FROM WOODSTOCK TO THE WORLD

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR HIGH-PERFORMANCE CIOVITA JERSEY WAS MADE BY A SEAMSTRESS IN CAPE TOWN? WE WENT BEHIND THE SCENES - AND DISCOVERED A SOUTH AFRICAN SUCCESS STORY

- JON MINSTER

“Louis Botha,” he says, introducing himself. “No, you don’t have to stand to attention.”

Botha is CIOVITA’s factory manager. He wears white running shoes and a blue golf shirt. Apparently he does the highest number of steps per day of anybody in the company.

From his elevated office, which he returns to sporadically, he has a view over the entire floor: seven rows of production, where seamstresses feed lycra into sewing machines and hydraulic overlockers that click and hiss. At the end of each line, a quality controller takes each finished garment and checks it against a template. Chamois pads are folded out, hems are tugged, zips are pulled and pockets are rifled through.

Botha has worked with apparel for 40 years, mostly producing technical garments. “Two and half years ago, we were in a container,” he says with a wry smile. “We’re here now; but we’re already at capacity.”

The story of CIOVITA is a story of hope in a city that once had a booming textile industry. When Andrew Gold, Freddie Enslin and Karlien Robertson founded the company in 2016, South Africans were a bit confused by the name at first. What was this fancy new European brand?

“The brand was inspired by the Italian passion for cycling, and by classic European designs,” says Neethling. “At the time, CIOVITA needed to distinguish itself, since locally manufactured cycling kit didn’t instil much confidence. Seven years later, and we’re now at a point where we’re proving that we can rival the best in the world.”