Luxury streetwear blanks review (CFB & ASBX, Portugal)

[UPDATE] I no longer have a neutral stance re. ASBX after a flood of bots posting stellar reviews of alleged flawless service. This is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS for a company positioning itself as high-end and premium!
I did not prompt any of the negative reviews here, and this only reinforces my point about thoroughly researching your manufacturers and not coming into the industry unprepared - apparel manufacturing is infamous for widespread unethical practices.
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Not affiliated to any of these companies, but this review might still be heavily biased because of my own personal taste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Fabric guides & more: oliviasuguri.com/blogs/fashio...
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Mentorship sessions: oliviasuguri.com/collections/...
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Luxury streetwear blanks (made in Portugal) featured on this video:
- oversized t-shirt in open end cotton (kinda coarse so might not be everyone's cup of tea): createfashionbrand.com/produc...
- hoodie in 465 gsm sweatshirt jersey (loopback): www.asbx.pt/en/blanks

[@OliviaSuguri]

[UPDATE] I no longer have a neutral stance re. ASBX after a flood of bots posting stellar reviews of alleged flawless service. This is HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS for a company positioning itself as high-end and premium! I did not prompt any of the negative reviews here, and this only reinforces my point about thoroughly researching your manufacturers and not coming into the industry unprepared - apparel manufacturing is infamous for widespread unethical practices.

[@carolinacortes4133]

Love your content! Love that you have your own way to approach this conversations and you are straight forward and keeping it real and relatable, no need to sugar coat everything ;) … Great review!!

[@OliviaSuguri]

@carolina cortes thanks for the love! bet you're also a b*tch in real life

[@aguilianofortes6585]

ASBX is one big mess. Do not do business with them. I paid over more than € 3.000 for 200 custom made t-shirts that does not meet the techpack we have have sent a hundred times. They do nothing with your feedback, they blame you for the mistakes and the guy we have had contact with, Afonso Bento, is the worst communicator. We have now 191 t-shirts (9 are still missing) just laying here because we cannot sell them. They offered a compensation with which we can pay a part of the cost we have to make to fix the t-shirts. We only agree to this only if we get our money back from the 9 missing t-shirts. Strange enough they refuse to do that.

[@joanakamibimbo3437]

got ASBX Store Samples back in august and was insane quality. They have a 600 GSM hoodie which we never saw in a factory before. our brand did a small production with them and all went well. But they warned us factories are facing a tough period now because of energy crisis and shortages so is understandable they might face issues on some orders.

[@OliviaSuguri]

thanks for your feedback, Joana! oh the world post-covid :/

[@joaoalmeida6900]

thanks Olivia for sharing. Visited ASBX Factory yesterday. their factory is very modern. will buy a sample from them today and share my experience.

[@OliviaSuguri]

forgot to reply, sorry João! How did you like your sample??

[@johnmcreadie4853]

Amazing Video! Also ordered ASBX blanks and they are very good.

[@OliviaSuguri]

Thanks John! hope it all goes smoothly for you :) Was hoping to work with them, but in the end I made so many changes that I had to ask myself if I was actually a hoodie person

[@alsofyalsofy10]

Where is the best factory of clothes (hoodies) in Portugal? Thanks

[@Mariyea-Smithea55]

Bough Last Week the ASBX Hoodie. The item is excellent quality. However after contacting them learned the bulk orders can be long as they make all from scratch. do you know any way to make my items fast ?

[@aggleale]

Use someone else. They only take ages because they're not a manufacturer, they're an agency. If you go direct to a manufacturer you will get a speedier service and better price.

[@sjoerdsiemes]

I come across so many blanks manufacturers. And some of them I actually really like. But my biggest problem is that i need a blanks manufacturer that also does embroidery, dtg printing and woven labels. And that's a lot harder to find in my opinion.

[@ad0rn0444]

WATC STUDIO

[@sjoerdsiemes]

@@ad0rn0444 I use them now, but they don't do embroidery yet. I don't know why.

[@ad0rn0444]

@@sjoerdsiemes I would suggest doing local embroidery work. You can test quality of places nearby and decide which would work best.

[@teesprintandapparel]

@@sjoerdsiemeshow is your feedback with the watc blanks? which blanks do you use? service and delivery is quick? Very little i’ve found and looking for any reviews.

[@Andersdahlmann1]

Did you find a manufacturer that's good for a small business, or do you still find the struggle in this area? Ps. rly love the video, good information for a small business owner like me, who struggle to find the right manufacturer :D

[@OliviaSuguri]

not yet Anders :/ best case if you're a small business making less than 30-50 pcs is to find a local seamstress or sewing shop - which is also not an easy task, so wish you good luck 🙏🙏🙏

[@XxALFAxPRIVATE]

Which one do you recommend if you could only go with one?

[@OliviaSuguri]

Could you be more specific? I reviewed 2 pieces from 2 dif. manufacturers with different ways of working, hard to say one is better than the other

[@dxrian5103]

do you know any manufactures in Europe , in or out of Portugal?

[@OliviaSuguri]

I do, just made a review of 2 good ones in this video

[@Dines646]

Does AFBX offer cut n sew services?

[@OliviaSuguri]

Better contact them directly with more info on what you want to make

[@ks3788]

Hi, do you make blanks or ?

[@OliviaSuguri]

I don't.

[@ks3788]

@@OliviaSuguri how can i contact you maybe you can help me. Looking for luxury t shirt blanks for a brand i want to start. Alot of blanks come with to close necks or to loose lol.

[@OliviaSuguri]

@@ks3788 you can check out consulting/mentorship options on my website.

