Too good to be true? Designer clothes with a 30-year guarantee
A young fashion designer in London wants to fill your closet with clothes that last, and he's backing them up with a unique promise. As CBS' Jonathan Vigliotti reports, Tom Cridland's creations come with a 30-year guarantee.
"With my brand, you can really tell that it's a labor of love for me," said Cridland.
The so-called 30-year T-shirts and sweatshirts are a labor of love that, as the name suggests, come with a long term commitment. Cridland, 24, promises that his threads, which sell from $40 to $60, will survive three decades of wear and tear or he will replace them.
When asked if a customer came to him in 30 years with a ripped sweatshirt, Cridland promised, "I'll fix it. And with pleasure."
It's Cridland's personal revolution against what he calls poorly made fast fashion. "High Street retailers are making clothing not only to fall apart, but actually systematically, so it will wear out after just a year or two," he said, referring to large fast fashion brands often found on Main Street and shopping malls.
The new brand also includes a selection of pants, all carefully hand made in Portugal.
Theodore Simeonov, a customer, is buying into the longevity promise. "The 30-year-old shirt, I can weave a lot of memories into this fabric and those memories will stay with me."
For a fickle industry where fashion and its maker can be in one day and out the other, Cridland promises that even if his company doesn't survive 30 years, his guarantee will. "I'm a man of my word!" he told Vigliotti.
Cridland does the majority of his business online and through word of mouth.
The 30-year-sweatshirt campaign is donating 10 percent of each order to deki.org.uk, a charity group that helps people living in poverty start their own businesses.