Bret Schnitker, Emily Lane, Brad Seese
January 7, 2025
Brad Seese 00:01
We have a vision for how we can simplify the health and wellness through adding ingredients into a textile product integrated next to the skin and things you would wear, base layers or other items, and it releases into the skin of the wear over a time, released period of time these cosmetic benefits that we're looking for.
Emily Lane 00:35
Welcome to Clothing Coulture, a fashion industry podcast at the intersection of technology and innovation. I'm Emily Lane
Bret Schnitker 00:42
and I'm Bret Schnitker. We speak with experts and disruptors who are moving the industry forward and discuss solutions to real industry challenges.
Emily Lane 00:51
Clothing Coulture is produced by Stars Design Group, a global design and production house with more than 30 years of experience.
Emily Lane 01:01
Welcome back to another episode of Clothing Coulture. We're continuing our trend of having conversations with people that we think are mad scientists of our industry. I'm so excited to welcome our next guest that we had the opportunity to meet during a very surprising trip to North Carolina. We went and toured a couple innovation centers, one in Conover, North Carolina, called Manufacturing Solution Center, that houses Clothing 2.0 which Bradley Seese is the
Bret Schnitker 01:34
C2 if you want to be cool,
Emily Lane 01:36
yes, that's right, yes. And Brad is the the VP of Manufacturing in this company, and oh my gosh, when we sat down and had a conversation, it was just so inspiring. Because, well, for one Bret, you were kind of matched in, I would say, friber geek. It was awesome. So Brad, welcome to our conversation today.
Brad Seese 02:07
Glad to be here.
Emily Lane 02:08
Yeah. So one of the things that when we sat down and talked, of course, we got some insight into your your the company that you're working with, Clothing 2.0 that has developed an incredible technology that has controlled releases of medications, vitamins, treatments, through fashion garments, and that that is an incredible technology in itself. But we were also just equally impressed by you, you know, this person that's been in the industry for a long time that has this knowledge like that I have never witnessed with regards to an understanding of fibers and technology and how that all works together and how it can shape a new future. So I want to begin today by just talking about how did you decide that this was your passion.
Bret Schnitker 03:03
Especially in a world that kind of, I mean, or in the United States that kind of abdicated manufacturing in the 80s, right? There's, there's not a lot of of of that happening in America. And so you had to make a pretty unique choice. It is.
Brad Seese 03:17
It is and thank you for asking my class, my education, my classic education is in a political science. So I'm non traditional entry into the market, political science, public administration, with a concentration or study of public policy in that
Bret Schnitker 03:34
sets you up for yarn counts, construction, of course,
Brad Seese 03:39
Out of the box. Thinking started out of the box. Let's say that the the study in that area was really at the time, was about how, how public agencies could better make themselves look like private businesses for efficiency and effectiveness. And so my training actually was, how could we go into in government? How could an individual go into government and then try to fine tune and focus for better cost efficiencies and better outcomes with a focus on return on investment and so starting in that background saying
Bret Schnitker 04:12
government doesn't really think that way, traditionally, it's just a shocking
Brad Seese 04:16
So in when I left school, I ended my first job was actually in first full time job was in manufacturing in a textile mill. And so I found my way into a textile mill. We have lots in this area where a lot more at that time. And it was an interesting juxtaposition to be able to be in the private sector and looking at things from a public perspective. And so I took a lot of those same teachings and into the business world, into into a mill. I started out pulling spools off of machine and in a large, conventional covering operation that just where you cover the spandex or the rubber yarns. And going, going into the mill and literally pulling spools off, or doffing yarn off of the machines, and basically starting at the the ground floor, you know, ear plugs in, ear muffs on loud work environment, busting your knuckles and and so that was my beginning and starting. I got to see the machines and the yarn directly coming off that would run for for days and sometimes weeks,
Bret Schnitker 05:25
Wild. And how did this transition to complex conversations in terms of yarn technology?
