How we review

Each brand and product passes through four stages: Discovery, Research, Judgment, Review. A piece can fail out at any stage and never reach the public directory. That’s the point.

1. // 01

   Discovery

   Brands and products enter the queue from a mix of editorial intent (we want to cover this) and reader pitches. There is no “submit your brand for review” form on purpose — pay-to-pitch is the first lever that compromises coverage.

2. // 02

   Research

   For each candidate we build a data fingerprint: where it’s made, who makes it, how it’s constructed, what it costs at retail vs. wholesale, how the fit compares to category norms, what the return policy says, what the founder has said publicly. The 26-field spec sheet captures it. Sources are cited inline.

3. // 03

   Judgment

   An editor reviews the research, asks the questions the research couldn’t answer, and writes a verdict. The Make Quality Score (MQS) gets assigned here, on a 0–10 scale, with the rubric below.

4. // 04

   Review

   The editorial pass. Tone, structure, what stays in, what gets cut. Two-step copyedit before publish. No brand preview, no veto.

A 0–10 number that summarizes construction quality, materials, and the gap between the price and what the price buys elsewhere. It’s opinionated by design — a great brand at a bad price doesn’t score the same as a great brand at a fair price. The score is one signal; the verdict is the argument.

9–10 Exceptional · 7–8 Strong recommend · 5–6 Conditional · 3–4 Skip · 0–2 Avoid

Not every brand gets the same depth. Three tiers, set at editorial discretion based on how much there is to say and whether the brand warrants the deep treatment.

• Tier 1Full brand essay. Multi-product passes. Construction graphs, fit comparator, price history. The deep treatment.
• Tier 2Solid coverage. A brand profile, a few representative products, the spec sheet, the verdict.
• Tier 3A snapshot. One paragraph, one verdict, the basics. Brands worth knowing about but not worth a full essay.

The data layer is what separates Loopwheel from a blog. For every covered product the directory captures 26 fields: garment-level construction details, fabric origin and composition, manufacturing country, stitching method, button source, retail price history, return policy specifics, fit measurements at five points, formality range, garment weight. The fingerprint is what makes cross-brand comparison possible.

Some of this layer is public; the deeper graphs (price history, cross-brand fit, construction comparators) are premium. Premium subscriptions are one of the revenue streams that fund the directory — alongside affiliate links and clearly-labeled newsletter sponsorships. None of those revenue streams influence editorial choices. See Disclosures for the full money-vs-editorial separation.

No paid reviews. Brands cannot pay for a positive review, a higher ranking, or even inclusion in the directory.

No paid placements. No “featured brand” modules that turn out to be a paying customer. No sponsored ranking. No pay-to-rush in the queue.

No paid-to-try. We don’t accept money to review a brand. If a brand sends product, that’s disclosed in the review and the verdict still goes wherever the editorial takes it.

No advance copy. Brands don’t see reviews before they ship. We’ll fix factual errors; we won’t soften a verdict on request.

If something in a review is factually wrong, write to Contact with the source and we’ll update the entry. Every correction is logged.