The story behind our best-selling spring/summer item for women.
To trace the history of Flylow’s best-selling summer item ever, you have to go back a few years. Our wintertime bibs already had a loyal following, so introducing an all-season overall for women seemed like a pretty solid idea.
“I remember being a ski bum just out of college and when Flylow came out with the Foxy Bib, it was the only thing people were talking about. They revolutionized bibs for women,” says Tory Hayssen, a former Flylow designer who came up with the initial design for the women’s Life Bib, which debuted in spring 2020. “So, it became a literal translation: Why can’t we have that same vision for the summer?”
The design team decided to go with the same fabric that was being used in the Hot Tub Short, a pair of versatile summertime shorts for men that struck the perfect balance of durability, stretch, comfort, and breathability. They designed the women’s bibs to be as comfortable and good looking as a one-piece romper but as functional as quick-drying active pants.
“There really weren’t many active overalls out there,” says Hayssen. “Most were cotton or rigid, and they didn’t have that built-for-active-pursuits story.”
Early product samples of the bib were sent out to athletes for testing. The bibs were worn for everything from car camping to gardening to mountain biking. “I biked in it, I climbed in it, I slept in it,” says Hayssen. “It’s literally done everything.”
When it launched in 2020, the Life Bib was an overnight success. It sold 150 units the first couple of days on Flylow’s website and all 600 units were sold out by the end of the month. The first Instagram post about the bib got close to 100 comments, which is a lot for us.
“We knew it would be an experiment,” says Dan Abrams, Flylow cofounder and president. “It was a wild card, doing a summer overall for women with a technical fabric. With the Life Bib, we saw something we’d never seen before: A product that launched for its first time and went viral. We moved through all of the inventory in under four weeks. If you were a woman who wore Flylow, you needed a Life Bib.”
With that, Flylow started to build out the Life collection for women for spring 2021: the Life Bib would return, of course (with more inventory this time), but we also added the Life Short, the High-Waisted Life Short, and the Life Jumper, an overall in shorts form. All are made from the same durable, stretchy, do-everything fabric that goes from water to trail to town without a pause.
“We tripled the order on the Life Bib and added it to the fall 2021 collection with new colors,” Abrams says. “We’re doing multiple production runs a year on the Life Bib and that’s the first product we’ve made that’s going into production for two different seasons with unique colors for each season.”
Now, we’re happy to see everyone from urban farmers to mountain bikers hitting gap jumps sporting the Life Bib. Adds Abrams, “Find me another overall that does that.”
