Alex Orr, Founder of JAGO / Functional Adventure Clothing

JAGO is a menswear brand creating versatile, functional and timelessly styled products to be worn everyday and beyond - worn For Life's Adventure. The brand embraces adventure in its broadest sense - far beyond outdoor adventure only - living for variety and spontaneity. They believe their versatile approach to style and function is particularly well suited to the flexible work-play lifestyle so many of us now live in this post-Covid world. In a world of too much complexity and too much consumption, and in an industry suffering from an over-specialism gear fad, never has there been a more appropriate time to have fewer, better, longer lasting, more sustainable products. 

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Alex Orr, Founder of JAGO about the founding story and purpose of his outdoor clothing brand. Our host Peter Brooker and Alex talk about upstart funding, working with Bear Grylls, relaunching the brand after the Covid-19 pandemic, the new Totum Cotton Gilet made with British Millerain fabric, and the 'A Life of Adventure' hardback book.

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Transcript

PB: 0:10

Hello welcome back to another episode of the menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete Brooker and today I'm talking to Alex or he is the founder of J Go Jackets and a little bit about J Go Jackets after a mini adventure exploring ways to co found an outdoor clothing brand with the king of adventurer Bear Grylls J go is back. Jager is a functional clothing brand creating versatile products to be worn every day and beyond worn for life's adventure at Jayco. They embrace adventure in its broadest sense far beyond outdoor adventure, only living for variety and spontaneity. So they started making gear to take us from the work to the wild, allowing us to have fewer, better, longer lasting, more sustainable items. And yeah, I had a great time chatting to Alex, really inspiring young man. He's entrepreneurial, and he's got his head screwed on that's for sure. And I really think you'll enjoy this. And if you fancy checking out the show notes, menswear style.co.uk That's where we'll put all the links. And you can also check out Jayco jackets.com. Also, to buy these wonderful items. And yeah, here we go. In his own words, Alex, or from Jayco jackets.

Unknown: 1:22

Thank you. Yeah, so I'm Alex or, as you said, I'm founder of functional menswear brand J go, who sort of main focus is providing versatile clothing for the City and beyond. I originally started the brand back in 2016, I think I was at university studying something totally unrelated. I studied biotechnology. Before I then put the brand kind of on ice, because I tried launching a new sort of outdoor clothing brand with one of Jagers customers. Mr. Bear Grylls, which is quite an adventure. Various kind of amical amicable that unfortunate reasons that sort of never took off. But I felt I had, you know, some really good momentum with Jayco. Before that, and basically just couldn't fight the itch to pick it back up and give it another crack and build on the momentum. And we've had a very supportive and encouraging customer base from from round one, if you will, to often still reaching out to me, so I've basically caved in. Here we are, again, be visiting away and jig is relaunching this week, which is very exciting.

PB: 2:37

Interesting. And so talk to me about the initial steps when you first got the brand off and running, and where are the garments made? And how did you raise the capital to get it off the ground.

Unknown: 2:50

So it was that that first stage, I guess it was it was almost a different thing altogether. But it was, whilst I was at uni, I managed to put together somehow managed to persuade some people to loan me a little bit of a bit of money. But sort of talking 10 grand was all very small fry. And I was just bootstrapping everything, which is ultimately kind of what I'm doing again now. And then that the products were made in the UK, handmade in England. And it's all very kind of super premium 500 quid jackets made of this amazing fabric called Femto, which some of your listeners I'm sure know about. But that's sort of how it was done originally. And then now many years on, I guess I'm sort of funding it with what was the sort of proceeds of the leftover from from Jager one, as well as just any savings savings I've made in the meantime.

PB: 3:51

So jagah was a success, though. I mean, it's sold and then got an audience and obviously, Bear Grylls took notice. It was

Unknown: 3:59

a great success, I think, in that, you know, it wasn't, I wasn't selling millions, but I was selling enough to have it feel like, considering it was all organic, and early days, I was getting good traction. But at the time was just literally just graduated when when bear and I got talking and, you know, he is, without doubt the world's most famous adventurer. So it was it was just sort of a no brainer at the time to do that. And, you know, we even discussed making it kind of bringing him boredom to Jayco for a bit and really try and be as creative as possible to work out the best way to do it. That didn't happen. So. So yeah, and that's that sort of now Jagers back to just trying to be this versatile clothing for, you know, everyday and beyond. We call it for life's adventure is what we're trying to create clothing for. It's all encompassing, and I guess it comes from a philosophy on life really that You know, gaago, we want to embrace adventurer in its broadest sense far beyond kind of outdoor adventure only. And living for variety and spontaneity. So we want gear that's can take us from what we call the, I guess, work to wild, allowing us to have fewer, better, longer lasting and more sustainable pieces.

