Kevin Ellis, Founder of Ellis Rugby / Rugby Shirts

Proud Yorkshireman, Kevin Ellis, spent much of his childhood playing rugby in his local field with his elder brothers. After first giving Rugby League a go he then switched codes to rugby union, enjoying several seasons with Headingley in Leeds, before signing professional. Kevin’s passion for sport, combined with a love of design and fashion, are the driving force behind rugby heritage brand Ellis Rugby. The appeal of the Ellis Rugby brand lies in the striking designs, stylish colour choices and the exceptional quality of the fabrics. The loyalty of customers and the businesses commitment to retaining the heritage and traditions have enabled the brand to grow rapidly. Ellis Rugby are committed to producing quality garments which are inspired by similar like-minded individuals from the rich history of the game of rugby. The brand also creates bespoke fashion collections for professional sports clubs such as Bath Rugby, Saracens, Harlequins, Worcester Warriors, Gloucester, Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints, London Irish, Hull KR, Castleford Tigers and Huddersfield Giants. Ellis Rugby were also commissioned to design fully licensed ranges for Great Britain Rugby League and the RL Hall of Fame, celebrating the legendary former players of the game.

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Ellis Rugby Founder, Kevin Ellis, about how he combined two passions, rugby and design, to create a rugby inspired fashion label. Our host Peter Brooker asks Kevin where the inspiration for the vintage designs comes from and what goes into researching the stories of historic sporting heroes. With a background in design and marketing he highlights how he tackled knowledge gaps when first building the business. We also find out about the new Storyteller smart phone feature for the recent Rugby League Hall of Fame collection, where a fully washable microchip is inserted into the woven label, enabling customers to learn more about the heritage of their unique rugby jersey via video when a mobile phone is placed over it.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:10

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete Brooker. On this episode I'm going to be speaking to Kevin Ellis, the founder of LS rugby, LS rugby these are the guys are totally committed to producing quality garments which are inspired by similar like minded individuals from the rich history of the game of rugby. It makes sense rugby in the title. So a little bit about Kevin Ellis he was born and bred in the county of Yorkshire. Kevin's passion for the game combined with his love of design and fashion are the driving force behind Ellis rugby. And the appeal of Ellis rugby lies in the striking designs, stylish colour choices and the exceptional quality of the fabrics. Kevin's a really interesting guy and we're gonna get into that interview shortly. First, make sure you're checking out the website menswear style dot coat UK that's where we'll put all the show notes and links from this interview, along with other news features trend travel features, competitions, all that lovely, lovely stuff. And why not follow us on social just type in menswear style in your smartphone there will come up on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, you know the drill by now, if you want to get in touch with the show. Maybe you want to come on and talk about your brand as an insight into your journey. Then info at menswear. style.co.uk Okay, it's the place to send you emails. In the meantime, here we are now with that interview with Kevin Ellis, company founder of Ellis rugby. is my great pleasure to speak to Kevin Ellis, the founder of Ellis rugby how we're doing today, Kevin? Yeah, I'm good. Thank you and yourself. Oh, yeah, no, I'm real good. Thanks again for taking time out of your day to speak to us. Very curious to find out about your brand. For those that are uninitiated, perhaps you can give us an introduction to who you are. And the founding story is Ellis rugby, please. Yes, yeah. My name is obviously Kevin Ellis. I'm sort of Founder and Managing Director of Alice rugby. My background is a little bit unusual, because I'm from a sporting background. But also a design background sort of enjoyed a 10 year career playing professional rugby. But at the same time worked in the advertising and marketing industry. ls rhomberg is a combination of my passion, rally design, and Rob Bay, combining both about 2010 had saw become a little bit disillusioned with, you know, the advertising industry and I was looking for something new to work on. There are lots of sort of so called heritage fashion brands. And I just felt there was an opportunity for rugby inspired fashion label. So rather than just giving lip service to heritage, I wanted to build a brand that as well as being self graer high quality Gammons also told a story. So each of our garments has its own unique story to it. So did you have a background in pattern making? How do you go about