Sun Fading, Thai Weaving, New Website, New Space.
Hey everyone
Welcome to my monthly newsletter.
We used to do infrequent email updates from me, which became very frequent and more about ‘whats new’ on the website. I felt like all you were hearing about from me was really ‘product-y’ and started to feel like a salesman. That said, I know 99% of the reason most people sign up to the mailing list is to hear that kind of stuff.
August has been busy: developing, seeing, trying.
Sun Fading
This month we released our first little batch of The Sun Faded Capsule. It’s something we’ve been teasing for about five or six years. We nearly did it several times, even planned to do it as a collab with another brand (can you guess who?). That collab slowly evaporated (as about 90% of them do).
Up next in The Sun Faded Capsule is red. This could be my favourite. Red is underrated as a colour for new clothing but in vintage sportswear it’s highly sought after. You’ll see sun faded red hoodies go for more than I make in a month, and ours have some of that same quality about them.
After this we’ll move on to indigo, but our strain is proving far too sturdy in the sun. It’s also monsoon season, so we’ve had to pause until we get some long dry spells again.
Also, I feel like this sun faded work is quite casual, so it makes sense for us to do tees, sweats, accessories, etc. That has always been the plan, but you know what they say about plans. We’ll get there soon. The hold-up has been hundreds of pre-made tees sitting in storage here in the UK. They were made incorrectly, but since it was our mistake we accepted them. We’ve tried for years to find a use, and thought this might work since the defect could be hidden by fading, but after trials it didn’t work out.
New Developments
What we do is actual magic. Dyeing with plants and then using the sun to transform them. It’s incredible that there are always new things to learn and try. Sam, one of our designers, had an idea for a more chocolate-coloured natural brown dye. He sent his idea to the dyehouse and it worked! It makes me so happy when the team develops new things without me.
New Website
Since the day he started, Naoki has wanted changes to the site to make it easier to navigate. Until now Katy and I designed the sites, focusing more on telling the story of what makes the product special and cramming info in, rather than focusing on shopping ease. I remember when a senior hire pointed out our ‘conversion’ was really low. We discovered our site made it hard to even find the cart (oops – it was pretty, though). We tweaked it and conversion doubled.
Naoki’s changes this month build on that, hopefully making it more enjoyable to browse. Business-wise, the site is doing numbers I couldn’t have imagined. Stores are struggling (more on this later), meaning smaller orders, late payments, or no payments at all. Without the website we’d be in trouble. Thanks to it, we’ve got a shovel to dig ourselves out of most holes.
The New Space
Katy and I moved back to London almost a year ago, after a few years in Brighton, but the head office stayed in Brighton. Half the team was commuting from London and the other half were based there. We loved the Brighton space, having spent a lot of money making it ‘Story’, but after much thought we decided to move the next home to London. We’re realising a dream of ours by moving into a railway arch in London Fields.
This will be our second railway arch (we had one in Brighton) and just the latest in a line of unusual HQs (the first two were boats).
New Season
Our mainline new season is starting to come in and it’s wonderful. I love British summer, but around now I start looking forward to transitional weather (and even deep winter) so I can layer up with new season pieces.
Also, in non-seasonal news, new ‘R.T.S.’ is here too. The Research Jacket started as a mainline piece but didn’t work out, so we shelved it. Jessie found one during a sample sale stock count and wore it, and both me and Katy immediately told her to take it off because she made it look so good we needed to bring it back for R.T.S. (sorry Jessie).
This happens often. Staff will repurpose failed samples or tweak something and renew our excitement for it.
We’ve got the keys, and we’ll be moving in slowly. You’ll be able to come see us once we’re settled. I can’t say too much yet as I don’t want to overcommit. Money is tight thanks to a perfect storm: a fashion industry recession (that no one admits for fear of looking uncool) and the knock-on effects of years of bad payments and stores disappearing without paying us.
