Style Forum Question for the group: what else can we make for you?

I'll add a caveat to this, since it does seem like I'm being very critical. I'm not critical of their denim or the shirts that I have - they all fit great. I only had one sizing incident and that was the first run of BluexBlack. I'm more critical of their lack of response to this growing community. We're the voices who populate places such as the Styleforum and others, who can be true advocates for the brand. I'm hoping Cody doesn't let the community down. 

An analogy from back when record labels and record deals were more of a 'thing"....Gustin is like an indie or punk band that got signed to a major label and is now trying to find their sound in front of a bigger audience. Some of their first generation fans are pissed as they have an emotional investment in them. Totally normal.

When I was 18 this kind of thing pissed me off because I thought it was selling out. At 30, I had a couple of kids and a career under my belt and realized it's hard to use your noble values to put food on the table and clothes on the kids. Life is complicated.

Now I'm 44 and when it comes to music and clothes, just about anything you can purchase, I just pick and choose what I want and then move on. Gustin wants to be a San Francisco vibe company which carries a lot of specific stereotypes for people (including me). Untucked hit it on the head, we as a group are well dressed but are more along the "mans men" way of life/thinking. Gustin seems to covet the SF metro guy thing. It's cool, I hope they find their mark and make millions.

BTW before they were "fixies", they were just fixed gear trainers and got used during the winter to avoid losing your spin and getting fat. You'd build one out of a shitty old road bike and old parts. No offense to the fixie guys out there btw. Just never thought the day would come when they were a cool item to own and eventually get mass marketed. It makes me feel really old if anything.

I don't want or need any more G jeans. They are an interesting part of my denim collection but I like a mix of cuts, brands and styles. The rest of their line is pick and choose just like any other brand at this point. Honestly, from a business standpoint they are right to seek out a new customer base. Yeah it feels kind of disingenuous but if you think about it, they aren't going to get much bigger off of our wallets.

My wife & I were talking about that this week.  We do not own bikes but AZ will give us a great reason to buy a pair

Yea I am looking forward to hopping on the back of Matts bike and just cruising

Dirty_Denim - I was thinking more old-school "hipster" style with you riding on the handle bars of my mountain bike...

Their aesthetic is not fashion, but timeless classic looks. I think that's the mistake in moving in the Engineered Garments direction, because it's really not their strong point. Now, if that's the direction they want to go, I would almost say they should fund a "spin-off" brand through Gustin, or even through a new kickstarter campaign to really go in that direction. 

You start talking "here's our S/S 2015 campaign/lookbook, we'll make the garments that prove popular enough to fund" (model it after the way Taylor Stich and Flint and Tinder are doing this - allow it to fund to whatever level it's popular enough to fund to), and really move their model into the big-leagues and start working in larger volumes. You don't get to work as fashion forward in this model, but this isn't really the Gustin thing. This would also give them time to nail the fits in single fabrics, get samples from many different vendors, and really move their business model forward.

The point is, Gustin seems to be doing pretty well, but they're changing the brand with recent releases, and alienating their "classic-styling" customer base. If they want to shed the workwear aesthetic, that's fine, it just seems silly to do it at the expense of the current brand, especially if they're not going to resolve the problems already popping up in the current model. I believe in their vision, and I believe in the kickstarter model. I also believe that it's a good idea to diversify the brand, it just seems like doing it at the expense of the current funding stream seems like a bad idea from here on the sidelines. 

I agree with what you're saying exo.

The only thing I would say is that I don't feel Gustin was ever a "workwear" company. At least no more than JCrew is.

To me Gustin seems to be aiming more in the JCrew direction. Less a niche company with a "story" and more a company that wants to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Nothing wrong with that but, as someone posted recently, for the original supporters it is probably a lot like that punk band that starts in tiny venues selling homemade CDs, blows up, and is suddenly touring stadiums.

I don't want to be argumentative, so I hope that's the vein this is interpreted in, but they're releasing strongly divisive designs by picking up even the most conservative of engineered garments patterns. JCrew meets that goal by keeping very traditional design, where Gustin is missing it with stylized CPO and workshirt designs. I think there is a definite disconnect between them and their early customers, and the way their response looks, they liken it to the same punk band analogy over at Gustin hq. They're obviously fine, funding new stuff and stumbling through sizing issues -- but it's making them look disposable, and far detached from the buy it for life, hard-wearing construction they have built themselves on.

Now, this could be interpreted as an inadvertent direction the company ended up defaulting into by the fan-base they attracted, but I think they enjoyed the success it seems to have brought over the last year. I wish them luck with what looks like a new direction, but to say they were always there while fans were somewhere else doesn't really fit.

exo, I hear you. I guess in my mind Gustin always envisioned itself in the JCrew mould (i.e., a brand producing whatever appeals to the widest audience) vs, say, the Iron Heart mould (i.e., a specific niche). To me, it feels like they picked raw denim and used it as a springboard. Again, I see nothing wrong with that.

The thing is, JCrew, at least to me (and I think to you), has a personality in that it keeps close to traditional designs. Like wils, I feel that Gustin is veering a bit into H&M territory with their new designs. Live and let live, but I thought the new CPO was terrible and far too close to the Engineered Garments version for comfort. What bugged me the most was this: if a Chinese company created that CPO, people would have been all over them as a cheap rip-off. Yet, Gustin had an awful lot of 'Likes' on their Instagram posts. Bit of a double-standard.

While a lot of us denim aficionados have been early adopters to G, they have also done a great job at appealing to everyone who has jumped onto the trends this year (raw denim, workshirts, the various jackets) have all seen greater market appeal over the recent G run. It's a lot of those folks who have been providing likes, buying goods and probably don't spend nearly the time we do discussing the offerings, denims, or sizing issues. To those folks, it's just a retailer. I'd venture to guess many see the EG copying as well, but figure if it's a brand most people don't know (Gustin), that the style of the jacket could pass as something more refined than H&M or even JCrew. 

Guys, guys, guys...he[Gustin]'s just not that into you. That said I still want more colors of oxfords because I haven't seen anything that's both cheaper and better than the three I have so far.

Have you tried getting a refund?