the design process? No, no, I think there was definitely a knowledge gap. My sort of like, say previous experience of being very much in design and marketing. So from a design perspective, I had all the skills, but I just had to adapt those skills, you know, to to solve gammon manufacturing. So like, say there was a big knowledge gap as something that, you know, I've subsequently sort of covered. But I had to learn, you know, basically, you know, producing garments, bags, buying. And then of course, all the other things that comes with, you know, menswear distribution, and and everything else managing the business. Let's see, what's the size of the business and Kevin, how big of an operation was it to begin with, and how is it grown now? Well, it was still only fairly small. You know, I've got four people who work alongside me. And then obviously, we've got a couple of sales agents as well. But you know, they're not implied they work on a commission basis. And what would you say, from your rugby background? Maybe we can talk a little bit about your rugby background. So who did you play for? Well, I played You know, I played originally, so rugby union, and then I signed for rugby league. You know, when I was about 17 I wasn't the greatest player after so you know, but I, you know, I played second division for 10 years, you know, we're not a great time doing it, you know, I love the game. And you know, being a sort of semi professional athlete was, you know, great fun. So would you say there's no, don't let me put words in your mouth, Kevin. But I've often thought this about, especially rugby. And I guess the equivalent for American would be American football, that it's actually a really good discipline, to have a sport like that, almost like boxing, where it's a lot more intense, you're kind of thinking on your feet, but with more brawn than you are, say, with football, where you can go down easily and feign injuries and get free kicks. With rugby, there seems to be a little bit more of grip, and maybe a bit, you know, a bit more intestinal fortitude that comes with that, do you feel like that's something that maybe every kid should train how to play rugby? Well, I mean, it's not suitable for some young kids, but he's got lots of, you know, great values. You know, as well as playing, I sort of did a fair amount of coaching as well. And now I've got two boys and gone, and they're still playing rugby to this day. And an at least a lot of the values that come through, particularly when you coach in junior rugby is sort of respect, you know, for the opposition, respect for the officials and the referees. And also, you know, it was important to sort of instil in them that, you know, there's the social element as well after the game. So, again, you know, you always want to compare it with football. You know, maybe there's an argument that they don't have the same, you know, same values in football, but i don't think so i think it's a case of, you know, the coaches and the culture within the game. So, you know, I don't want to be slugging football off as well. So, but it is obviously the sport you compare it with, it is nuts to me and we will get back to LS rugby the brand very quickly. I've always wanted to get to grips with this concept. And you probably have heard this a lot how there seems to be with football, there's more connotations, or at least in the past with hooliganism, violence, etc. Yet, it's not a very hands on sport. Now, contrast that with rugby, where it's nothing but contact. It's nothing but you know, locking horns and getting down and wrestling people. Yet the culture around that is completely the antithesis to football. There's no fights in the grounds after the grounds, you know, there's no kind of tribal warfare, like, what do you put that down? I just think it's his culture of the game. It's, it's how, you know, his whole was being played is, is how, you know, people are encouraged to support the club in a respectful way. Most people actually, you know, do respect those values of the game. football's a bit more difficult now. I mean, you know, and we know, there's a tendency to tar everybody with the same brush, I mean, footballs a fantastic game. I love it. But, you know, there are a small element of football supporters that do, you know, have that sort of ligand element to them, which is a real shame, you know, cuz it spoils it for everyone else. Yeah. No, it's just nuts. I've always thought that even from a young age how there seems to be a very there's a line in the sand between the culture of football fans and rugby fans. Yeah. Anyway, course correct thing. Getting back to what I'm curious what distinguishes LS rugby from other brands within the marketplace. Would you say? Well, you know that, I think as I said earlier, the main elements that I wanted to bring through in my garments, world's heritage, and to be a genuine heritage brands. I mean, like I say, there's lots of brands saw on the high street, who, you know, supposedly a heritage brand, but actually, you