WYLD1S

We’re incredibly excited to welcome Zack Fischer to the WYLD1 Defenders of the Green team. Zack is the only Q school two-time medalist after winning the 2021 final stage. This win gives him fully exempt status for the 2022 Korn Ferry tour.   

“It was important to me to team up with a leading-edge apparel brand committed to making a positive impact on the future of golf and our planet,” Fischer stated. “I absolutely love the high level of performance and comfort WYLD1 products deliver using planet-friendly materials. Through our partnership I hope to help raise awareness in the golf community on sustainable apparel options”.  

“Zack is a very talented golfer and we share great confidence in him achieving high levels of success on the tour”, WYLD1 CEO Ed Wunsch said. “More importantly he is a great person who exemplifies our brand ethos of caring for the wellbeing of people and our planet.”   

Fischer resides in Benton, AR with his wife, Kaitlin, and daughter.  Fischer, a 2011 graduate of University of Texas-Arlington, posted six top-10s on the Korn Ferry tour between 2014-2017 and advanced to the Korn Ferry Finals in 2015 and 2016. Zack was also recently named Korn Ferry Tour Top 5 Players to Watch in 2022.

“I've worked incredibly hard on my golf game over the past few years to return to elite play,” said Fischer. “Improvements in my mental game have helped provide me with a high level of confidence in tournament play. I thank my wife for supporting me through the ups and downs of golf. I am in the best place I have been in my career, and very excited for this upcoming season and for my daughter to watch me on tour.”  

Zack has been sporting WYLD1 gear during his Q school and preparation for the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour.  We asked Zack about his WYLD1 favorites and top picks?    

“During the Q school final stage we hit a patch of cooler weather. The WYLD1 Beyond quarter zip, Limitless pants and Clutch socks were amazing.  The lightweight warmth combined with ample stretch provided all day comfort and unrestricted swing mobility allowing me to focus on my game,” stated Fisher.  “I have been wearing the Pure polos, Limitless shorts and All Out hats for training. WYLD1 delivered on all of the key apparel performance elements I look for in warmer conditions including soft touch, breathability, stretch, wicking, and Lightweight. I had never worn Graphene and Merino wool fabrics and I can now say I am a believer in their thermo regulating and wicking benefits in both hot and cool weather.”  

COOLER WEATHER

BEYOND QTR ZIP

World's first graphene powered quarter zip. Versatile lightweight pullover with amplified moisture wicking, thermo regulation and stretch that keeps you warm and comfortable on the move.

SHOP

LIMITLESS PANTS

Our signature performance pants technically crafted to elevate your movement and handle transitioning temperatures. Featuring our innovative Dynamic Motion fabric with 4-way stretch, breathability, soft feel, and wicking performance.

SHOP

Stay focused on the game knowing these uncompromising socks will keep your feet comfortable thanks to a lightweight, wicking and thermo regulating innovative graphene fabric. Featuring targeted ergonomic cushioning and seamless toe closure.

SHOP

WARMER WEATHER

PURE POLO

Ultra-soft, breathable, anti-odor and enhanced thermo regulating polos that keep you warm when its cool and cool when its warm. Crafted from a remarkable blend of luxurious Merino wool and innovative Innergy nylon.

SHOP

LIMITLESS SHORTS

World's first graphene powered quarter zip. Versatile lightweight pullover with amplified moisture wicking, thermo regulation and stretch that keeps you warm and comfortable on the move.  

SHOP

CLUTCH LOW SOCKS

Long days on the links and everyday life demand socks with uncompromising performance and comfort. Thoughtfully designed with innovative soft and lightweight fabric and intelligent 360 comfort features that make a big difference on your feet.

SHOP

Join us in following Zack’s progress on the Korn Ferry tour through our social media channels and website journals. And keep an eye out for new WYLD1 products that Zack will be wearing on the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour.    

Enter The Arena is an ongoing journal series capturing the WYLD1 brand journey. We invite you to join us and hope you enjoy the ride as much as we have!

CHAPTER 2: THE MAKING OF A SHIRT

We left off with how we established our brand foundation and began the transition into the product design and development phase.

The idea of developing an apparel line seems simple. The reality is more complex once you get into the details of developing proprietary designs, materials, fit and processes. The apparel development eco-system often involves multiple independent parties with different specialties who reside in various areas of the world. Identifying parties that align with your brand values and needs is one challenge. Another is being able to create a new partnership as a startup brand without significant capital and established networks. When you throw in a strict requirement of sustainability, the partnership field rapidly shrinks and the competition gets stiff.

