HOME IS WHERE MY HEAD IS. HEAD IS WHERE MY BEANIE IS.
We are grown ups. And we know that a beanie cannot change the world. Well, fact is, our lives change and so do we. In a world that is cluttered with goods, one more piece of headgear won’t make that much of a difference. But then, where do the differences lie in our lives, where are our limits? It’s all about single points in our line of life, marked with joy, fear, closeness, anger, pride or defeat, moments that make us realise who we are. The minutes in which we make big or small decisions, the daily choices we make will catch up with us eventually. All this usually stays hidden and no one knows. That’s why we make headgear that might give us that extra bit of courage we didn’t have last time. That’s Grownupstuff.
STORY
MAKING THINGS IS MAKING DECISIONS
Making a really good product is quite complex and very easy at the same time. Making things means making decisions. Which principles do you follow, which people do you work with, do you want to make a difference or just make money? Our roots, the Austrian Alps, help us to answer these questions. When lapping up the powder there is no doubt about what life should feel like. It’s the same when we are developing our products.
The Alps stretch out over 1200 kms. From France via Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and all the way to Slovenia. Mountains don’t recognize borders. They are literally rock-solid and fragile as an ecosystem at the same time. They connect men and nature in a way only extreme environments can do. Our products are inspired by the culture, traditions and history of the Alps and their surrounding areas. Deliberate, sustainable and willful.
Here, in the heart of Europe, we have everything at hand we need. Inspiration, creativity, skills and materials. But most important, we have people around us that share our views of live and are fun to work with. We earn our living by doing this, but not on any price. Not at the expense of families and friends, of the environment or the things we believe in.
DESIGN
Designing a product means a lot more than just picking colors. You need someone with creativity, style and fine grasp for materials as well as a severe understanding of the manufacturing process. Someone who is not to much impressed by what is already there, but has the power to think of what could be done. We have such amazing people and it is astonishing what they come up with in every new collection.
MATERIALS
The secret of materials is their combination: none of the fibers has all the characteristics we need to get what we expect from our products. That is the reason why we carefully choose different fabrics for each product. By the way, all the essential fibers, which sum up to 98 percent of the materials we use, are the oeko-tex-certified.
MANUFACTURING
Knitting and sewing sound a bit like your grandma sitting on a bench with two needles in her hands, but making a real-world product is about technology, machinery and feasibility. And paying the bill for all that at the end of the day. As much appreciation we have for our designers, we have for our workmen. They have excellent skills and they push their limits with every collection. Each year we come up with a new shape or a new style that has never been made before. And they manage to get it done. This is one of the reasons why we etablished our production not on the other side of the world, but in the Alps. We have a capable workforce here, be pay fair wages and taxes and we treate the enviroment with care.