- Joined
- Aug 7, 2012
- Messages
- 2,658
- Reaction score
- 4,324
Hello, I’ve been thinking about asking a question. I’m not sure if it’s one that’s been asked, or even if it’s one you’d want to answer. One of the reasons I like your brand is it’s nice to support a smaller business that is committed to making clothes properly and in Britain. I was wondering, are there any other small/less well known companies that you admire?
Would be interested in your opinions and insider perspective to the clothes brand business.
I must admit I am wilfully unobservant of the work of other companies!
Probably am the worst person to ask.
I try my best to blot them from mind because it interferes with my own work and approach, and I never like to be led this way or that because of the work of others. Say I see a great cloth or a clever idea for a pocket on the jacket of another company ... do we try to remember it, try to forget it, incorporate it or reject it subconsciously so that we don't use it ourselves? We try to plot our own course, you see, and I try to look away as much as I can! It's quite unnatural and isn't easy or comfortable (read: is silly) to maintain.
I love clothing, of course ... but don't buy too much myself (perhaps because I avoid shops as per the above).
I like the Tricker's brogues made in collaboration with The Old Curiosity Shop in London, Marks & Spencer long-johns, heavy-duty wool cottage socks, lots of the different necktie makers in Italy, and am pals with Charlie Borrow who makes awesomely hard-wearing bags around the corner from our workshop. Billingham bags are good, too, and are what I use to lug belongings around London every day of the week. Frank Leder is a fantastically imaginative designer from Germany with whom we shared a sales agent in Japan, and is incomprehensibly less well-known than a hundred lesser ones, and ... well, those are the ones which spring to mind. Not a natural subject for me, as daft and precious as it sounds.