Brad Seese 05:36
Another great question. So I found myself noticing things in manufacturing, you know, as managers at heart do, noticing things in manufacturing that didn't make sense to me, I would see things in the business that seemed to go against better efficiency. I'd see things that led to, you know, dirty hands, touching dirty yarn, andcleaning yarn or cleaning fabric sometimes means wasting it. And, you know, and this is a different day and time than it used to be, and we want to reduce the amount of waste. And so there were things I called out in the mill, and two great managers and plant managers supervisors were listening to things that I was saying about replacing wheel bearings and doff buggies so that they would roll better and you'd have less damaged goods and lots of different right grab at right at the roots of the deal, figuring out what it was that could help us be more efficient and get more end product, which gave me an opportunity, people were willing to listen to me about other things then, and so I worked in many different departments, conventional covering and texturizing, winding, spooling, those are all different aspects of the textile yarn manufacturing phase. And the company that I was with was was large, and gave me an opportunity to somewhat self management training in each of the departments. And I got to see, to some degree, where they did things right, but then also from the outside looking in, where they were doing things wrong. And I felt like there could be more efficiencies. And to their credit, they listened. That's one that was right.
Bret Schnitker 07:02
My history is learning from those that do. I mean, there is formal education, but I think that today, outside of countries that really focus on manufacturing as a normal process of day, you know, India, China, places that manufacturing is really occurring in apparel. Education in the US still lacks on the technical aspects you really learn, you know, I learned, especially worldwide, by those that did, the ones that were in the lines, the ones that were spinning and knitting and weaving and dying and, you know, applying chemicals and solutions and just asking a ton of questions. It took my education was in a four year normal textile college education was probably more like 25 years ongoing. But it's just, it always fascinates me that I find someone and there, and it's there's not many that you come across that when you have these conversations, not only are those conversations kind of an on an equal level when it comes to technology or, you know, detail technical aspects of fibers and yarn and fabrics, but even elevates them. And I really had that experience when I met you in Carolina, like, wow, this guy really kind of gets it. And so, you know, as you, as you've progressed through your career, and you landed atClothing 2.0, C2 if you're cool and cool, What, What, What charged you about this particular organization?
Brad Seese 08:36
I saw, I had the opportunity to see innovation in the industry, where we were able to to add an air covering process in a one step operation, modifying existing machines, so taking machines that have been around for 20 years and modifying them to introduce spandex and air covering, which allowed us to have a leveraged opportunity in the US to be much more cost effective, and that allowed us to stay competitive in a global market where importing of air covered goods, meaning covered spandex, was possible elsewhere with lower labor costs, but then shipping it in, into the US was was a cost in and of itself. So we were able to modify some machines at a company I was with and be able to bring in this, this air covering process, and actually maintain that market much longer in the US, and be be competitive in that same vein, we saw, well, there's a value add proposition here. If you're able to bring value into a text style, you can compete on a level completely different than other commodities in the market. And so the company I was with, we were able to do what we called surface modify yarns. And we began with performance attributes, such as moisture movement, wicking faster drying times, things that could make a textile feel softer or smoother or even cooler to the touch. And then carried that same idea on through to friction reduction yarns. Some yarns with specific properties, whether it be a set of silver or a copper or even a zinc additive added to the yarn itself. Each of those bringing different properties through testing could be odor control or other aspects like that. And so that allowed a traditional yarn manufacturer here in the United States to continue and compete much longer, into a segment where offshore and global markets were bringing in commodity and huge volumes by container loads. And in quite a few cases, we were actually shipping these high value yarns offshore into Europe, South America, and ultimately we sent for a major brand yarn into China, which was very surprising to them, that they were importing yarn from North Carolina into China to compete in a major brand that you would see in retail stores, big box stores here in the US. Those performance attributes to the yarns led me to say what else could be done. And I found Clothing 2.0 and the vision they have for adding even more intricate additives to a yarn, things that could be cosmetic enhancement, cosmetic actives, things that I think will extend the viability of the domestic textile market, many, many more years into the future.
