Thread Count

Thread Count is the show for anyone who wants to know what a collection actually costs to make — and who gets paid along the way. Each episode pulls back the runway to look at the business underneath it: sourcing and manufacturing, retail margins, the financing rounds that keep young labels afloat, and the deals that rarely make it into a magazine profile. Hosted as a mix of interviews and reported segments, it's built for listeners who care as much about supply chains as silhouettes.

A recent episode traced the acquisition of Nairobi knitwear label Sisi Textiles by a South African retail group, unpacking what changed — and what didn't — once a founder-run atelier started reporting to a board. Another looked at the quiet shift of production volume toward Accra and Kumasi, where a wave of mid-sized factories has started competing directly with longtime hubs in Casablanca and Cairo for wholesale orders from European buyers.

Thread Count publishes twice a month and leans on data as much as anecdote — expect the occasional spreadsheet walked through in real time. If Pattern Language is about how something is made and The Front Row Podcast is about who's making it, Thread Count is about what it actually takes to keep the lights on.