Designing Our Bestselling Half Zip

DESIGNING OUR BEST-SELLING HALF ZIP

This was the very first product I ever designed and sold. It was created as a top to be functional for sport/activewear etc but also stylish enough to wear for every day.

I get asked a lot where the name RHEIGN came from.  Initially the logo was to go along the bottom of the top, which was a bit of a bold move! I was trying to think of a name for the company that had a nice sound nice but also look good on the garment.   For those who have purchased a half zip will know that we add the Rheign logo to the back of the collar and this is always in a contrast colour.  This often allows the design to incopororate a bright colour without making the whole top unappealing – for example we have a new half zip for 2024 which is a lovely bluebell colour with a lime/yellow contrast.  If we made the whole half zip lime/yellow it makes it much harder to sell in quantity but the pop of colour on a more popular blue makes the top much more commercially viable.

THE VERY FIRST COLOURS BACK IN 2013
The half zip was originally designed with the plan to release in, white black lime green and blue, but when coming to place the bulk order I decided to change the final colours to black, navy, purple and  coral.  For the same reason mentioned above, I felt it was going be a bit more commercial and the lime green maybe wasn’t the best choice to start with!

THE VERY FIRST COLOURS BACK IN 2013
The half zip was originally designed with the plan to release in, white black lime green and blue, but when coming to place the bulk order I decided to change the final colours to black, navy, purple and  coral.  For the same reason mentioned above, I felt it was going be a bit more commercial and the lime green maybe wasn’t the best choice to start with!

THE DESIGN
This might be a slightly boring point but it’s essential to the unique design! The half zip has always been designed with a seam across the front of the chest, just under the bust. This is the reason it’s more flattering to wear. If you notice most half sip style tops you buy, whether it’s from the big brands or small, all tend to be made from one piece of fabric at the front. This is probably down to cost but it just doesn’t fit anywhere near as nice so we use a three panel construction at the front which does cost quite a bit more –  more to cut more to stitch together but in turn fit is much much nicer.  It results in a non clingy garment that fits across the chest and across the tummy in a flattering style .

COLOURS
We’ve released the half zips in lots of colours over the past 10 years, some we keep consistent – navy is a good one and pink always sells well and then we bring in different patterns each year.  This year we have a new floral design which you can see below and we have a bluebell with a yellow/lime contrast.   We’ve dropped the black for this year as it doesn’t do so well for us.  We find it changes year and year and advantage of being a small company is that we can introduce prints and patterns that some of the larger companies maybe wouldn’t go for, and this gives us a point of difference between us and some of the bigger companies.

The new range is due to land with us end of Feb. So for anybody interested keep watching and make sure and sign up to our mailing list, We’ll be sending emails when we have them in stock.   As mentioned before, we have some new patterns and prints for this year and again, it’s the same great quality fabric, same design, same fit, just something nice bright for the Spring/Summer!