Improvements Can Always Be Made
It all started with a trip to Italy
“Improvements can always be made”. At ABSOLUTE 360, our philosophy is to strive for perfection – we are always looking for the “perfect” garment for our customers.
This passion for innovation and high quality is the driving force behind our company. We take nothing for granted, constantly researching and challenging our manufacturers in Italy to provide you with unparalleled clothing and apparel.
Just after Christmas we flew out to Italy to meet with our manufacturers to discuss various ideas for new products, and, specifically to look at some prototypes from the Body Support range inspired by customer feedback from the past 6 months.
When we landed in Bologna we were met with not only glorious sunshine (a welcome change from the UK!) but also by a couple of gorgeous Lamborghini, one of which was a striking yellow Lamborghini Diablo.
The drive north towards Verona was very pleasant; clear blue sky and gorgeous sunshine - the scenery in the distance was “picture postcard perfect” with the Alps capped in snow.
So, weather aside, why fly all the way to Italy apart from the obvious reasons? And, what was the outcome of our meetings?
Future products development
First, we needed to discuss some future product development - we needed to see, touch and try alterations to prototype designs. Did the improvements we had meticulously planned, discussed and designed translate to our high standards?
For obvious reasons we can’t disclose yet what new products are to be launched, but our customers won’t have to wait long to find out. What we can disclose is that we have been redesigning some products from the body support range to improve them even more. These products include the ankle support, knee support, elbow support and back support ranges.
Here is a short list of some of the improvements in the new designs:
- the percentage of far infrared emitting fibre has been increased across all products,
- the specific “wave” pattern which provides dynamic compression to the area has been redefined to also improve the elimination of sweat and moisture away from the body (the so called “wicking” effect), making the support even more comfortable to wear,
- the ankle support has been made slightly longer to cover more of the foot and ankle/lower leg,
- the elbow support and knee support have been reshaped to further match the shape of the human arm and leg,
- finally, some changes have been made to the construction of all of these garments to make sure they stay in place for longer.
The elbow support and knee support are the two garments which present the most design challenges especially when one of our goals is to make sure our supports stay in place for long periods of time. We know that despite all the promises made by other manufacturers that their support won’t move during vigorous activity, we haven’t come across any support that stays in place 100% of the time. After a while they all slip and need repositioning. Gravity, the contraction of muscles, force, and movement exercised by the limb, and so on all have an impact on support stability. It’s just the nature of it. Yet, improvements can be made and that’s exactly what we are doing here at ABSOLUTE 360.
Trialling the knee support
I have personally been trialling the knee support. I have been wearing a size medium on one leg and a size large on the other leg. Testing the correct size is important and by wearing both sizes in tandem I can make direct comparisons. So far I have worn them constantly for a week, 24/7. They only came off when I took a shower. We are still at the prototype stage but I can definitely say that all of the ideas we asked our manufacturers to implement are working. They are very comfortable (sometimes I even forgot I had them on!), there’s no sign of sweat, they stay in place for longer and even when they slightly slip the support doesn’t pinch the back of the knee. So, needless to say, this is definitely a thumbs up from me! But of course, I am not the only tester and we are still waiting to collate all the feedback from our trials before we move to full production of the new range.
In closing, thanks for reading our blog post. As you can tell, we are very excited to be updating our designs with your feedback in mind. You can always expect unparalleled products from us; we are constantly researching and challenging ourselves so you can be sure that, ABSOLUTE 360 is synonymous with high quality.