BIG INTERVIEW
avid Millar is known for an illustrious road racing career which saw him reach the pinnacle of the sport with multiple Tour de France stage wins. But when he called time on an 18-year career, he wanted to start a brand that was more than just a name - and CHPT3 was born. “When we came in, it was very much a collaborative brand with Castelli,” explained Millar. “Instead of taking the route of being a retired pro and doing capsule lines with my name, I wanted to do something else. “As a retired athlete, no matter how good you are, unless you’re a Michael Jordan or something, you’re a depreciating asset, and over time your name just gets replaced by the next big name.
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“So I thought, instead of using my name, we could actually build the brand and turn that into an appreciating asset while my name was depreciating.”
CHPT3 is synonymous with Millar and remains driven by his vision and taste, but it has become recognisable on its own, largely thanks to collaborations with Castelli, Brooks, Brompton Factor, POC and Fizik. “That was always the strategy for me,” said Millar. “I wanted it to be something that became its own entity.” In 2019, CHPT3 mutually agreed with Castelli that it would
go off to manufacture its own products. “The pandemic hit and it turned into an absolute nightmare,” said Millar. “We ended up creating our first collection completely
remote.”
“Then that became a doom loop because there were all the supply chain issues and it just couldn’t have been a more challenging time to create our own products.” Alongside Covid, CHPT3 as a British brand has had to deal with the implications of Brexit. This led to Millar, who now resides in Girona, Spain, to establish a hub on the continent. Millar said: “We went from a UK business that could service the world, to a UK business that services the UK, and a Spanish and EU business that services the EU and the rest of the world.
“That then sucked resources as well, because we had to
create a new fulfilment centre and kind of create a new business over here, which wasn’t easy. “All of those things have made it extremely challenging.” Many businesses, irrespective of size, have described this period as the ‘perfect storm’ and Millar agrees it was a steep learning curve.
“But now we’re in a very good position in regards to how we can service our customers,” Millar explained. “We’ve got a really good operation now and we kind of learned through trial and error.”
SUSTAINABILITY Throughout the last four years, many boutique brands
www.bikebiz.com
appeared on social media as factories offered to do small runs of product.
“It just rapidly became a very oversaturated market and very much a race to the bottom,” said Millar. “What I’ve noticed over the last 10 to 15 years is that
cycling apparel products are so good, the technology gets better.
“Before, you needed different apparel for different occasions and often you needed to replace it relatively often. Now, you don’t need that much to satisfy your needs.” Although all businesses need repeat custom to be financially viable, Millar didn’t want CHPT3 to be releasing new colourways and designs every week. “One of the things that I’ve been very adamant about is making a sustainable business,” said Millar. “If you’re going to use recycled fabrics, and then you’re constantly pumping out products, it sort of defeats the purpose of trying to limit waste and be as circular as we can.” The route to manufacturing the recently debuted Elysée lifestyle collection was certainly not an easy one. As a brand that had always used organic cotton, Millar was
keen for CHPT3 to go a step further and manufacture the collection fully on British shores. The organic cotton was knitted and dyed sustainably in
Leicester before needing to be cut and sewn elsewhere. This was not as easy as first thought. “It went to four factories in the UK before it could be sewn,” said Millar. “It was knitted, shipped to Blackburn, shipped to Scotland where it was cut but they couldn’t sew it so it was shipped down to London and one place couldn’t do it so it went to another. So it ended up taking two and a half to three years. That’s a journey.”
With performance products, there is the added layer of complexity of shaving weight and maintaining certain technical capabilities.
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