Adaptive Merino™
Fabric 01Expands and contracts with your body temperature.
Retro‑Tech Collection
Retro‑Tech Collection No. 001
Analog soul. Digital nerve. The future of mid-century menswear.
Tailored confidence meets next-generation textiles: heritage silhouettes rebuilt with Adaptive Merino™, Chroma-Shift photochromics, Circuit-Weave conductive thread, Smart-Memory Wool, and Phase-Change Fiber.
6Pieces
5Smart Fabrics
$130,000Funding Goal
Featured Piece
The Chroma-Shift Trench
$920 · Photochromic Finish
The Vision
Heritage silhouettes, quietly engineered
We’ve taken the tailored confidence of mid-century menswear and rebuilt it with the quiet intelligence of next-generation textiles.
This collection is designed to merge timeless menswear with functional innovation — premium garments that feel classic at a distance and engineered up close.
We are rebuilding heritage silhouettes with quiet intelligence: garments that read as classic from across the room and reveal themselves as engineered only up close.
The Fabric Library
Five textiles doing the work
Each piece in the collection is built around a fabric that changes how the garment behaves — not just how it looks.
Chroma-Shift
Fabric 02Photochromic fabric that shifts tone in UV light.
Circuit-Weave
Fabric 03Conductive threads for silent wearable notifications.
Smart-Memory Wool
Fabric 04The front crease is thermoset into the yarn, so it holds through wear and travel.
Phase-Change Fiber
Fabric 05Absorbs excess body heat when active and slowly releases it back while cooling.
Adaptive Merino™, Chroma-Shift and Circuit-Weave carry their own entries in the fabric library; Smart-Memory Wool and Phase-Change Fiber are described within the collection below.
The Collection
Six pieces, one engineered wardrobe
Each garment is priced individually and produced as part of the same limited first run.
The Aviator 2.0
$685A modern MA-1 flight jacket crafted in an Adaptive Merino™ shell. The lining actively expands its fiber loft below 15°C and relaxes it above 20°C.
Adaptive Merino™
The Chroma-Shift Trench
$920A weatherproof trench treated with a photochromic finish. The coat’s sandstone base deepens to a richer taupe in strong sunlight and softens indoors.
Chroma-Shift Photochromic
The Circuit Weave
$310A merino-cotton poplin dress shirt. A hair-fine conductive thread runs through the cuff to pair with wearable devices for silent notifications.
Circuit-Weave Conductive Thread
The Foundation Henley
$195The foundational base layer knitted from 100% Adaptive Merino™, featuring seamless-body knitting for ultimate temperature regulation.
Adaptive Merino™
Perpetual Press Trouser
$265A Smart-Memory Wool trouser where the front crease is thermoset into the yarn. It survives flights and washing without a single touch-up.
Smart-Memory Wool
The Quantum Knit Cardigan
$540A cable-knit cardigan using Phase-Change Fiber to absorb excess body heat when active and slowly release it back while cooling.
Phase-Change Fiber
The Economics
Estimated production cost per unit
We’ve estimated a 4×–5× markup from production to retail, which is standard for technical luxury.
| Item | Retail | Est. Material / Tech Cost | Est. Labor (CMT) | Total COGS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chroma-Shift Trench | $920 | $140 (UV-reactive / sealed) | $110 | $250 |
| The Aviator 2.0 | $685 | $95 (Adaptive Merino) | $85 | $180 |
| Quantum Knit Cardigan | $540 | $80 (PC-Fiber) | $60 | $140 |
| The Circuit Weave | $310 | $45 (Conductive thread) | $35 | $80 |
| Perpetual Press Trouser | $265 | $35 (Thermoset wool) | $30 | $65 |
| Foundation Henley | $195 | $25 (17.5m Merino) | $20 | $45 |
Total estimated startup needed: $120,000 – $150,000, to produce a limited run of 50–100 units per style.
Where Your Funding Goes
Funding goal: $130,000
To bring this engineered heritage to life, we need to meet high minimum order quantities for these bleeding-edge smart fabrics. Here is our breakdown.
Suggested Crowdfunding Target
$130,000
Total initial goal to reach first production.
Backed by the launch & development budget of $120,000 – $150,000.
| Category | Estimated Cost |
|---|---|
| Tech Packs & Prototyping | $15,000 |
| Fabric Minimums (MOQs) | $40,000 |
| First Production Run | $65,000 |
| Packaging & Logistics | $10,000 |
Launch & development detail
- Tech Pack & Pattern$5,000 – $8,000 — complex due to tech integration.
- Prototyping / Sampling$10,000+ — usually 3× production cost for first runs.