[@DamianeMuller]

Is it just me, or does Portugal have a monopoly on French Terry manufacturing and production?? I love the look and feel of French Terry, but it's not easy to find brands using it in Australia. Brands like Adidas and Carhartt have 1 or 2 pieces available but most use fleece. Everything French Terry that I do find, is made in Portugal!!

[@OliviaSuguri]

Hey Damiane, interesting question! Brazil wasn't big on French terry either (and definitely no heavyweight sweatshirt jerseys), although I was already not working in Fashion there by the time Streetwear became such a huge deal. My theory is: Portugal manufactures for brands like Acne Studios, that do conceptual runways as well as merch/ commercial lines - so I guess they end up choosing heavyweight French terry because it feels different, or vintage-y and cool; it sets them apart from the classic Streetwear brands; and maybe it feels less like a cosy winter piece, and more like a style choice. But from what I've been told, heavyweight sweatshirt jersey is expensive to produce, so it's rare to find a mill that'll sell less than those dreaded 300m; and whenever they produce new fabric, it's always made-to-order to fulfil production for these big, famous brands - so I haven't found a mill that'd have some leftovers (not even a cheeky 1-2m for me to make a piece for myself) and I haven't been successful trying to ask them to produce a little bit extra on their next order to sell to me on the side. So it's good that there are factories like ASBX and Create Fashion Label selling individual pieces to final consumers. Even if you can't customise them too much, I think there's a better opportunity to get experience working with a factory, if you ever decide to manufacture from scratch. Hope that was helpful, and feel free to let me know your opinion on this :)

[@kaidickson547]

ASBX for manufacturing is really bad. They made fabric completely different to what I had asked for and said they couldnt change (This was sampling stage). Would not recommend for future production for anyone thinking.

[@OliviaSuguri]

Oh no 😮 did you manage to get your sampling deposit back, or are they going to fix it? Anyway, thanks for sharing your experience, Kai! Let us know more details if you’re okay with that, I’m always so pissed when factories advertise that everything’s gonna be so simple, it can really make startups lose time, money and momentum

[@kaidickson547]

@@OliviaSuguri nope I think I paid £600/800 and got £0 back. They said let’s just go with this fabric and we can change it next time. Even though fabric was really really bad, I wouldn’t wear it never mind sell it to a customer!

[@matttyler3373]

Hello Kai! Also did a large custom order with ASBX and we had to adjust a lot of fabrics during the process. The items came out amazing so maybe try to reach them again to see if they can fix it ? I had a great experience with that factory they were very helpful so hope they can do something to your situation.

[@OliviaSuguri]

@@matttyler3373 thanks for sharing your experience, as well! And so happy it worked out well for you in the end :D This is another thing about the manufacturing process, there can be a lot of back and forth discussions and adjustments between client and factory until things are just right. How long did the whole process take for you (from sampling to final bulk order)?

[@matttyler3373]

@@OliviaSuguri hi Olivia, our item range was over 20 styles, so the whole process took a few months which our production consultant said was normal due to the range. the items had lots of prints so needed a lot of changes due to colour etc. but overall things went nicely. we also order their blanks recently and came perfect. their were things they could improve but overall think is a good factory.

[@fabiodalessandro5778]

STAY AWAY FROM ASBX I've been in contact with them for almost a year now and have never seen anything like it I've been telling the owner afonso since the beginning that I wanted to talk to someone else because he didn't seem friendly and very unprofessional. I met him in an office in portugal. he told me i could only talk to him so i decided to work with asbx anyway it was also better until I had paid half. I sent asbx a very well explained techpach for a tshirt. I got no messages to know how we are progressing. I always had to send messages to which I didn't get an answer or he replied that the t-shirt would be sent soon and so on although the t-shirt wasn't even ready... When I got my t-shirt after a long time, it was anything but what was described in the techpack. The t-shirt was never personally edited. Print was wrong size and wrong color! If you as a clothing company can't even get the size and color of the print right, that's saying a lot! So I send photos and they could see for themselves that it's not right. Months go by and every day I lose a lot of time because I am constantly writing and waiting for an answer. The owner Afonso when he replies tells me that the Tshirts are ready and will be shipped. One day it was over and i said i wanted to stop working with them Then he told me it couldn't be done. My shirts were never made so he said we could stop and I'd have to pay for the work. I wanted all my money but they charged me over 1000 euros for a t-shirt that wasn't even personalized and everything was wrong. it took a month and a half for them to send me my money. I've never seen anything like this! twice they had problems with the transfer. I had to ask again they wouldn't tell me themselves. Afonso once answered me before the collaboration when I wanted information for the collaboration. Since I paid he has never answered me, just hung up and then texted that he was at dinner, in the car, or at a meeting. When he didn't feel like it anymore, he didn't want to take responsibility anymore and said I should communicate with Joao via email. joao who needs days to write a very simple email in which he writes: please send me your bank information and can't even spell my name correctly for the transfer. Afonso who likes to be the owner of a clothing company but then has no balls to bear responsibility and blames others. Threatened me and blackmailed me because I already left a comment under this video at the time. I don't think that's the right way to treat customers and hopefully with this message they won't treat you or anyone else the way they treated me! D'ALESSANDRO

[@OliviaSuguri]

@fabiodalessandro5778, this sounds like an absolute nightmare... I hope you have everything documented over email and WhatsApp, and imho it's very unlikely they'll be able to take any action because of a bad review.

[@donquinn5184]

Bro I had the exact same experience lost a lot of money due to asbx