Why We're Changing Where We Make Our Clothes — And Why That's Worth Telling You
For the past several years, M23 has been produced in two places: Berlin, and a small workshop in western Poland, close enough to the German border that I could drive there and back in an afternoon.
I did that often. Not because I had to — I could have just waited for the delivery. But when your production is two hours away, you start to realize that picking up the pieces yourself is one of the better decisions you can make as a founder. You see things. You notice things. You stop being a name on an order form and become a person who actually shows up.
That's how I got to know Urszula — Ulla, as everyone called her — and her team.
What I Found There
The workshop was small. Most of the women on the floor had been working with Ulla for fifteen, sometimes twenty years. In an industry where turnover is treated as a given, that kind of continuity feels almost radical.
There was a rhythm to the place that you only get when people have been doing something together for a long time. Nobody was rushing. Nobody was cutting corners. The work was good.
Ulla ran it that way. That's not a management philosophy. That's just who she was.
Why It's Changing
Ulla is retiring. Her team — many of whom have spent the better part of their working lives in that workshop — are retiring with her.
There's also an honest financial reality: production costs in Poland had risen to the point where the margin no longer made sense for a small label like M23. I'm not going to dress that up. Both things are true at the same time — a woman I respect enormously is closing a chapter, and the numbers had already started to tell the same story.
From June 2026, the first pieces will be produced in Bulgaria. Berlin remains Berlin.
How We Found the New Place
Not through an agency. Not through a trade fair.
A friend of mine is married to a Bulgarian woman, whose best friend — Mariya — had studied and worked in Berlin for years as an architect before moving back to Bulgaria. When she heard I was looking for a new production, she offered to help. Thanks to her network, we found a workshop that felt right: a bit larger than Ulla's, more employees, more capacity. Not a family operation in the same sense — but Mariya lives thirty minutes away and handles samples and quality checks herself. That personal layer matters to me. It's how I've always worked.
What Stays the Same
The materials don't change. Certified organic cotton. Recycled nylon. Those aren't marketing words — they're the actual fibers, from suppliers we've worked with and verified.
What I learned from Ulla — that the quality of a garment is inseparable from the conditions in which it's made — that goes with me to Bulgaria.
Why Tell You Any of This
Because you're buying something we made, and you deserve to know where it came from.
A lot of brands would have swapped suppliers quietly, updated the website copy, and moved on. I'm not interested in that. M23 is small enough that every decision is visible if you look closely — and I'd rather you hear it from me than notice it later and wonder.
Ulla's workshop made good clothes. That's worth saying out loud before the chapter closes.
M23 is produced in Berlin and Bulgaria. All pieces are made from certified organic cotton and recycled nylon.