PB: 5:24

Just before we get on to the relaunch, I am interested about the Bear Grylls section, because it does feel like there was a chance you wanted to seize the opportunity and maybe catapult the brand further or establish a new brand and work along with bear and that would have gone off in a huge different direction for you. But then, was it frustrating was it was a lot of time that passed? And eventually, was there things that just couldn't work out? I mean, you don't want to go into the minutiae, I understand. But there was, it must have been a long spell where you were kind of really pulling your hair out and trying to get this off the ground.

Unknown: 6:01

Yeah, so it was, first of all, it was it was an amazing experience. And I sort of relish the opportunity to have it but like you say, going from Jager where there was some good momentum, and I felt things were starting to get some decent traction, and kind of start, potentially, you know, snowballing a bit to then put that down to essentially start from scratch and idea new ways into how we could essentially, you know, best Build A Bear Grylls chronic clothing brand. It was that was I guess a little frustrating. But but but also an awesome thing to do. What the reason why it ultimately didn't didn't work was it COVID Once again, it really things, just timings became difficult. Communication of people, you know, we're looking for a bit of investment in people, suddenly, we're just, you know, battening down the hatches from a kind of lending perspective as well. So there's just all sorts of things that went against us and various new contracts coming in and bears kind of TV side, which is, obviously his bread and butter, his media, and just press sort of meant that timings didn't necessarily work out quite how we both wanted or, or kind of envisioned when we were starting off. So we just decided that actually, the timing was probably right, this time around.

PB: 7:28

That's a shame. Well, I mean, not many brands survived, let alone started up during those times. And I guess, even if you didn't start something that would bear or intend to at that time, keeping Jayco going throughout the pandemic years would have also been a real challenge, right?

Unknown: 7:48

Yeah, I think so. But, you know, there's always the word F. And I always think back to had I just focused 100 grand on that. And given it my all work could have been. And I think, I do think there's some, and I'm still excited by now. And I don't think it's too late. It's such, I think, the kind of gaago brand, which is that very versatile piece. For a much more flexible workplace, a world that so many of us now kind of live in the lifestyles we lead, is actually really kind of that that whole world has been accelerated by COVID with people working from home a bit more and being more flexible. So I think, from that perspective, it kind of COVID suits or just jagah suits that kind of shift in perspective how people live a bit, especially with mean when you think about we can when we can travel people started to do a bit more micro ventures at home and, and I think jagah in the kind of functionality of the product, whilst being a nice, more, you know, everyday style of things. You you feel good and look good in having that kind of performance and functionality for your, you know, Weekend Adventures or weekend warrior stuff is actually kind of perfect. So COVID, in some sense, I think has probably been quite good for the brand. Yeah,

PB: 9:15

it's true, I guess. People started their own mini home adventures, wherever it's renovating their basement or turning their garage into a man cave. You could have launched like, Man Cave clothing, or something. And I don't know if bear could have got on board with that. But there would have been what? Certainly were raised a few eyebrows. Yeah. It

Unknown: 9:37

sounds like the right.

PB: 9:42

I mean, I mean, I'm surprised he hasn't already got his own line, or maybe he has now and take this within the spirit that's intended Alex that he perhaps hadn't collaborated before with maybe a household name in order to get a line going or household names would have approached him and said Have you come on board and put your name to this? And? And we'll make a packet together?

Unknown: 10:07

Yeah, I think Well, I think things like that had happened with various outdoor brands in the past. But we were just looking at ways of doing a bit more baby properly immersed in it rather than sort of licencing out the brand. But I feel that yeah, that's ultimately kind of where we the angle we were coming at it from, to kind of be, yeah, owning the business rather than licencing.

