Being the best means deeply listening to what people have to say about your products. It's the only way we can grow and keep you coming back as we strive to produce the best quality gear.
This fall, we put out the call to get thoughts on what we’re doing right and where we could be better. We received over 100 responses covering each product and went through every single survey submission to look for trends of commentary and great ideas for how to improve our line for 2023.
It’s important to us that you know we listen. This post summarizes the key changes we’ve implemented on a go-forward, spring 2023 basis.
CHANGES WE MADE AT A HIGH LEVEL
Note: Read the tables later in this post to understand why we made these changes and for more details on specific measurement changes.
Contoured Cut
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McCarren Singlet
- Covering a little more of the chest to fix the puckering people experience
- Reduced overall length in order to avoid bunching
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Prospect Tee
- Reduced the taper that happens around the waist to minimize the risk of feeling too tight in that area specifically
- Fixed a tightness issue some X-Small wearers had with the arm hole
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Riverside Race Crop (will be called V3)
- Dropped the neckline by a small amount
- Widened the bottom hem to reduce risk of riding up and feeling too tight
- Lengthened the crop for size Large and above
- Adjustments to coverage across the chest and by the armpit to cover a wider range of sports bras
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Sunset Loose Crop
- No changes to this item. 100% of responders loved the item as is. Sometimes you just need to let things be!
Straight Cut
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McCarren Singlet (Original Cut)
- Slightly reduced the width of the size Medium
- Slightly reduced the overall length on most sizes for one of our cuts (but not all)
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Palisades Regular Long Sleeve
- Reduced the tapered effect around the bicep/forearm
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OCA Elite Summer Long Sleeve
- For many, the garment was a bit smaller than the regular long sleeve even though dimensionally it is the same. So to mirror the feel of the long sleeve, we lengthened the sleeves and body length and widened the garment ½ chest/circumference.
CHANGES IN DETAIL
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Contoured Cut McCarren Singlet |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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Some individuals had puckering at the armholes of the singlet, around the chest. This sometimes results in more of the sports bra showing than desired. |
This is a really challenging issue. It doesn’t happen for everyone but it may happen if you have a larger chest. Some brands address this issue by adding piping along the edge that goes around your arm. Bakline has intentionally NOT implemented this because our method allows the singlet to move more easily and significantly reduces the risk of chafing. Instead, we chose to widen the singlet across the chest and draw a straighter line toward the armpit as compared to the current curvature. That shaping is causing the gapping some wearers experience. We believe this adjustment will be beneficial across all sizes and maintains our arm hole construction that is specifically chosen to reduce chafing. |
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The singlet is a pinch too long or bunches up at the waist. |
We reduced the length of the singlet by 1cm across all sizes. To account for some individuals with longer torsos, we kept this adjustment to a workable minimum, but also please see the next adjustment. |
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People who self identify as having a long torso said they had challenges in finding the right fit. |
Bakline will be introducing a “long” version of some of our singlets in the most popular colors. For example, we will offer a “small” singlet with the length of the medium, and a “medium” with the length of a large. Expect to see this from us later this year! |
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Contoured Cut Prospect Tees |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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The waist cuts in a bit too much for some individuals which causes them to want to size up. |
When we looked at our size charts and product templates, we saw a little more taper around the waist in the tee than our other items. We have corrected this by increasing this part of the tee so that it will be a little looser around the stomach across all sizes. No one likes when something is too tight across the belly. So this should make the tee fit for a wider range of athletes. |
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Some individuals who wore X-Small tees often found that the hole around the arm and shoulder was too tight and didn’t facilitate great movement. |
We have modified the arm hole of the X-Small tee to have the same opening as the Small to better accommodate different types of shoulders and arm sizes. |
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Contoured Cut Riverside Race Crop |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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The neckline for some was a little too high. |
We intentionally did not create a product with too low of a neck line. The goal was to provide enough space for race bibs and to provide runners with both comfort and support. That said, we felt we could accommodate this feedback by lowering the neckline by 1.5cm across all sizes which should maintain coverage while increasing comfort around the neck. |
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The bottom of the garment can slide or move. We also heard that the garment was a little too tight around the rib cage for some even though it was good everywhere else. |
This garment is meant to be form fitting as a race crop. It’s about 1 ounce in weight and can be worn by itself or go over your sports bra if you usually wear one. Every person’s body is different but what we were hearing led us to believe that a widening of the race crop at the bottom hem slightly would reduce the risk of the crop riding up, reduce the risk of a broken bottom hem stitch, and decrease the risk that it feels too tight. Our adjustments here were focused on improving the experience for those that had some challenges while maintaining what people love about it. In short, we opened up the bottom hem (not the chest width) by 2cm all around for XS-M and by 4cm for sizes large and above. |
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Those who wore L and above often indicated that the garment was not long enough. |
A major part of Bakline’s product development is specifically seeking out feedback for size L, XL and XXL. We have the ability to create specific pattern modifications to ensure that comfort is maintained for each size. Our cuts do not assume that a size XL person is not just a larger size small, for example. We increased the overall crop length by 2cm for size L and above. |
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Some sports bras are a little more visible under the crop than is ideal. |
This was mostly an aesthetic and not functional comment and we wanted to ensure our adjustment didn’t compromise the function of the crop which is most often used in a racing environment. We increased the coverage across the chest by adding about 2cm to each side (not the bust measurement of the garment itself, just the part that covers the chest. |
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Straight Cut McCarren Singlets |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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We consistently heard from those who wore size medium that the garment was a little larger than expected. |
We reduced the ½ width of the garment (measurement from left to right, near the armpit when laid flat) by 1cm. This results in 2cm less in overall circumference. |
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The singlet was ok in overall length but could be shortened by about an inch. |
For some of our cuts (not all) the singlet length was long. Combined with the fabric we usually use for those cuts which can drape a little longer given its stretch, we adjusted the body length to be 2.5cm (1 inch) shorter for size small and medium and 1.5cm shorter for all other sizes. This primarily only impacted the McCarren Original but not the Pro or Elite cuts which are slightly different. |
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People who self identify as having a long torso said they had challenges in finding the right fit. |
Bakline is going to be introducing a “long” version of some of our singlets in the most popular colors. For example, we will offer a “small” singlet but with the length of the medium. And a “medium” with the length of a large. Expect to see this from us later this year! |
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Straight Cut Palisades Long Sleeves |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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We often heard that people liked that the sleeve of our long sleeve was a little tighter than other brands, but were interested in something with just a pinch more space. |
Like a Goldilocks approach, we’ve opened up the forearm arm by reducing the tapered effect. This should still keep the garment closer to your body (to keep you warm) while being more forgiving to those with larger arms. |
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Straight Cut OCA Elite Summer Long Sleeves |
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What we heard |
What we did to address it |
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It’s too short. |
We designed the long sleeve with the same extremely lightweight fabric used for the elite singlets. We found that the combination of cut and drape of the fabric resulted in the OCA’s being slightly shorter than needed for some athletes, especially those with longer torsos. We have adjusted the summer long sleeve to be longer in overall length by 2cm across all sizes. |
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It is a little too light up top for some of the larger sizes. |
Similar to the comment above, those in the larger sizes, need a little more room in the OCA to compensate for slightly less stretch in the Elite fabric as compared to our regular long sleeve. To ensure a similar fit and movement for larger sizes, the overall circumference of the garment is 4cm wider for L, and for XL and XXL it is 6cm. |
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The sleeve length is a little short. |
The same root cause of the two previous issues also affected the sleeves. So we’ve increased the sleeve length across all sizes. |