We smartly decided to find a product partner with strong and successful startup experience, one who had already formed an established global vertical apparel development and logistics network; had known expertise in product innovation and sustainability; and could accelerate our product development process. This led us to The S Group based out of Portland, owned and led by Gary Peck. Mr. Peck is a seasoned apparel leader who helped establish and build successful apparel divisions with Nike and Adidas. After leaving Adidas in 2000, Mr. Peck formed The S Group to help brands better connect design DNA to brand story, implement product innovation and build effective product eco-systems.  

The S Group has been an invaluable partner. They quickly embraced our brand objectives and position, and helped further refine our brand DNA with a powerful connection to product. Below are the WYLD1 Guiding Principles we established with The S Group:

• Innovative and purposeful performance features and benefits 
• Planet-friendly rooted design, materials, production and packaging
• World's finest materials technically blended using innovative fabric science
• Clean, timeless designs with sharp modern details
• High-quality construction engineered with technical precision

Under these Guiding Principles we developed our initial design direction, including product design concepts and the color and graphic treatments seen below.

Click here to read more on our complete design philosophy.

Another key area we spent ample time on with The S Group was establishing our +Impact Lab, where we focused on developing innovative sustainable performance blends that used the latest in fabric science, and could outperform synthetic materials and reduce environmental impact.  

Sportswear and Activewear are dominated by man made synthetic materials (primarily poly petroleum-derived fabrics from the 1950s) with many negative environmental impacts, including higher levels of CO2 output, multiple centuries lifespan and high micro-plastic shedding. These synthetic materials are preferred by many apparel brands because they are durable and provide good performance benefits but are also low-cost, readily available and can be cost-effectively planned and managed.  

As mentioned in our previous chapter, we felt that offering planet-friendly materials capable of delivering performance equal or better to synthetics was critical to steering consumer behavior in favor of sustainable apparel options. So, we hand selected unique sustainable materials with special performance properties that could be technically blended with cutting-edge fabric science partners. The result of these efforts are four innovative sustainable performance fabrics we are incorporating into all of our products. 

Devine Graphene™
	A performance blend of graphene and spandex. Graphene is one of the thinnest, strongest and lightest materials known; and a fantastic conductor of heat at room temperature delivering amplified thermal and moisture wicking benefits.
Heavenly Merino™
	A remarkable blend of merino wool and Innergy nylon. Merino is an elite performance with thermal and moisture wicking benefits. Innergy is functionalized with bio minerals that boost peripheral microcirculation and thermo comfort levels.
Sublime Solotex™
	A technical blend of Solotex and continuous filament recycled polyester with 4 way machine stretch. Solotex has a unique plant-derived molecular fiber structure with soft touch, stretch, lightweight, and moisture wicking abilities.
Angelic Pima™
	An innovative blend of natural SeaCell™, Pima cotton and spandex. SeaCell™ uses a patented process that embeds seaweed within the cotton fiber enhancing comfort, and providing anti-odor and skin enrichment benefits.

We were making strong progress on the brand and product front. The next steps were tightening up all the product components to begin prototyping and wear testing, finalizing production partners, and preparing the brand and business for launch. 

This brings us back to another quote from Enter The Arena Chapter 1: "Starting a new brand isn't for the faint of heart. Passion is critical, as you are certain to face an endless stream of challenges through every stage and dimension, known and unknown."

We were making great progress, until a large unforeseeable challenge emerged...the global Pandemic.  

Stay tuned for Enter The Arena Chapter 3 to learn  how the next stage of the WYLD1 brand journey unfolded. Until then, get out and play.

-The WYLD1 Team

Enter The Arena is an ongoing journal series capturing the WYLD1 brand journey. We invite you to join us and hope you enjoy the ride as much as we have!

CHAPTER 1: A SHIRT WITH BIG AMBITIONS

Starting a new brand isn't for the faint of heart. Passion is critical, as you are certain to face an endless stream of challenges through every stage and dimension, known and unknown.  

As often is the case with bold challenges, the WYLD1 brand concept was hatched over a few libations after finishing a round of golf on a trip in Eastern Washington (trip picture below).  