know, it's only skin deep scratch under the surface, and there's not not much heritage, about the spa that they're involved with. What I tried to do with my Garmin, Suzy each of the garments as an individual story to it. And I think I'm more of a con, I suppose from my advertising design background, I'm more of a concept designer than a garment designer. So what I tend to do is like, look for a story, you know, generate a story, and then around that story, or then design, the garments, the colours, the trims, you know, the assault batching. And often my garments are. So I think that makes makes me quite different. I mean, two great examples, if I may. We're doing, we're at sample stage of a collection that we call in the pioneers collection. And this is based on, you know, the formation of rugby in various countries. One of the concepts we doing is is a collection based on the USA Olympic team, and it was back in the 1920 Olympics. And the founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de kubaton, was actually the organiser of the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp in Belgium. And one of the spots that he wanted to put on, you know, for entertainment was rugby, obviously, from since got a big history of rugby. And the other country that they actually invited to the tournament was the United States. And the US Olympic Committee, actually formed a pool of players. And these were from Stanford, Berkeley, in Santa Clara. And they actually went on an eight week trip from New York, over to Antwerp, and actually played in this one off game. And unbelievably, the USA actually defeated France 8.2 mil to win the Olympic gold medal. So the USA are not particularly renowned for their rugby, were the actual gold medal winners. And then in 1924, the next games which were held in Paris, they played in a round robin tournament, USA, from Romania and the USA actually won again. Now, you start wondering, oh, well, that's a great story. But actually what the team were wearing the wearing sort of unusual jerseys, the bulging on it was a fantastic sort of, you know, typical Stars and Stripes badge on there. And prior to the game, they wore either, sort of an aircrew jersey, or a Navy jersey, and the Navy jersey, actually have these fantastic wings coming out of the crest. So it's all those elements, and you put that together with a story with the garment. And that's what I mean by being a genuine heritage brand. And then we know what I also looked at is, you know, I cooperated text on the design. So looking at the typography, around 1920. In 1924. We incorporated that in the designs, and it produced like a T shirt, you know, sort of sweatshirt, hoodie, and various other things a polo shirt as well. So it actually has a lovely story behind it, which I thought, you know, which is a good example really of what we do. Yeah, yeah, I think it's very cool. No, no, and I was just gonna say, you know that so we actually cover both rugby union and being a northern boy, obviously rugby league as well. And an interesting one on the rugby league side, which we just were probably about six weeks ago, salt launched a mini range, like a capsule range, really, through our Hall of Fame, rugby league collection, and it's based on the 1958 Greg Britain saw to Australia. And I don't know if you know much about the rugby league side of things, but they play like an ashes series. A bit like they do cricket. Okay. And it's three games between Great Britain and Australia and in the first test in Sydney, Australia easily be great britain 25 eight. The second test was in Brisbane, and it was a really tough game. No subs were allowed in those in the 1950s. This one of the standoff Dave Bolton actually came off with a dislocated shoulder. But the most amazing thing about the game was that the captain chap called Alan Prescott from syntel and actually broke his arm. He tackle in the third minute of the game, but because the team were already down shot by one man, he comes in you playing for the full 80 minutes. That's what I'm talking about with a gret. Last. Can you imagine bonauto carrying on with a broken arm? It's crazy. And then of course, what went on is the third to the one on the second test. 2818. And then the third test, they won the beat the Aussies easily folded points to 17 at the SCG. So they won the series. Yeah, the Oneness series. Now, what what is different about this particular garment is something we've introduced to it is we've actually built in into a solid decorative woven label is a microchip and the microchip ones can be scammed by mobile phone. And then that automatically links to our website, which automatically plays a video of the of those Test series. So we managed to get all the clips, you know, from our time, which is unbelievable, isn't it? Oh, wow, that's amazing. You don't need you don't need an app. It's actually built in sort of technology that you can just scan, you know, the world and label and automatically the story of the garment comes up on your mobile