ANCIENT HISTORY (1993 - 1995)
What we now call our ancient history was a time of soaking up experience across all disciplines from development, production, distribution, export and import, and wholesale to shop management. There were good times and successes, but also a lot of new problems, especially regarding our roles as employers and managers and when it came to financing our rapidly expanding company. During this period, practically everyone in the field, from producers to sellers, was lacking funding, which didn’t make things any easier. The amount of receivables with individual traders was suicidal, as were the liabilities with the suppliers. However, thanks to the large demand during the peak season, we somehow always managed to settle all our debts and keep going.
Our ancient history began in 1993 when the word ‘outdoor’ became a part of Czech vocabulary and was used to refer to everything we loved. It perfectly captured all our hobbies. Our customers, sellers, suppliers, colleagues, competitors and other companions felt the same way, and today we comprise a unique community.
That same year, Czechoslovakia split apart. Our Slovak colleagues suddenly became our export partners, and in the Czech Republic the first shops specialising in mountain climbing and outdoor equipment started to appear, and their number increased exponentially.
Right from the start, WARMPEACE’s first bricks and mortar shop was located next to the workshop in Prague, moving to Charles de Gaulle Street in 1992, where we sewed and sold our goods up until 1998. Our shop in Charles de Gaulle Street didn't only sell our products, but everything you can find in a typical outdoor shop in the Czech Republic or abroad. Some of the imported goods were also included in our wholesale range for many years (Polish ALPINUS, American socks from FOX RIVER, hats from SCHUESSLER, water filters from PUR, Swedish TRANGIA…).
Up until the middle of the nineties, WARMPEACE had two sewing factories with over 80 employees and sold products in the Czech Republic, as well as a few abroad. It was this export in particular that helped us rapidly improve our quality, product selection and work processes due to the tips and tricks people shared with us and the requirements we had to live up to on the Western markets. We adopted their two-season system and their long-term preparations for each season.
There is no discipline in the field of clothes production that we have not tried. Besides the traditional down technology, we also learned how to work with fleece, knitted fabrics, knitwear, fabric membranes, including the famous Gore-Tex and Windstopper, as well as neoprene, polyester fleece, and others; we got the hang of computerised machine embroidery and even figured out how to work with leather. All of this took place in a single, universal factory and was the result of trial and error and DIY. Looking back, we had the naive attitude of an amateur, with the right amount of enthusiasm and a lenient unsaturated market. The fact that we didn’t have the foggiest idea what we were getting ourselves into served us well as it led to us founding and expanding Warmpeace. Experience and knowledge came later.