About Flatout
Flatout was built from real life, and Kora is where the story is going next.
We started as a Canadian apparel brand with fitness roots, a growing community, and a simple frustration: clothing should feel better, fit better, and keep up with more than one part of your day.
Where It Began
Before there was Flatout Apparel, there was Flatout Fitness.
Flatout started in Edmonton, Alberta, long before the first apparel launch. Jean-Yves Jobin was working in fitness, building community, and seeing how people actually moved through their lives.
The gym was only one part of it. People needed clothing for the drive there, the errands after, the busy days, the tired days, the confident days, and the moments when they just wanted to feel comfortable without feeling thrown together.
That is where the idea started. Not from trying to make another clothing brand, but from noticing a gap between what people were buying and what they were actually living in.
The original goal was not complicated: make pieces that could handle real life and still feel good to wear.
The Years In Between
Flatout grew by trying, learning, and listening.
Since launching in 2017, Flatout has gone through a lot of chapters: hats, activewear, outerwear, community events, collaborations, custom projects, ambassadors, pop-ups, wins, mistakes, and lessons that only come from building something by hand.
Some of those chapters were exciting. Some were heavy. Some products worked. Some taught us what not to keep doing. But through all of it, the same question kept coming back.
What do people actually reach for again and again?
The answer became clearer over time. Customers were not just looking for another logo or another seasonal drop. They wanted comfort, coverage, confidence, and a piece that made everyday dressing easier.
The Honest Part
A reset sounds clean from the outside. In real life, it means letting go.
By year nine, it became clear that Flatout could not keep moving forward by carrying every old product, every old category, and every old version of the brand with it.
There were products we were proud of. There were pieces customers loved. There were memories attached to a lot of what we built. But there was also a cost to being spread too thin.
The reset is not about pretending the past did not matter. It is about being honest about what deserves the future.
Why Kora
Kora earned the focus because it solved something real.
A regular hoodie is easy until it feels too short, too bulky, too casual, or not quite put together. Kora was built for that gap.
It gives more coverage without losing comfort. It feels cozy without feeling careless. It works with leggings, denim, travel days, errands, lounging, and everything in between.
That is why Kora became more than just another product. It became the clearest version of what Flatout had been trying to build from the beginning: clothing people actually live in.
What Changes Now
Flatout is becoming simpler on purpose.
As we move forward, non-Kora products are being cleared out and will not be part of the long-term direction. That does not mean they were meaningless. They helped us learn, grow, and get here.
Now, the work is to give Kora the attention it deserves: refine the fits, choose fabrics with more purpose, explain fleece and Tech Terry clearly, and build a smaller product line where every piece has a reason to exist.
It just means something more focused now: going all in on the product line that feels most useful, most honest, and most worth building forward.
Founder Note
If you have been here since the early days, thank you. Flatout has changed because it had to, but the heart behind it has not. This reset is us choosing to build with more intention, less noise, and a better understanding of what our customers actually come to us for.
Kora is not the end of the Flatout story. It is the part where the story finally gets clearer.
Where We Are Going
The future of Flatout is focused around Kora.
That means long hoodies, pullovers, zipups, jackets, fleece, Tech Terry, and everyday layers designed with more intention from fit to fabric to feel.
If you are finding us now, welcome. If you have been part of the journey already, this next chapter is being built with everything we learned along the way.