phone, which I think is fantastic. And it's the sort of thing is what I mean, what makes us different? Well, that's a good example, actually. Yeah, well, I mean, talking about distinguishing yourself from other brands. I mean, I love the personal stories as well, because for me, when I when I work garments, I'm I always like to tell people what I'm wearing and why I've bought it. And if I've got something that I can, you know, amuse someone with or pique their interest Rule of Two or three minutes, they might say, I like what you're wearing, then I'll be like, Oh, great, well, this is from such and such a film worn by such and such a dude and having something else to wear, but not just wearing things for the sake of wearing things. I mean, that's really what the basis of fashion for me is all about is kind of representing something within yourself that you want to communicate either subliminally or very obviously. But it is just trying to get over that story. You know, we we call it the you know, storyteller microchip is in the garments. So what we're trying to do is, is actually tell a story with the Garmin is a gimmick, I admit it, you know, but actually, it's just an interesting addition. And it really again, bolsters in our our positioning statement, you know, the rubber heritage brand. Yeah, the website by the way. ls rugby.com. Yeah, I should say is for people that might be listening to this and going well look at you know, I'm not kind of massively sold on rugby, it's not really my thing. You might not be liking rugby, but you will like vintage designs. Trust me because these rugby shirts look fantastic, especially for me, the vintage look of the 60s, the the insignia, the bold colours, like the Australian ones just look beautiful. I mean, I'd lap those up in a heartbeat. Did you have any other concerns with with the the vintage look, as as opposed to you know, modernising it and bring it into like a newer, a newer phase? Yeah, I mean, I've never really wanted to be a sportswear brand. I think you know, I want to be, you know, a lifestyle fashion brand. So all my products are 100% cotton. The rugby jeans is really sort of heavy weight peach finished to them, you know, which are fantastic and they've got you know, all the tremors, you know, we've got, you know, lovely song gulbadin plackets we've got herringbone side fence, you know, all the embroidery embroidery on the collar stand. You know, so you know, they're very different rally from sportswear products. And I don't really want to go that way. You know, I want I always wanted to be sort of a fashion brand. their heritage elements is really important, you know, because like I say, it's in our DNA almost. You know, we we want to tell the story. We want to be different, and the products are really, really exceptional quality. Well, congratulations, Kevin. I think you've got fantastic products and beautiful looking website as well. It's really nice to just navigate and find all the stories, the different videos on there and all the different range of products. It's not just rugby shirts that you say you got the sweat pants, accessories, polos, t shirts, fantastic. Where they manufactured? Yeah, we manufacturer from two factories based in India in tirupur. And, you know, we've had that relationship for quite a number of years now. Display working with the factories, you know, there's there's a lot of input from them on the actual designs as well as the obviously the, the makeup manufacturer. So, yeah, it's a good relationship. I'm happy with that. Can I ask how everything kids with the pandemic? is a supply chain still good? Are they still working out there? Well, fortunately, we got our supplies in, you know, just before the pandemic. So I have other, you know, a couple of emails going backwards and forwards. But, you know, there's no doubt it will delay a couple of orders that we've got going through currently. But, you know, it's it's one of those things that, you know, nobody can sort of allow for Yeah. I don't know if anyone could see us getting blindsided by this. But listen, thank you, Kevin, for taking so much time out of your day to talk about your brand. And that was really the journey. In the meantime, thank you, Kevin. Take care of yourself. Man. Thank you very much for the invite as well. Kevin elesa Thank you so much, Kevin. Boy, am I now wanting to get out there and play some rugby. Maybe not play it when I'm watching some rugby. that's gonna happen soon. Anyway, I digress. ls rugby.com is the place to go and make sure you're going there and checking out all those wonderful designs. And in the meantime, menswear style.co.uk that's where you'll find all the show notes for this show. Thank you for listening. And thank you for sharing and leaving those reviews on iTunes. It really does mean a lot to us. It gets as high up in the chart and incentivizes us to do more of these interviews. So we really do appreciate that. Until next time, remember, it's only fashion people and you're never fully dressed without a smile.