I had a strange childhood in the sense that we had almost no money, but my mom had an obsession with quality fabrics, especially bedding. Organic cotton, high thread-count sheets, natural fibers…beautiful fabrics that lasted years and years – and many washings. And thus the idea that “if you buy the best, you only cry once” was learned at the knee.
Oiselle is my own fabric obsession brought to life. And it definitely has a set of behaviors. The first and most important is the sense of touch. How does it feel? How does it drape? What is it like next to the skin? And then there’s the way it looks. Texture? Pattern? Heathering? And its weight. Light and airy? Dense and protective? And ultimately, its run buddy quotient. What are the technical specs? Does it keep up? Move sweat? Chafe? Does it have the strength and durability to not only run a marathon, but endure a marathon of washings?
Last year, after 4 years of being almost exclusively focused on performance fabrics (quick drying, fast moving, water resisting, air breathing), I had the pleasure of looking at poly/cotton fleece for our first lifestyle-y sweatshirt. It seemed like a simple task. After all, I’d been working with tech fabrics. Textiles that “had a job.” Lifestyle should be easy, right? But it wasn’t. It was a puzzle. Too dense, too light, too easy to pill, too flat, too boring…whatever, after reviewing hundreds of fabrics, I just couldn’t find the perfect fleece.
At the end of a long search, we decided that the best solution was to create our own. We worked with our factory, and the fabric mill, to design something proprietary to Oiselle . A poly/cotton fleece that is both durable and beautifully heathered (on the surface) as well as unbelievably dense and soft (on the interior). And when we were done, mes amis, we called it French Fleece.
Hello world! I’m so glad the time has finally come to tell you about it. From the Trials Hoodie to the Boatneck, Peacenik and Time Out Sweat Pants, I hope you will enjoy French Fleece as much as we do. Like a warm blanket of goodness…like a hug from us to you…just like Mom used to give.
