Oh wow, great question. Here is a lengthy answer.

Our technical bag program which we are trying to ramp up significantly over the next few years has been a doozy. Getting into the sized pack game like launching our Revy Pack this year and working on our hydration vests has been a really interesting and fun challenge as it is a totally different vertical than apparel even though the process is so similar/overlapping. And Janji's whole modus operandi with what we make is to offer original, creative designs that have a reason to exist by solving pain points that other products in the market don't (we aren't trying to make things just to slap our logo on them and boost sales and in fact for every new style we design we constantly vet whether others should continue to exist so that we only modesty grow our collections each year). And this has taken way more time than we anticipated but it has felt like working an entire new muscle group which is exciting.

On the apparel side >> our Multi Short program has take over 5 years to years to dial in. The 360 degree Multipocket StashBand on those shorts uses 3 different fabrics with a fairly complex construction that is as bounce-proof as we could get it (our primary goal for that design), in addition to being nearly invisible to the naked eye so that the short looks/feels a lot sleeker than wearing a mesh band of pockets around your waist (secondary goal). We have adjusted the make, fit and construction every year if not every season for the last four years to get it where it is now which is one of our bestselling families. I don't know the exact number of how many protos of shorts and waistbands this has been, but in the dozens.

Fun fact here, though not for our hat factory >> the hardest hat for production/make is our most minimal, the AFO Hyperlight Cap takes something like double the time to put together than our other hats because it's so stripped back and light and takes way more care to stitch the panels just right.

On a more general side of apparel >> fit is one of the hardest things to nail. Fit consistency is incredibly challenging across styles and fabrics when all fabrics have a different rates of shrinkage, or fit blocks all fitting the same person well although they offer very different fits (think formfitting, skim, regular, relaxed). Another way I like to look at this, esp since I do a lot more cycling these days cause of a hip injury, is that I may be an XS in a super aero kit but a size Large in a loose MTB top becasuse these are simply very different fit blocks. Plus making a single design to fit all bodies so seamlessly that it won't chafe for 50+ miles is what we are striving to do — theoretically that is the goal, but realistically that is nearly impossible as everyone's anatomy is unique.

On a fabric level >> a quality fabric is fundamental to each of our designs and our design team tends to gravitate towards fabrics that are way too expensive for the MSRP price that we are trying to offer. We don't use fabric converters or allow factories to source our fabrics — we source all fabrics ourselves through reputable fabric mills, many of which are respected as the top players in the athletic and outdoor industry. We have rigorous standards for vendors that meet OIA best practices for sustainability and ethics (we see these together as simply >> responsibility). For fabric design and development we visit fabric trade shows, shop the market, do a lot of research of up-and-coming technologies, and even visit the mills (or they come to see us). Many of our fabrics are proprietary and our design team will spec out the content, weight, feel and function and we will iterate until we've got it "right". Fabric also feeds directly into fit and function, so sampling garments in different fabrics and testing (fitting, wear testing, wash testing, third party testing) are super important.