- Fabric MinimumsSpecialty fibers like AM-17.5 often require 300–500 meters per order, an upfront investment of ~$30k–$50k.
- E-commerce & Marketing$5,000 – $15,000 — photography, web design, and ads.
Funding Breakdown
Every dollar, itemised
The allocation above, opened up line by line. Where the source document gives a range, the midpoint is used to draw the share bar — so the bars total 100% of the itemised budget.
| Line item | Amount | Share of $130,000 goal |
|---|---|---|
| First Production RunCMT & bulk assembly | $65,000 | |
| Specialty Fabric MOQs300–500 m minimum per order | $40,000 | |
| Prototyping / Sampling~3× production cost on first runs | $10,000+ | |
| Packaging & Logistics | $10,000 | |
| Tech Packs & Patternscomplex — smart-textile integration | $5,000 – $8,000 | |
| E-commerce, Photography & Marketingweb, shoots, advertising | $5,000 – $15,000 | |
| Total itemised (six lines, midpoint) | $141,500 | |
| Core five lines (all fixed, exact) | $130,000 |
Bar width = share of the $130,000 goal. Midpoints: Tech Packs $6,500 · E-commerce $10,000. Full range across all six lines: $135,000 – $148,000 (103.8% – 113.8% of goal). See the consistency flags below before quoting any single figure.
Allocation — shares of the itemised budget
Production run 50.0%
Fabric MOQs 30.8%
Prototyping 7.7%
Packaging 7.7%
Tech packs 5.0%
E-commerce 7.7%
The production run and fabric minimums alone account for 80.8% of the target. Nothing here is discretionary overhead: the two largest lines are the two that cannot be started without the money up front.
Consistency flags — three conflicts in the source document
- The source document's allocation table does not reconcile to its own goal. Its four rows — Tech Packs & Prototyping $15,000, Fabric MOQs $40,000, Production $65,000, Packaging $10,000 — total $130,000, exactly the target. But its six-line breakdown adds $5,000–$18,000 more ($135,000–$148,000), and the core five fixed lines already reach $130,000–$133,000 on their own. Both versions are presented here rather than merged into a single number that appears nowhere in the source.
- The Economics table's stated markup does not match its own figures. The page says it estimated a 4×–5× markup, but the six rows compute to 3.68×–4.33× — only the Perpetual Press Trouser (4.08×) and Foundation Henley (4.33×) land inside the stated band. Every resulting margin shown below is computed from the table's own numbers, not from the stated claim.
- The $65,000 production line is sized for the run, not for the whole programme. One full six-style set carries $420 of material and $340 of labour — a total COGS of $760, or $126.67 per garment on average. At 50 units per style (300 garments) that is $38,000 of COGS; at 100 units per style (600 garments) it is $76,000. The $65,000 line falls between the two, implying a run of roughly 510–515 garments across the six styles. The $40,000 fabric line independently covers the material for about 570 garments, so the two largest lines corroborate each other — and each is a separate cash requirement, rather than $65,000 funding the entire run end to end.
Investor Summary
The case for backing No. 001
The same campaign, written for a backer and not a customer: the positioning, what the money buys and in what order, the unit economics per garment, the supply chain, and the risks with the mitigation for each. All figures are computed from the tables above.
Mid-century menswear, quietly engineered
The collection occupies a specific and currently thin position: heritage tailoring on the surface, advanced textiles underneath. The silhouettes — MA-1 bomber, trench, dress shirt, base layer, pressed trouser, cable knit — are established menswear categories, so demand is understood. The differentiation sits entirely in the fabric stack, which is where the defensibility also sits.
The pitch line is deliberate: Analog soul. Digital nerve. Classic at a distance, engineered up close. That gives a single clear story for photography, press and retail copy rather than a list of technical claims.
Five proprietary-leaning textiles carry it: Adaptive Merino™ (loft changes with body temperature), Chroma-Shift (photochromic finish), Circuit-Weave (conductive thread for silent notifications), Smart-Memory Wool (thermoset crease) and Phase-Change Fiber (absorbs and releases heat). Across six styles those reach six distinct use cases with one consistent buyer.
Sequence matters more than total
Capital is not released evenly. Each stage unlocks the next, and the first two stages are the ones that cannot be started on credit.
- Tech packs & patterns$5,000 – $8,000 · 3.8–6.2%Grading and smart-textile patterns, complex because the technical elements have to be resolved in the pattern itself.
- Prototyping & sampling$10,000+ · 7.7%Roughly 3× final production cost on a first run. This is where fit, hand-feel and the textile behaviour get proven.
- Specialty fabric MOQs$40,000 · 30.8%The single largest gating item: 300–500 metres minimum per order, paid up front before any garment is cut.