Bret Schnitker 11:17
Yeah, definitely. The footprint of America is technology, right? We've, we are, at least, currently still leaders in technology. We're able to transmit that technology offshore Apple, Microsoft, I'll name, there's a ton of them. But you know that technology is what keeps America alive, the melting pot of America, the combination, the freedom to think, you know all of those things are the wonderful parts of America that we export to the world, and technology is one of those assets. The thing that's so exciting is that we do see this resurgence in the opportunity for more business in America, in textiles, as we embrace technology in textile and that and the innovation centers. Again, I can't underplay the excitement that I got with the innovation center that we were at. There's another one that's being opened in Gastonia next year. In Gastonia, and the ability for people to go in and cook their own recipes and create their own outcomes and experiment and create technology and the footprint that has been built in terms of campuses there to support that innovation is super exciting for those of you that haven't been I really urge to go visit at least the current one that's open and the new one that will be open in Gastonia next year. And then, you know, when you look at this technology, aspect. And you look at C2 right now, it's another layer of technology, because we talk really about, you mentioned the wicking, the quote, cooling, the, you know, the all the way, yeah, all the way to the NASA, which is kind of that, you know, temperature balancing, technology regulation, thermal regulation, exactly. And, you know, that's kind of really cool in sci fi. But when we're talking about whatC2 is messing about with a little bit, you know, I first jumped on it thinking I was Mr.Brilliant, right? You're going to correct me, but I was like, Oh, this is micro encapsulation. It's been for years. I got an exclamation mark after exclamation mark that it wasn't right. He has already been down the path, and it's, it's kind of ev-, a heavy evolution from that. Why don't you talk about what C2 technology is, without giving away the secret sauce, but, you know, informing people what, what's going on at C2 and
Emily Lane 13:34
how it's not micro encapsulation
Bret Schnitker 13:36
Yeah, to date, they're not. They're not baking in Xanax into garments, which would be great for a lot of people like us in America today, but they are moving down thepath with cosmeceuticals, I guess is kind of the term and some other, you know, pain relieving things
Emily Lane 13:52
healthware
Bret Schnitker 13:53
that Healthware. Why don't you, Why don't you fill in our listeners on that a little bit?
Brad Seese 13:59
Sure, I'd be happy to the the idea behind the company, and the vision is that we would simplify health and wellness for the average consumer. And the way we go about it is a micro encapsulation to quickly say is, is very small, little particles that are placed or salted into a yarn or a fiber, and then it goes into or even a fabric. They tend to have shorter life cycles. They work but on items that want to have wash durability and dimensional stability, which is what most of the things we wear are going to be, are going to be when things we want to have go through more than three or four wash cycles. So micro encapsulation works well for heavy items that we're going to use and just wash a couple times, but we have a vision for how we can simplify the health and wellness through adding ingredients into a textile product integrated next to the skin and things you would wear, base layers or other items, and it releases into the skin of the wear over a time, released period of time these cosmetic benefits that were. Looking for, like we said, we're working with cosmetic things right now or over the counter items, but we're able to essentially coat a textile fiber and a yarn with an active ingredient, and then that active ingredient, that yarn is knit into a textile, good, a whole knit garment, or it could be a fabric, and that garment is something that can be worn, and as you're wearing it, so rather than a lotion or cream, where you would rub it on the skin and then have re application cycles every three hours or so, which can be a problem for compliance. And most doctors will say compliance is our biggest problem. And of course, definitely have that as
Bret Schnitker 15:37
I resemble that remark. Yeah, that's right, yeah.
Brad Seese 15:39
So in this you could actually put it, put an item on and wear it. The consumer could put a sleeve on, or an ankle sock or something that they wear, and over the entire duration of time you're wearing it, maybe, say, 10 hours period of time. So we're talking about people who work in the healthcare profession and on their feet all day long, a construction worker, the server at a restaurant. So we're talking about everyday people to just slip on an item and while they're wearing it, it will release, through a time, release a measured dosage of whatever the active ingredient is. And it could be a cosmetic, it could be an over the counter, and long term, we see it could be measured release of other medical items. And so this is really an evolution, evolutionary product that will have benefit for many years to come. We're starting out kind of small. People understand pain relief, they think they do, and there's lots of different products that work for that. So we started there, but there's lots of other things we're bringing on board. Could be supplements. There are people who want different supplements. Could be sleep aids. It's a big segment, when you really think about it, whether it goes into pillow cases or gloves that you wear at night while you're asleep to improve the look and appearance of your of your hands. It's the benefit of this patented technology is that it's washed durable. Really sets it apart from everything else. That's where the patents are around.
Bret Schnitker 16:58
I mean, most of the time, that's always the challenge with any of these substrates. You know, how long they they you know, some of them, you go in the wash and they're gone immediately. You know, how do you molecularly bond these to these substrates? And you've really done something amazing here.
