Zielwear to be Orange County Accelerator’s First Newburgh Campus Tenant

Homepage of Zielwear’s website

Zielwear Orange County Accelerator’s first tenant in Newburgh

On Friday, June 15th The Orange County Accelerator announced from its New Windsor campus a plan to open its third Accelerator campus, this time in Newburgh, N.Y.

Simultaneously, The Accelerator also announced landing its first tenant for the new, 605 Broadway, Newburgh, N.Y. location.

The tenant is textile startup Zielwear. Their website is zielwear.com

On demand manufacturing done by Zielwear

Zielwear’s specialty is on-demand, active wear design and manufacturing. They make clothing for brands and influencers who sell private label apparel.

Because they understand the financial realities of small to mid-sized brands and entrepreneurs, Zielwear makes apparel for its clients without demanding a minimum order quantity.

Instead of time to market taking months, the company gets product to clients much more quickly. It usually delivers merchandise in less than 10 days.

Zielwear’s founder and CEO, Marlene Vogelaar, presented to the Board of the Orange County I.D.A., the Accelerator’s funding partner, on Thursday, June 14th.

In her presentation, Vogelaar zeroed in on Ziel’s value proposition:

• the ability to produce fitness apparel with speed
• increased flexibility
• in small batches
• smaller inventories
• locally sourced materials
• made in the USA

Vogelaar knows the importance digital media, especially social channels, play when vying for applause from millennials.

She is targeting health industry influencers and health-based business owners who must be on or ahead of trend, and also sensitive to millennial social concerns.

Entrepreneurs in this space want and need to be able to respond quickly to shifting consumer tastes in a socially conscious way.

This is why on-demand fashion manufacturing is getting attention. Due to its controls, it eliminates a lot of waste. Due to its local production, it lessons manufacturing’s carbon footprint.

Ziel makes it possible for small business owners to extend their brand by creating socially aware, fashion forward, branded fitness apparel.

A unique, online e-commerce platform

The unique, online Zielwear e-commerce platform makes it possible for influencers and health club owners, as well as food brands, to sell clothing made in small batches, with controlled inventory, on a platform that makes it easy to stock up-to-the minute styles.

Zielwear’s e-commerce platform is frictionless: it provides a completely turnkey service, offering clients’ design, production, inventory management, and on-line and off-line sales help.

After Vogelaar’s compelling presentation, The IDA committed to spending $300,000 to renovate the 14,000-square-foot textile factory located at 605 Broadway.

The former factory becomes the newest Accelerator campus, and for Newburgh is symbolic as it has a history of having been one of the City of Newburgh’s longest operating textile production facilities.

Coats were made on premise as recently as the late 1990’s by the Giordano/Bloomer families who had been involved in textile production in Newburgh since the start of the 20th century, when Newburgh lead the nation as a textile manufacturing hub.

Jobs to Newburgh

Zielwear is currently manufacturing apparel in the Bronx, New York and Newark. It’s location in Newburgh is expected to be a driver for textile jobs in the Hudson Valley region. The equipment Zielwear will use is provided to The Accelerator by T-SEC, The Accelerator’s frequent funding partner. T-SEC funded the sewing machines and Tukatech CAD Patternmaking platform, both critical to Zielwear’s startup success.

Prior to founding Zielwear in 2015, Vogelaar Co-Founded Shapeways, the world’s leading online 3D printing marketplace and community.