Rambling
A new Rambling video is up. This one is about 10 minutes long, the last was 45, and engagement was pretty poor. I don’t really care about metrics when it comes to things I enjoy, but I do want to make things others enjoy. So I’d love to know your thoughts on the idea, the format, the length. This monthly email is already quite ramble-y itself. Watch it here, or listen while you prepare your dinner.
Mental Health
I’ve been feeling a lot better mentally, and have for some time. Over the last five years I’ve been in some very deep holes, and I thank my wife for being strong enough to carry the load when I turned to jelly. If this weren’t my own business, I would have left the job twenty times over. Not because it’s stressful (it is) but because at times I just couldn’t do it while managing such high levels of anxiety.
I’m reminded of one episode a couple of years ago when an artist essentially tried to blackmail us, threatening to cancel us by saying we stole his style (we didn’t, never have, never would). We’d worked together in the past on something unrelated, and later asked him to quote for some new work. We did end up doing something smaller together, and in his mind that meant we’d copied his style later (not true). He threatened to ‘expose’ us unless we took the work down, or paid him an enormous amount and credited him as the creator.
This happened while I was off work with anxiety so bad I couldn’t get out of bed for fear of another panic attack. He was entirely unreasonable, convinced we were in the wrong, and I didn’t feel strong enough to face an Instagram battle when I couldn’t even string a sentence together. Being right sometimes isn’t enough, so we decided to take down the work rather than keep it for sale. He’s ‘smaller’ than us which of course we can’t help, but I hate the idea of us coming across as some theiving goliath.
It was the wrong decision for the right reasons, but it was selfish of me and I still feel guilty. We did nothing wrong, and maybe ten people worked on that project, none of whom got to see it celebrated online or in stores.
We’re very careful about copying (we don’t do it) and overlap (it happens, both ways). We do things I don’t think other companies do even - like if we interview someone for a role and ask them to do a project, we pay a small fee for it. I don’t think that previous run in will be the last we hear from this person, and when it comes around it will be stressful but this time I’ll hold my ground because I spent my youth being bullied and I can’t let it happen in my (almost) 40’s.
Thai Capsule
A year ago I went on a trip to Northern Thailand to find made fabrics that we can use for little drops. 90% of what we release we have made from the ground up - either weaving the fabric ourselves to our spec or buying plain fabric to print on or dye. The other 10% is left up to chaos, chance, whatever you’d call it. I think its needed, otherwise we end up in our groove. We visit weavers, dyers, printers and look through their archive of available fabrics and buy little remnants or whatever they have left - in some cases we’re talking about fabric woven decades ago. I picked up a blanket on my recent trip shooting for Asics that the weaver made a year before I was born.
The fabrics I found on this trip a year ago are all traditional, but look like cousins of old cowboy era blankets that you’d find lining ranch jackets. Got some lovely shots of them in Thailand too, on some fab models.
Delivering on Time
After a huge effort by the team, our partners, and Katy, we’re finally delivering on time again. This may not mean much to most of you, but for us it’s massive. It has been our biggest focus since last autumn.
About half our revenue comes from selling to stores. We make samples (expensive), show them (expensive), and take orders (promises of money later). The bigger the order, the higher the up-front production costs, so we’re often paying for things before we’re paid. We’re into the millions now, so you can imagine the stress.
When we deliver, we should get paid, but often we’re left chasing. That makes it harder to pay for the next round on time, which can make production late. When production is late, stores ask for discounts or cancel. It becomes a cycle of late payments leading to late deliveries.
Why not just sell direct? People suggest that a lot, but it’s not practical. Some stores are great, and we don’t have the reach ourselves (nor do we want to open shops worldwide) to meet everyone. But we are cutting ties with those who treat us poorly. We’ve fired some stores.
Since November we’ve sold our home and put the money into the business to bridge the gap, got help from family and everyone on the team, and had honest conversations with partners about our situation. Everyone has been understanding, giving us the breathing room to get back on track. We are officially back on track now, and the proof is on-time deliveries.