During the discussion, my friends and I realized that the golf brands we wear were a sea of sameness, failing to provide meaningful innovation and disconnected from our beliefs and active way of life. This led us to take a deep dive into the golf and apparel industry to better understand the consumers, dynamics, landscape and opportunities. A couple of interesting areas immediately stood out:

• Sustainability: Golf brands were not authentically adopting holistic sustainability approaches. A few large sport brands and smaller golf brands were dabbling in sustainability with a small number of offerings labeled as "sustainable or eco-friendly", but these only embraced small amounts of planet friendly materials. And if any sustainable goals were stated,  they were still many years out into the future. This was very surprising to us, considering the close connection (not to mention dependency) golf has to the environment, and that other apparel categories had already made transformational shifts to more comprehensive sustainability approaches.    
• Innovation & Performance: The golf industry is slow moving. Synthetic materials (primarily poly petroleum-derived fabrics from the 1950s) are abundant and all tout the same performance benefits. New innovative fabric performance is scant, with product differentiation primarily coming through garment colors, graphics and prints.  We were confident that through innovative fabric science, sustainable materials with unique and diverse properties could be technically blended to provide superior performance benefits with a lower environment footprint.  
• Modernization: Most apparel categories have successfully shifted to align with modern consumer demands for premium performance and athleisure wear; sustainability; stronger fashion and street fusion; and digital-first approaches. Golf, and in some cases sustainable clothing, were simply lagging. We knew that if we could establish a brand foundation that connected with modern consumer desires, we would be advantageously positioned to be embraced by the next generation of golfers and consumers.  
• "Lifestyle": A lot of golf brands are centered around a type of "lifestyle" rather than a greater purpose or betterment of self, society and our planet. While this type of lifestyle positioning has historically proven to connect with consumers, its appeal has been diminishing. Today’s consumers, including us, seek brands with authenticity, meaningfulness and the ambition to drive to improvement through innovation.   

These research findings gave us the confidence to "Enter The Arena" as a new, differentiated golf and modern apparel brand with a focus on purpose and performance innovation through the lens of sustainability.  

Then came the fun part,  naming the brand. Brand naming is never easy, in part because everyone has different opinions and subjective perspectives and nobody is right or wrong. There are successful brand names that break every golden rule, and with the increasing difficulty to secure domains and trademarks, alternative brand names are becoming more prevalent. We used an objective brand name rating scale that included weighted scores for meaning, intrigue, memorability, simplicity, and being emotive. 

Many rounds later, WYLD1 emerged as the winner.  Why WYLD1, and what does it mean?  

• WILD: living in a state of nature
• WILD: going beyond conventional bounds
• 1: leader
• Y: because we are different

After solidifying our brand name, we moved onto developing our brand architecture. It started by defining a simple objective: to prove you no longer need to compromise between performance and sustainability. We felt that to be successful in golf, activewear or lifestyle apparel, we needed to demonstrate to consumers who were wearing synthetic performance materials that sustainable materials can deliver equal or superior performance with the added benefit of helping to ensure a healthy planet for outdoor sports and recreation. A shirt with big ambitions! Having a simple objective leads to a stronger brand position that consumers can clearly understand and embrace.

Next we needed to develop a simple brand statement that would encompass our brand's purpose: 

WYLD1 pioneers solutions to help protect our planet and ensure golf's future. 

This was followed by defining our values, brand frameworks and establishing an aligning style identity.  

While refining our brand framework, we worked on a variety of logo iterations that we felt aesthetically would connect to our brand position and be a compelling design element. The WYLD1 bird was a unanimous winner because it represented a link to nature, agility, freedom from boundaries, and golf.  

Those familiar with startups know you are always parallel pathing multiple dimensions of the business. At this point we were already deep into research on how best to approach designing and developing innovative sustainable performance apparel. We had a vision. A name. And a logo.

We were on our way.

Stay tuned for Enter The Arena part 2 to learn more about the next chapter of the WYLD1 brand journey. Until then, get out and play.

-The WYLD1 Team

When creating the first line for a new brand its important to have a clear vision on how the brands DNA and objectives will come to life through the product design, function and production.

WYLD1™ GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• Innovative and purposeful performance features and benefits 
• Sustainable rooted design, materials, production and packaging
• World's finest materials technically blended using innovative fabric science
• Clean timeless designs with sharp modern details
• High-quality construction engineered with ergonomic precision

Working closely with our valued product partner The S Group these foundational product elements led to a strong start for our initial design inspiration and black and white design concepts (shown below).  

THOUGHTFUL DESIGNS

We also paid close attention during the design phase to our markers, patterns, grain lines and cut seams to minimize waste that occurs during production.  Although these may seem like trivial detail they are actually very important considering 9 million metric tons of waste are generated in global textile production annually.  Reducing production waste by 5-10% can make a sizable positive impact.