- First production run$65,000 · 50.0%CMT and bulk assembly for the 50–100 unit-per-style run, executed with partners qualified for seam-sealing and seamless circular knitting.
- Packaging & logistics$10,000 · 7.7%Protective packaging appropriate to the price point, plus freight and duties.
- E-commerce, photography & marketing$5,000 – $15,000 · 3.8–11.5%Site, campaign photography and acquisition — the layer that turns a finished run into sell-through.
Gross margin, computed from the table
Gross margin below is retail price less total COGS — it is not profit. It excludes marketing, fulfilment, returns, duties and overheads, all of which come out of it. It is the correct measure for judging whether a garment can carry its own distribution.
The line is strikingly consistent: every piece sits between 72.8% and 76.9% gross margin, a spread of just four points, averaging 74.5% across the six styles.
| Garment | Retail | Material / Tech | Labour (CMT) | Total COGS | Gross Margin | Margin % | Markup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chroma-Shift Trench | $920 | $140 | $110 | $250 | $670 | 72.8% | 3.68× |
| The Aviator 2.0 | $685 | $95 | $85 | $180 | $505 | 73.7% | 3.81× |
| Quantum Knit Cardigan | $540 | $80 | $60 | $140 | $400 | 74.1% | 3.86× |
| The Circuit Weave | $310 | $45 | $35 | $80 | $230 | 74.2% | 3.88× |
| Perpetual Press Trouser | $265 | $35 | $30 | $65 | $200 | 75.5% | 4.08× |
| Foundation Henley | $195 | $25 | $20 | $45 | $150 | 76.9% | 4.33× |
| Simple average across the six styles | $486 | $70 | $57 | $127 | $359 | 74.5% | 3.94× |
Margins and markups are calculated here from the retail, material, labour and COGS figures above. Material + labour equals total COGS exactly on every row. Because the six retail prices differ, the bottom row is the simple average across styles, not a blended or revenue-weighted margin.
Where it gets made
- Materials sourcing European mills and technical fabric converters. RWS-certified merino wool at 17.5 microns, alongside microencapsulated photochromic finishes.
- Prototyping & tech packs LA-based development houses — ARGYLE Haus and Bomme Studio are named in the source — handling grading and smart-textile patterns.
- Manufacturing Specialised Cut, Make and Trim partners equipped for seam-sealing and seamless circular knitting. These are not general-purpose factories; the capability is the qualification.
- Sales & funding Direct backing via PayPal at paypal.me/robluck2, which keeps the first run free of platform and marketplace fees.
The three that matter
Risk
Fabric minimum order quantities
Specialty fibres require 300–500 metres per order, and the $40,000 fabric line is 30.8% of the target. Commit to the wrong quantity or colourway and capital sits in dead stock.
Mitigation
MOQs are met with a first run deliberately scoped at 50–100 units per style, and the fabric spend is isolated as its own line so it is funded and tracked separately from the production run rather than buried inside it.
Risk
Sampling cost overrun
First-run sampling runs at roughly 3× production cost, and smart textiles often need more iterations than conventional cloth before a pattern is settled.
Mitigation
The sampling line is budgeted at $10,000+ — an open-ended floor, not a cap — and the tech-pack work is funded first so patterns are resolved before samples are cut.
Risk
Production lead times
Seam-sealing and seamless circular knitting restrict the partner pool, and technical converters extend fabric lead times. Slip here pushes the run past its selling season.
Mitigation
Fabric is committed before the CMT run is scheduled, so materials land ahead of assembly, and the launch budget carries a $20,000–$35,000 headroom range above the core five lines to absorb delay.
The Ask
$130,000
$130,000 brings the Retro-Tech Collection No. 001 to first production and closes the gap between a proven prototype and a garment in a customer's hands. It funds the pattern work, the sampling, the fabric minimums, the production run, the packaging and the launch in that order — against a development range of $120,000–$150,000. Every contribution goes to the specialty fabric MOQs, prototyping and the first production run: the three costs that cannot be financed on credit.
Back the Campaign via PayPal Secure donation via PayPal · paypal.me/robluck2
Lookbook
Campaign imagery
The campaign board — all six garments, the fabric library and the collection lockup, composed in a single frame.
Support the Campaign
Help meet the fabric minimums
Every contribution goes toward the specialty fabric MOQs, prototyping and the first production run — the three costs that stand between this collection and your wardrobe.
Donate via PayPal
Secure donation via PayPal · paypal.me/robluck2
Rewards, tiers and shipping details are confirmed directly with backers after the campaign closes.
Premium garments that feel classic at a distance and engineered up close.
Disclaimer: All cost figures are estimated and may adjust with supplier quotes, minimum order requirements, and production scale.