October 5: the production sample is signed off
The first production sample arrived, size L. Measurements, seams, embroidery, weight, hand feel: what we check before we say yes.
On October 5, the parcel arrived. Inside, a hooded piece in heavy fleece, size L, with the RITMEN label. Months of sketches, fabrics and travel fitted in that box.
A production sample is not a prototype. It is the piece exactly as it will leave the workshop: the real fabrics, the real finishes, the real machine settings. If it is right, the run will be right too. So we look at it very closely.
The tape measure
We lay the piece flat and measure: chest width, back length, arm length. We compare it with our size guide, to the centimetre. Two centimetres off on a low shoulder line, and the whole silhouette changes.
Seams and embroidery
We turn the piece inside out. Topstitching has to be even, threads trimmed clean, ribbing sewn on without a ripple. The R embroidery has to be dense, with no loose thread and no puckering around it.
Weight and hand feel
We weigh it in our hands, crumple it, pull the ribbing and let go: it has to snap straight back. The brushed inside has to feel exactly like the fabric we chose at the start, not something close to it.
Washing, tested upstream
The fabric itself had been through the machine long before: 30°C inside out, several times, as we advise our customers, then measured again. A fabric that shrinks or twists in the wash would never have made it to the sample.
Signed off
The sample passed everything. That day, we allowed ourselves to breathe out. Then we put the tape measure away: there was a shop to open.