COLORS & GRAPHICS

Colors and graphics are a fun step in the early design phase.  The WYLD1 color pallet was inspired by distinct nature derived colors that aligned with emerging color trends, and key brand positioning and style elements.  These colors were then applied to merchandising boards to provide a holistic line visuals and better understand how primary and pop colors will be utilized with individual styles.  Our spring green signature brand color was selected as a fun and identifiable color pop that is showcased in details and notions across the line.  Below are a few examples of where we landed on color theme and merchandising boards.  

Graphic and pattern treatments provide the ability to elevate the line with expressive energy pops.  We choose to primarily use creative graphic and pattern applications for our limited release items that we flow in throughout the season to keep our line fresh and interesting.  For our first season we focused on amplifying several key branding elements that were uniquely placed on our products to make a distinct and uplifting statement.  Below are several product with graphics from our spring and summer merchandising drop boards.  

PLANET FIRST MATERIALS

While working through solidifying our design, colors and graphics we simultaneously were identifying and narrowing down our material selections.  Materials are important for any garment but critical for WYLD1 since our goal is to create a new standard called Supernatural where you no longer needed to compromise between elite performance and sustainability.  This required technical innovations in sustainable fabric science to achieve premium performance and sustainable objectives.  Below are key performance benefits we sought from our materials:

• Comfort and soft touch
• Enhanced stretch
• Thermal regulation 
• Breathability
• Moisture management
• Lightweight
• Quick drying
• Odor resistant
• UPF protection

We conducted rigorous testing of a wide variety of innovative planet-friendly blends of renewable, regenerative, and natural materials.  We narrowed down our focus to the following four technical material blendsthat delivered elite performance benefits.

Divine Graphene™
	A performance blend of graphene and spandex. Graphene is one of the thinnest, strongest and lightest materials known; and a fantastic conductor of heat at room temperature delivering amplified thermal and moisture wicking benefits.
Heavenly Merino™
	A remarkable blend of merino wool and Innergy nylon. Merino is an elite performance with thermal and moisture wicking benefits. Innergy is functionalized with bio minerals that boost peripheral microcirculation and thermo comfort levels.
Subline SoloTex™
	A technical blend of Solotex and continuous filament recycled polyester with 4 way machine stretch. Solotex has a unique plant-derived molecular fiber structure with soft touch, stretch, lightweight, and moisture wicking abilities.
Angelic Pima™
	An innovative blend of natural SeaCell™, Pima cotton and spandex. SeaCell™ uses a patented process that embeds seaweed within the cotton fiber enhancing comfort, and providing anti-odor and skin enrichment benefits.

PROTOTYPES

Next, we moved onto prototyping our offerings with sourcing and factory partners that have strong sustainable and responsible practices.  We conducted 3+ rounds of prototyping for each product with fitting and wear testing occurring at each stage to ensure it achieved our high Supernatural Performance™ standards.  Below is the final production snapshot of our All Day Polo. 

RESPONSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Developing gear to minimize environmental footprint that maintains high performance and quality requirements is an ever evolving complex challenge.  We are aware that everything we do has an impact on the environment, people and animals and there is no perfect solution.  We were meticulous in putting together our Go Scratch™ first approach and spent considerable time looking at nearly every detail of the product and the production process.  Below are a few of the sustainable and responsible solutions we employ:

• Low waste designs
• High proportions of renewable, regenerative, and natural materials
• Partner responsibility certification requirements
• Durable construction and timeless designs for longevity
• Chemical management guidelines
• Carbon offsets
• Fair and safe work environment policies
• Recycled and biodegradable packaging

3-2-1 LAUNCH

We kicked off the initial product briefing at the end of 2019 knowing this was a product line with big ambitions that would take determination to build.  We are now incredible pumped to launch the first WYLD1 Supernatural Performance™ collection.  We are also equal excited to team up with you to Defend the Green.  A healthy environment is a necessity for golfs future. Climate change is a huge threat to golf courses everywhere.  Through conscious choices and education we can make a difference in helping our planet and golf thrive.

TOMORROW

WYLD1 is a brand pioneering solutions to help the future of our planet and golf. As we all know change is constant and brands that embrace this philosophy and continually evolve through innovation are best positioned to meet future consumer desires and further reduce our environment footprint.  This is why during our initial product line development we quickly established the WYLD1 +IMPACT Lab to ensure there is always a relentless drive on identifying, building and launching new innovative Supernatural Performance™ gear and advancing our sustainable solutions. The +IMPACT Lab already has multiple level up projects in the works we are eager to share with you.  Stay Connected! 

Congrats to WYLD1 Q in winning the Boulder Country Club Championships.  Way to grind out a big W!

#1!	Champion golfer of the year	Sweet taste of victory