Brad Seese 17:13
Thank you. It's unique, custom equipment. It's all been designed for our application. We designed it ourselves. It's proprietary, state of the art equipment. We designed a lot of aspects into how it works better with the operator that runs the machine. It's really important to us. The Manufacturing Solution Center that you mentioned earlier, that's kind of an asset to be able to draw on in this region. But it's important to us that we create jobs the next generation for the workforce. These are jobs that people want, and they're a pseudo healthcare, textile related industry. So people who are building these products here love their jobs. And that was intentional, is we wanted to change the view of what manufacturing needs to look like, and if we want to keep people interested in jobs that people want to go into in the US. We need to make manufacturing look like things that people want to go do, things they want to take their kids to, and things they want to show in the STEM programs through schools. You know, good lighting, clean work spaces, good documentation. Computers. Barbecue.
Bret Schnitker 18:18
Barbecue.
Brad Seese 18:19
Great Barbecue. Exactly.
Bret Schnitker 18:23
Wonderful.
Bret Schnitker 18:32
What particular additives are you putting into your substrate today?
Brad Seese 18:38
So we have several different pain relievers, things that we work with, a Capsaicin, which is the active ingredient that's in hot peppers that make things like the Carolina Reaper so hot top to the touch. Well, that active ingredient has
Bret Schnitker 18:51
Shes getting very excited. She loves heat,
Brad Seese 18:53
and so that's an active ingredient that's been shown to help with pain relief for a lot of users. Then there's Menthol. A lot of people are familiar with Menthol, Arnica Vitamin E, just many, many different active ingredients that are out there that are that are on the shelf, but may be used in a supplement form through something that somebody takes or that they rub onto their skin. And we're not about inventing the new active ingredient. But we are about inventing the process of application, the textile based delivery of those active ingredients for the wear for a long time in the future. And we think that there could be lots of the future is completely unknown and still to be grown by the people who are imagining it now. But we're creating the process, the mode of operation, to get that to those consumers. So we want people talking about energy supplements. You know, there's no reason that an energy supplement couldn't, couldn't be integrated into one of these.
Bret Schnitker 19:52
I could wear a Red Bull advertising for Red Bull. Yeah, at least. My right arm, my left arm is really awake
Brad Seese 20:02
An energy drink of some kind that people drink and then wear the logo on a shirt or a hat. It would be really cool is someday the shirt itself had said had those active ingredients, right?
Bret Schnitker 20:12
For sure, absolutely. So questions, yeah, hey, let's do it. I'm on board. One of the big questions that people have is scalability. They'd say, Oh, this is a great idea, you know, you know how big, you know, I've got a great I love the idea. I want to come in and pick up some C2 fabrics. I want to incorporate that into my, my mix in general, you know, is there a limitation today for C2 What are you kind of looking at? What's the scalable future? Where, Where's it going today?
Brad Seese 20:45
Well, I'd like to stay humble, but the reason that I came on board here, really was the scalability aspect of it is so many of the the white papers in the academia of the world and, and I don't want to name any institutions, but there are programs that things are figured out, but then they can't really make it to manufacturing level.
Bret Schnitker 21:07
A ton of organizations in that respect, yeah,
Brad Seese 21:10
exactly, yeah. So. And the joke in the industry used to be is, I made this great thing and, you know, and when somebody asked about it, they're like, well, we make inches of it a week. We make feet and yards a week. How many yards of it do you need? And, and for the most part, in the textile and garment and apparel and and those end juices, we're talking pounds, container loads, cases, pounds cases, container loads, yeah, yeah. So coming on board with this team here. That was the real aspect, is that I had worked in environments where we were producing, you know, 1000s and 1000s of pounds for major denim producers and and apparel makers and brands that people know and daily go to the store and buy. I've worked with some of those in providing the raw material yarns, in some cases, with performance attributes. So coming on board here, it was important for us for scalability, that we're building these things and we can grow it, each of the items, each of the stations that's built, the suppliers that we're working with, all of that has been built from the beginning, to be able to continue to scale for multiple different active ingredients, eventually multiple different substrates, and so that we can, we can really work our way out into a much larger market, whether that be in footwear, socks and gloves, and it's all of these products we're talking about. We're talking about things that are next to the skin for aware but for most of us, that's a significant percentage of the apparel we have, or even the medical devices. You know, it's a broad market.
