Where our garments come from

A Gantoise sweater is a Stanley/Stella garment in certified organic cotton, printed in Ghent, and made after your order. Each of those choices has a consequence: on what you wear, on the lead time, and on what happens to the money.

Which garment do we use?

We use four models from the Brussels brand Stanley/Stella:

• Changer 2.0 — the unisex cut, 350 g/m²
• Alma — the women's cut, 300 g/m²
• Mini Cruiser and Mini Changer — the children's hoodie and sweater, 300 g/m²

Those figures mean something. A promotional t-shirt sits around 150 g/m²; at 350 you are on a thick fleece that keeps its shape and does not go see-through after one winter.

The cotton is organic, combed and ring-spun — a more regular yarn, so a smoother surface and a sharper print. All our colours are GOTS certified, except the heather grey, certified GRS because it contains 20% recycled cotton.

Where are our sweaters made?

Weaving, dyeing and assembly take place in Bangladesh.

We would rather write it than leave it out, and look at what it means in practice.

Stanley/Stella has been a member of the Fair Wear Foundation since 2012. This independent organisation has its members' factories audited on working conditions: hours, wages, safety, absence of child labour. It is not the brands assessing themselves.

Three certifications apply to the product itself: GOTS for the organic cotton, which imposes social criteria on top of the environmental ones; GRS for the recycled cotton in the heather grey; and OEKO-TEX Standard 100, which guarantees the absence of harmful substances in the fabric.

Where are they printed?

Printing and embroidery are done by a Ghent printer, a few kilometres from the club.

That proximity is not just an argument: it is what makes it possible to correct a mistake with one phone call and have a piece remade within days.

The Club sweaters come in two finishes — the embroidered crest, stitched thread by thread, and the transfer, applied with heat. The first is the most refined finish in the collection; the second is softer to the touch.

Why is everything made after the order?

We hold no textile stock. Each piece is produced once you have ordered it, in your size and your colour.

That costs about ten days of waiting, and it avoids two things:

• Unsold stock. A club that buys a hundred sweaters in advance sells sixty, discounts the rest at the end of the season, and throws away what is left.
• Sold-out sizes. From XXS to 5XL in unisex, from age 3 to 13 for children: no size is ever “out of stock”, because none is in stock.

Where does the money go?

The shop is not a commercial activity: it is a source of funding for the club.

What you pay covers the garment, the printing and the platform's costs. What remains goes to running the club and to its youth teams.

And “1864”?

The number on the crest is the year of the founding.

In 1864 the Société Gymnastique la Gantoise was founded in Ghent. In 1891 it merged with the Association Athlétique to form the Association Athlétique la Gantoise. In 1914, for its fiftieth anniversary, the club received the royal title and became the Association Royale Athlétique La Gantoise — ARAG, the four letters that still accompany the crest.

Blue and white have been the colours of the house since the 1880s.