PB: 10:33

Interesting to talk about the relaunch now. So what is new about J go to, as opposed to J go one.

Unknown: 10:42

Yeah, so I think with all this time that's passed, since since J go. One, I mean, obviously, I mentioned with COVID. That was a long time ago. So actually, it's been a while since since the Bear Grylls sort of adventure. And actually, in that meantime, I've I've ended up doing other things to become a toilet qualified accountant. But with all that time, it's had that I've had a lot of time to think about the brand. And ultimately, I've just had to answer your question and be able to get much more focused on reassessing the brand and its purpose and kind of getting more clarity on that. And I think that has been more around the performance side. And the versatility side, I think we were a bit Jager one was a bit more maybe kind of have a slightly more Alpine and mountainous heritage to it. And now I think we have kind of brought versus trying to bring the kind of versatility, peace much more to a more urban look, and much more urban flexibility. Because beforehand, we were saying we were versatile, but I think to be truly versatile. You need it, you want to be able to wear it every day. And it's integrate into your kind of daily life. And so our focus has been on kind of enhancing and sort of embracing that style whilst maintaining performance. So that's been the key

PB: 12:10

and kind of how many products are we started to run over you Alex? How many products and and ranges are we releasing now.

Unknown: 12:20

So we're actually just re launching with one piece this week, which is a men's cotton insulated Julie is using British British fabric from British millerain, which is I think one of the oldest mills in the country were established in 1880 or something. So they've got a real heritage to them. But it's as I say, it's an insulated julienne moat, like most yellows and puffers, you know, that kind of synthetic fabric, whereas this is cotton. So it's incredibly, incredibly soft. But ripstop. So kind of come to the great durability, and then installation and lining sort of fully recycled. Yeah, and then as part of as part of the relaunch, so we had a kind of self made timeline and deadline, which was to launch time, sort of now should Christmas, then we found out that actually, this year's aren't going to be ready till just after Christmas. So not wanting to deviate from the timeline, we've kind of come up with a creative Plan B. And that was it's been inspired by I don't know if you know, the brand away travel, they make suitcases. Sort of a bit of a sort of Rockstar startup brand in the States with huge funding massive valuations. But what they did is they created a coffee table, that was exactly what we've done, too. So, as part of the relaunch, going live this week, we've come up with a book called A life of adventure, where we've interviewed 30 odd 25 to 30 amazing men and women from all walks of life all doing incredibly cool and adventurous things. And the idea is to kind of give people something tangible then go on to the website in the next few days and preorder the GLA just for the normal price of this year and we're going to send out these nice Limited Edition a hardback coffee table books that you will receive now. Yeah, so you get

PB: 14:40

how do you do the books? And are they are they made to order these books? So like for you personally, if I ordered the jeely or are you kind of sitting on a stock of about 200 They're like, we're sitting

Unknown: 14:52

on a stock a stock books. Yeah, a lot of books. Okay.

PB: 14:58

So nice, but that gives me It was a nice little sweetener.

Unknown: 15:02

Yeah, exactly. And like nice. It's been such a fun adventure to interview these people like I mean the one you've got on screen now the guy at the front Jeff Mackley sort of calls himself a storm chaser and you he'll repel down into actively erupting volcanoes. And it's just absolutely crazy. And then there's but then there's other people like David Yarrow, world famous sort of fine art wildlife photographer. Lots of entrepreneurs fans of Bremen watches and Rafa also, so the thing is, as I said, early Jagers kind of view on Adventure is seeing it and embracing it in its broadest of senses. And we want life's adventure to be about variety. And so we wanted to look beyond just that kind of outdoor adventure, spirit faster, higher, kind of stronger, that kind of stuff. That's not just what we're about. We're about kind of inspiring it in any nature, basically.

PB: 16:02

Nice.

