold our little startup very close to our hearts, we want to keep our promise to always be transparent with you, so you don’t have to choose between sustainability and quality.
We started test-selling our LUNIES at our stall at Finders Keepers market back in July to understand first hand if these imperfections will affect our customers' perception of our brand values, and the general feedback was that they are not fussed by these little imperfections because $20 off a perfectly wearable sports bra or legging is such a deal.
“If anything, these imperfections are barely noticeable unless you specifically stare at it.” - Esther, Finders Keepers
So while we’ve been a little quiet for the past few months, we’re happy to have found a solution for these 295 imperfections that we’ve prevented from going to landfill.
We hope that you (always) find your perfect fit, because we love doing what we do.
Now that felt good.
Shop the LUNIES here.