What can I say, after promising a release date of 20th September it’s now mid-October – I cannot apologise enough. We experienced extraordinary systems issues just prior to our initial launch date and it has taken all this time to re-write a load of processes that just decided they didn’t want to talk to the rest of the system anymore. Please accept my most sincere apologies for this – we’ve all been tearing our hair out at this end, I can assure you!

But on a much brighter note – www.thinredline.com is NOW LIVE with our first six fabric designs all available in double cuff, button cuff, regular sleeve, extra long sleeve, standard fit and slim fit varieties.

DETAILS OF YOUR MEMBER’S DISCOUNT BELOW:

To celebrate, we’ve set up a Member’s Discount which will provide you with an extra 20% off the shirt sale price. Simply join the Thin Red Line Club by registering an account and you’ll have immediate access to this month’s Member’s Discount Code. Then simply enter this code in the Member’s Discount box at the top right of the basket page and your order total will be adjusted accordingly.

So what else is new about Thin Red Line?

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve made a number a real improvements to both the shirt and the fabric. You will notice that:

1. Our collar is even more comfortable than before whilst still retaining its shape throughout the day.

2. Our fabric uses a superior, finer yarn meaning that it’s light as a feather but wonderfully smooth to the touch.

3. Our cuffs are softer and less board-like making a more comfortable sleeve.

4. Our cuff link holes are 20% larger meaning that even the most substantial of cuff links should now be easy to put on.

5. Our placket is more relaxed allowing the shirt fabric to drape more naturally.

6. Our fabric is now easier to iron meaning a single glide of the iron should be all you need, thus reducing ironing time.

Our web site is also brand new. We’ve made adding pockets and sleeve shortening easier and have also included a faster payment process. You can now also see which fabrics are selling the quickest via the Leaderboard and you have the ability to leave a review on any products you’ve received from us. You can also now have orders delivered to multiple addresses, as well give gift vouchers and receive credit to your account for testimonials.

So that’s it. I can hardly believe that we’re finally up and running again. Thank you so much for your patience over the last few months and I very much look forward to hearing from you with any comments you may have – and I hope you enjoy our new shirts!

It’s been a long road but we are now only a month away from the new TRL shirts being available! I would like to thank everyone for their patience and I really hope you will be pleased with what we offer you next month. And with that in mind…

Because we want to ensure that every shirt is, as near as damn it, the best shirt you can buy, we actually stitch all our shirts in-house rather than farming out production to third party mass-volume factories (like most of the other well known ‘quality shirt’ brands do). The advantage of doing all our own stitching is that we can be fastidious about quality – the disadvantage is that we are then limited by our own stitching capacity (which is pretty small).

Why am I saying all this? Well, some time back I had to make a decision about how to launch our new range. The question was forced by the number of shirts that we could stitch by September and that question was a challenging one:

“Would our customers prefer to see a large range and be okay with the fact that their size could sell out very quickly, or would our customers prefer to see a smaller range which had greater stock availability combined with new design introductions every month?”

To find out, I conducted a survey amongst a section of our customers (if you received the email and took part in the survey then thank you very much for your feedback), and I must say, I was very surprised by the response. Prior to the survey, if you had asked me what people would want from us I would have said “as much choice as possible straight away”, however, the exact opposite was true.

From the survey responses, a whopping 90% of customers said that they wanted TRL to focus on simply making great shirts and whether the range was small or not was not important if they knew that we would be adding new designs regularly.

I was truly amazed by this because I don’t need to tell you that we have some competitors who blow us out of the water in terms of product offering – but it turns out that maybe people really do appreciate the smaller guy once in a while if he can offer you a product and service that is superior to the rest.

So, with the above in mind, we’ve made a few changes to the way we operate. Our initial shirt offering in September will be very compact – just a few fabric designs but all these designs will be available in: classic fit double cuff, classic fit button cuff, slim fit double cuff and slim fit double cuff, all in both regular and extra long sleeve varieties. Later in the month we will introduce some ties which will compliment the shirts and the following month we will introduce some new shirts, as well as ties – and we will go on like this month on month, keeping you up to date with new designs that we hope might interest you.

As you can imagine, after everything we’ve been through, to make a significant departure away from the ‘mass volume shirt retailer’ model was not taken lightly. But I think the phrase ‘mass volume shirt retailer’ says it all – Thin Red Line is not a mass volume shirt retailer so we shouldn’t pretend to be one.

From now on, probably the best way of describing Thin Red Line, will be as a ’shirt club’, where registered members get advance notice of new designs as they come into stock (and of course these members will also receive the best prices). The club will effectively provide direct access to Thin Red Line as a ’shirt maker’ as opposed to a shirt ‘retailer’ – so you’re buying direct from the factory as the shirts are stitched.

I really hope you like the sound of our new way of doing things – it’s a bit different I know. If you have any comments, quires or feedback on this then I’d love to hear from you. Please email me directly at:

hereward.cb@thinredline.com