nd currently, renegotiations are being had for the optional second-year extension.   Redefining the uniform space will allow the business to scale its impact and prove that sustainable circular fashion is commercially viable. “We exist to make mass production obsolete. And we’ve developed a technology that allows us to do that,” Citizen Wolf co-founder Zoltan Csaki told Inside Retail. Creating the blueprint Citizen Wolf co-founders Eric Phu and Zoltan Csaki knew they could create the technology to scale a circular made-to-order production model, but they weren’t confident they could convince an existing brand to change how they worked. “Citizen Wolf was created as a response to that. We needed a brand to validate the tech. We were forced into creating that brand. Our long-term vision was always about licencing that technology to anyone else in the industry, uniforms or consumer, who wanted to run a made-to-order model. You can think about it as almost like a turnkey solution for made-to-order,” Csaki said. “​​Nobody in the existing supply chain wants to work this way. Everybody’s geared up to make 300 or 3000 units, and nobody wants to make one at a time. Not only did we create the technology that allows us to work that way, but we also created the factory. And it’s really that yin and yang, of the software and what we call the hardware side of the tech stack, which is just code for the factory,” Csaki added. “Our factory is a conglomeration of old school garment manufacturing, which is sewing because at the moment, no matter if you walk into our factory in Marrickville or any big factory anywhere else around the world, the way to put garments together at the moment is by hand. It’s time-consuming, and it’s a real skill. We haven’t changed that side of the equation, our technology automates everything down to the cut,” Csaki said. “The secret sauce is all in the panels and the dimensions of each,” he added. Down to business As Citizen Wolf shifts its focus to bringing its made-to-order “magic fit” technology to the uniform space, the Federal Government contract is a massive milestone on this journey. Commercial real estate business JLL was previously its biggest B2B customer with a total of 400 units. Other B2B orders have come from word-of-mouth, including local cafes that needed a few garments for two to three people.  “The reason that we’ve started to talk about uniforms is because they are contract-based; they’re finite. At the end of the contract is this beautiful moment in time where you can reinvent the model plausibly,” Csaki said. “It’s hard to convince a fashion brand who works in mass offshore for the most part, even though everybody knows that the consumer model is broken.” The biggest barrier to more brands adopting a made-to-order or circular approach to fashion production is fear of preserving profits, according to Csaki.  But he believes this will change due to growing consumer pressure resulting from fatigue around greenwashing and the trickle-down effect of industry regulation in Europe. “People are sick of greenwashing and want brands to be doing the right thing, not just saying they’re doing it. Eventually, I think it will come to the point where the consumer market will lose at least some of their production to made-to-order,” Csaki said. For now, Csaki acknowledges the opportunity for Citizen Wolf to drive impactful change in the fashion industry is in the corporate uniforms space. For Csaki, the benefits of doing business differently are clear. It’s “better for the staff, because they get stuff that fits, for the planet because there’s no over-production and better for business because cash is not tied up in inventory and waste”. It is estimated at the end of every uniform contract one in seven pieces goes to waste, which accounts for 15 per cent on average. “We see our system as able to do the made-to-measure, on the very edges of the bell curve, but start coming in and using it as an on-demand inventory backfill solution, so that companies can get back into compliance quickly. And not have to over-order, which is the biggest problem in consumer fashion, and that seems to be the biggest problem in uniforms as well,” Csaki said. Converting consumer-facing fashion A year ago, Citizen Wolf piloted its first technology licencing venture with Australian slow fashion label Kit X, enabling customers to order a custom-fit shirt through the Kit X website. “Consumer fashion never ends, it’s this endless treadmill of trend and cycle and no one’s ever got any time and the business model is a flywheel that never stops. It’s it’s pretty tiring when you step back,” Csaki said. This pace is the reason that Citizen Wolf is seeking to disrupt the industry from a more feasible entry point. “We set out to create the blueprint that other people can follow and we want to help them do that by offering to licence that technology. Ultimately, we win even if they don’t use our tech, not as much obviously, but our vision is to the end of mass production. It’s as important that we prove that it works,” Csaki said. Each Citizen Wolf garment is laser-cut before being hand-sewn by seamstresses following an AI-powered interface that works seamlessly with humans to facilitate scaleable single-piece production. “That’s the heartbeat. In fashion, everybody wants to make 300, or better, 3000. Nobody wants to make you one. But everything that we do is one by one,” Csaki said. The magic fit Since 2016, Citizen Wolf has produced 72,000 so-called “magic fit” garments from its Marrickville factory. This is because Citizen Wolf uses AI to make custom t-shirts based on just a few metrics: sex, height, weight, age and bra size. It has adapted its uniform offering to include a combination of standard size breaks and its “magic fit” technology without compromising on the core mission. The Marrickville facility, which is open to the public by appointment, can produce 100 garments per day. Each garment creates 48 per cent less carbon compared to traditional mass-production models. Going global The Australasian Circular Textile Association (ACTA) estimates that uniforms and workwear contribute approximately 12,000 tonnes of landfill annually. This equates to about 10 per cent of consumer textile waste in Australia each year. Scaling the operation globally is the third puzzle piece and one of three goals set by the team during its last Birchal funding raise in 2022. Scaling the product and factory were the first two components that Csaki believes have been achieved. “We have just re-launched our website to be native multi-currency, which was the final step before we can start growing overseas,” he said.