Emily Lane 22:43
How do you go about testing the the effectiveness of of your development?
Brad Seese 22:49
Awesome. I'm glad you asked we have,
Bret Schnitker 22:51
well, it's a very geeky answer.
Brad Seese 22:52
I am a yarn geek. The one of the aspects of the company is that we focus from the very beginning on, we say 33% of this company is on the science side. And so we have a manufacturing and then the science aspects of it. And from the very beginning, at each level of scale, we have done that, we scale up manufacturing, we scale up the science side to match that. And so 1/3 of everything is the science side of the company. In fact, we have two hplcs and a gas Chroma graph in our in our science lab, right here next to the manufacturing area.
Emily Lane 23:27
What are those things?
Bret Schnitker 23:30
They sound really cool.
Brad Seese 23:32
It's like what you see on CSI whenever they're doing the crime investigations. And so they have this, the equipment that's high performance, like chromatography and and basically, you take the the garment, the yarn, the garment, and you take sections of it out, and then you put it into a device with some solvents and rinse it through. I'm not even going to cover the side, side of it, but, and when you pass light through it, it gives you a graph of what the those elements are, that are there. And you can measure from that and see that the active ingredient you want and the signifiers that are next to it are at the level you want them to be. And we do wash testing here home laundering for dimensional stability using the laundering detergents that people would use at home. And we take the items and wash them, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, wash cycles and test at each of those levels to make sure that the curve of dosage or release of the active ingredient matches our desired amount. Again, what separates it from, say, a micro encapsulation in the marketplace, as
Bret Schnitker 24:33
I was so corrected
Brad Seese 24:38
Not every active ingredient can be measured with with high performance like chromatography. Some just the nature of them have to be measured in a different way. And that's where the gas Chroma graph comes in. Is basically it digests it, it burns it up, digests it, and then measures the off gassing, I'll say the smoke, but it measures the smoke for what the elements are and certain of our active ingredients. That's what you need to use and and depending on what it is we're going after you that you have to figure out which of those devices you need. But once again, you do the same thing. You're measuring it through before wash cycles, after wash cycles, and measuring how much of the dosage is still there. Because really, you need to be able to set up, whether it be a cosmetic or something else. You need to know how much are you getting, how long is it there, versus a cream or a lotion or a spray or even a pill that some organ in your body has to, has to digest? I mean, if you think about some of the things we take, we're taking a pill to make our toe quit hurting, you know, how many bodily how many organs have to process it so your toe quits hurting? And couldn't you just put a stock on, you know?
Bret Schnitker 25:40
And we all wear clothing, except for a few beaches, I know,
Brad Seese 25:46
right, the oldest profession we're clothing everyone.
Bret Schnitker 25:49
That's right. Yes,
Emily Lane 25:50
that's true. Bret, you've long said that technology is where America will stand in bringing apparel, you know, back to a core industry.
Bret Schnitker 26:02
It's value add. It's exactly what Bradley said. You know, it's gonna be tough to compete on basics in America, even with technology based upon other foreign countries. But I think apparel is an elevated game. Today. People want more out of their apparel. I say in some of my presentations, it's not enough that a garment feels good or fits good anymore. It's that they wanted to do something, even though sometimes they don't know what that something is, but they wanted to do something. And I think that is our opportunity. And it's really exciting that C2 is jumping in, and what I think is sort of a science fiction front of, well, I mean, I just think about what the next five or 10 years is going to bring your organization, and what that's going to do for American consumers. It's just it is. It is such an intelligent solution for somebody.
Brad Seese 26:50
We see it. We see it. If it's okay. We in 2013 2014 smartphones were just making their way into the scene, and a smartphone we had, we held a cell phone, and a cell phone made phone calls, and then it made recordings, and then it made videos, and then it was a stopwatch, and then it was a walkie talkie, and then it was a video recorder and no a compass.
Bret Schnitker 27:11
My phone does everything, but they can receive phone calls.
Brad Seese 27:14
Shouldn't our clothing? Yes, shouldn't our clothing be just as diverse and just as smart, everything that we wear should be able to have these different attributes. You know, there should be an app for that, for each of the different clothing items we have and wear daily. And this is what we're about. We're about adding the
Bret Schnitker 27:32
answer phone calls because my phone doesn't do it anymore.