Unknown: 16:03

Oh, these guys,

PB: 16:05

is there going to be like a launch party where all of these 30 people could be in the same room? Because the amount of women you'd get to this pie? For example, they've got good old fashioned working titles like what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a graphic designer Well, that could mean 100 Different things right? I mean, design what kind of graphics typography website anyway and none of it's very interesting. Whereas if you're a bomb disposal experts and you just give that line to go over a couple of the groans that's it you're done. No problem. No problem. I mean, this book for the alpha males I love it yeah, I need to get my hands

Unknown: 16:44

on fortunately no no no no dinner this time around but maybe if it's a wild success I can check if it's good to get together

PB: 16:55

Yeah, it was pretty cool. We should at least you know Whatsapp group. Oh, yeah, please please Sorry, I know it's not completely meltdown

Unknown: 17:04

now you got some some say we got this girl Celia Fernandez he's a Red Bull Cliff diver and stunt woman she's epic freediver Jana Tana just say all sorts of cool people that just basically living lives that we all want to live. So yeah, share share their stories in the hope that inspires you to get out and kind of live more adventurous to view the world for more adventurous and

PB: 17:33

I love that. And it's so in keeping with the brand as well, of basically getting off your butt and doing something outside and enjoying the world outdoors. I don't think you've got a single interview of a podcaster in there, I bet.

Unknown: 17:49

Well, you'd be surprised there is one Oh, really? Oh, okay. But

PB: 17:57

it's gonna be like a rock climbing podcast or something.

Unknown: 18:00

Yeah, he interviews adventures

PB: 18:09

look, it's, I guess it's a decent sidebar to the product not coming out in time. But I mean, it's still gonna be in time for people on New Year's and January is a cold as balls mountain. So it's February March, just having this conversation with my girlfriend the other day about how people slide into November December and figure that it will creep up to Christmas. And that's as cold as it gets. In England, especially, I mean, the the real bit of mumps, like February and March when you think you're all done with winter, you should be in spring already. That's when you get the blizzards and, and the weird storm names that come from Europe. So I mean, you're not late to the party at all, just by having this out a few weeks later.

Unknown: 18:52

I think with the G day, it's, you know, is an all year round piece that sort of like layering that you can layer or just have as the outer so

PB: 19:01

and I say this time. I see a lot of the time at Smart events, like a friend of mine was at a wedding the other day. It was cold as balls, but he didn't want to have like an overcoat. It was an outdoor wedding. You don't want to have like a huge bridge coat, you know, sitting down watching a wedding. So he still had his suit on. And it's jieli underneath the suit and that complimented it well,

Unknown: 19:25

yeah, they go. Yeah, that's true. versatility. Works. Wow.

PB: 19:30

That's right. That's right. So, Alex, so we've got any plans for any kind of pop ups or concessions as any bricks and mortar in the pipeline.

Unknown: 19:42

Nothing as such in this foreseeable future over the sort of next next few months. very much focused online, on our website, checker jackets.com. But with time, it's definitely something to look into. And I think with that With this sort of, from a brand perspective, you know, Jayegi literally wants to just bring a bit of fun and adventurous spirit and mischievous spirit back into daily life and to bring our followers on that journey. I think, you know, brightening up spirits is something that we all could do a bit more of, or have a bit more in our lives. So to best achieve that, I mean, you want to create these physical spaces that people can come to and kind of get immersed in so with time it's definitely so we're looking into but with a with one today, I think we might struggle to fill out a store at the moment so sure, we'll we'll do our best to kind of create create that world digitally, at the moment.

PB: 20:44

Talking about digitally where can people find you on the socials? Do you like to hang out anywhere in particular?

Unknown: 20:51

Mainly Instagram, and also handle the at jagah jackets. Jg Oh, and then also, obviously, our website Jager. jackets.com. Did you have to put all this together yourself? The website? Yeah, it's been a, it's been a kind of crazy, crazy journey. I mean, I had an amazing help from a kind of design agency with regards to kind of pattern making cards with the design itself as it will be me. But actually kind of turning it into something that can be followed by a factory has been robbed, definitely the help there. But everything else, it's just one man band, which is quite the adventure in itself. So

PB: 21:35

yeah, that's really why I like having people like you on the show. Alex is, you know, people that are making a go of it, they've got an idea and throwing things behind it. And it's, you know, I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit in general, and especially when the product is good and, and made in Britain. So, the website once again, Jayco jackets.com, but we'll leave all the links over on the show notes at Menswear. style.co.uk In the meantime, Alex, thanks for coming on.

Unknown: 22:04

Pete Thank you very much for having me. It's been great to be on great chatting

PB: 22:16

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