From fabric bales to the checkout counter.
The supply chain of a Seidensticker shirt:
Everything from a single source.
Uncompromising quality has played a major role at Seidensticker for generations. The “Seidensticker Quality Standard” was first written down and visualized in the 1960s. Walter Seidensticker Jr. himself has taken on this topic. With great results: this standard still applies and is highly regarded both within the company and by customers.
01.
Development and design
With a passion for detail and a flair for trends.
Every fabric, every yarn, and every single button are carefully selected by the professional team at the headquarters in Bielefeld, before they become part of a Seidensticker collection. Designers and product managers often discover the latest fashion trends and get inspiration, e.g., in the form of trendy colors or exclusive fabrics, on trips, at trade fairs, in magazines, or on trend platforms.
Each year, the team designs up to eight collections. The choice of fabrics and current color themes are crucial because they are essential for designing a collection.
The culmination of this process is the perfect fit, which is revised and adjusted every season. Seidensticker is an expert in the right fit and meets the demands of the brand by constantly optimizing its cuts. In a next step, the features of the shirt are determined. This, of course, includes the styling of the products. Collar shapes, cuffs, and buttons are among the defining features of a shirt and are chosen with great care. This is how the quality Seidensticker shirts, with their 100-year history, are created.
02.
The raw material: cotton
Seidensticker attaches great importance to high-quality cotton.
Almost every Seidensticker shirt is 100% cotton. The quality of the cotton used significantly determines the quality standard of a shirt. That is why, in the process of creating a shirt, particular attention is paid to cotton as a raw material. Whether cotton is good or poor can be determined by the staple length. The longer a fiber is, the higher the quality rating of the cotton. Seidensticker gets most of its cotton from the US and Egypt.
Using cotton has numerous advantages. For one thing, cotton garments can absorb a lot of moisture. For another thing, Seidensticker cotton shirts are breathable and feel soft to the touch, which also makes them especially comfortable to wear.
In order to give the cotton the desired properties, it must be “finished” accordingly. This process makes the fabric of a shirt easy to iron, for example.
03.
Fabrics, yarns and ingredients
Making a distinctive garment.
Seidensticker shirts get their individuality and that special something from their distinct style. Italy – the land of fashion – is renowned for exclusive fabrics, which are sourced there. Yarns and other items such as buttons, labels, and batches are sought out by the design team in China or in Turkey. The styling must fit the theme of the collection to create a uniform look that appeals to customers as well.
When procuring fabrics, yarns, or other items, compliance with quality and social standards plays a major role. This is ensured by our own inspectors, employed by Seidensticker, who carry out tests according to specially defined criteria at our suppliers. All Seidensticker fabrics are also certified according to OEKO-TEX 100 and therefore subject to additional, independent tests.
04.
Production
Expertise and competence.
Seidensticker stands for the perfect shirt. Having our products made by our own staff in proprietary production sites ensures that the most stringent quality criteria are met and that responsibility is guaranteed at all levels. Each shirt goes through over one hundred checks until completion and is subject to strict monitoring. Seidensticker invests millions of euros in quality assurance each year in order to be able to guarantee the typical Seidensticker quality.
In addition to quality, compliance with social standards plays a major role. Therefore, Seidensticker has joined initiatives such as the Business Social Compliance Initiative, which monitors the core labor standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The Seidensticker factory in Vietnam is even SA:8000 certified.
05.
Logistics
and transport
The route to Germany is very long.
Seidensticker shirts are produced in our own factories in Vietnam and Indonesia, where the goods are processed, packaged, and pre-picked. In huge warehouses, the shirts are kept in matching shirt boxes until they are shipped.
The goods from Vietnam and Indonesia meet in the Port of Singapore. Safely packed in containers, they commence their journey to Europe. It takes the shirts across the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the North Sea – until they reach the Port of Hamburg. The transport takes almost 30 days and covers almost 12,500 miles. Then the journey continues: to the retail shelves.
06.
Retail
Proprietary outlets, retail, and online stores.
Seidensticker strives to address customers everywhere with a uniform brand language. This happens in our proprietary outlets, in retail and in our online stores. This multichannel strategy is consistently pursued in the Seidensticker Group. A total of 45 stores are directly managed by Seidensticker and receive their goods from the warehouse in Bielefeld. For retail, the shirts are shipped directly by a Hamburg-based service provider as soon as the goods have arrived there. This procedure is possible because the boxes have already been pre-picked by the production sites in Asia, which considerably reduces the workload and is also much faster.