Brad Seese 27:36
No voicemails,
Bret Schnitker 27:37
no voicemails, yeah. So
Emily Lane 27:39
we understand the landscape of Clothing 2.0 obviously, being a tech based company, you're always thinking about the future and ongoing evolution. You know, what is the big picture? Dream 10 years from now?
Brad Seese 27:56
Big Picture and dream 10 years from now, we believe that there are major players in the market who have access to new active ingredients, whether they've they've invented them themselves, or they've done it in a pill and put a lot of marketing behind it, there's no reason for when their patent runs out for it in a pill form, they shouldn't carry that same same knowledge and technology through into things that people can wear. And in saying that there are pills, we can think of that people that had five years on the market, everybody knows the name of them. They can describe them by their color, and they know what it is. But why couldn't they carry that those companies carry that same investment one step further into the to the consumer, beyond the pill into the things that we wear and and, you know, there are people who have issues with compliance, and then there's people, for example, who who have trouble with memory. I know the founder of our company had a family member that with dementia and taking the correct pills daily, getting the prescriptions right and but, but he still put his socks on every day. It's just a basic function of what we do. And so when we're talking about the vision of the company, you know, 5, 10, 15 years down the road is we see this carrying beyond cosmetics, beyond over the counter, and then eventually into an area where there could be RX down the road. It's not where we're at today, but we're building the model out with sophistication, with the diligence, so that we set the benchmark, so that we can be that company that's able to partner up with a with a major company, towards a prescriptions eventually, where you think
Bret Schnitker 29:35
life changing that would be. I mean, you're right. I mean having that delivery system in a way that people always put on clothes, but it keeps that consistent for those people that are impaired so much, it's just, I don't know, I'm so excited about that future for you guys,
Brad Seese 29:53
most, most of the most of the things that we take the biggest challenge for them is in time release. Yeah, whether it be a pill or a liquid that we take or a nasal spray, the challenge is time release. That's really where they struggle when they bring things to market. And the way this product is built into the clothing, it's built for time release. It's built for the long, smooth curve of release of the active ingredients. So we believe it'll be not just an easier product. It's going to be a better product, because for individuals to be able to wear and release over a long period of time, the entire day you wear it, or it could be the whole night, while you're sleeping, you know, put it in your PJs. I mean, that's
Bret Schnitker 30:36
a little bit of the secret sauce, but my brain sits there and kind of reels a little bit thinking, oh my god, it actually releases the substrate over time. And how do you control that from a fiber? But that is the genius that is C2 for sure.
Brad Seese 30:50
Love it. That's the fun part.
Emily Lane 30:53
It is the fun part. Fun part. Well, thank you so much, Bradley for joining us in this conversation. It's wonderful to have talks with people who are just as passionate as we are in this space, and looking forward to seeing the ongoing evolution that Clothing 2.0 brings to the industry. If
Bret Schnitker 31:10
people want to reach out and touch, C2 and and have C2 touch them, what? How do they get a hold of you?
Emily Lane 31:17
Like, literally,
Bret Schnitker 31:18
yeah. Literally, this is a touch and feel right? Yeah, clothing
Brad Seese 31:21
Clothing 2the number two.com so if you'll just go online to the interwebs and and go to clothing spelled out two the number two.com and reach out to us, we'd love to have the next ideas, the great visions for the future are still out there. We're creating the operating system for it to work in clothing. But there are still great ideas we want to hear about and build into the future, and we're open to many, many opportunities. I appreciate this time to be able to talk about what we're doing a lot of times, just explaining how something works really helps a lot of people. And so appreciate that time
Bret Schnitker 31:22
say hi to the team for us
Brad Seese 32:01
absolutely will.
Emily Lane 32:02
if you're interested in touring the some of those innovation centers that we were talking about earlier, the one that C2 is based out of is the Manufacturing Solutions Center in Conover, North Carolina. And then there's another one in development that's going to open this spring of 2025 in Gastonia, The Fiber Innovation Center. Extraordinary things happening out of both of these locations. Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to subscribe to stay apprised of upcoming episodes of Clothing Coulture.
Bret Schnitker 32:02
Thank you.
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