Menswear Style Podcast

Jack Gove, Managing Director at Basic Rights / Uniform for Creators

October 21, 2020 Menswear Style Episode 89
Menswear Style Podcast
Jack Gove, Managing Director at Basic Rights / Uniform for Creators
Show Notes Transcript

Basic Rights was founded in NYC and launched in Electric Lady Studios in 2016 by The Vaccines guitarist Freddie Cowan, which then relocated to East London in 2018. They believe in style over fashion. They focus on fabric, fit and finish and are committed to working with the best: from tailors with decades of experience to renowned mills and factories with ethical transparency and sustainable practices always at the forefront. The Basic Rights goal is to create elevated essentials, designed as off-duty uniforms for modern creatives.

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Basic Rights Managing Director Jack Gove about the direct-to-consumer menswear brand, brainchild of Freddie Cowan of The Vaccines. The aim of their clothes is to provide a wardrobe that acts like a uniform, so men don't need to think about or decide on what to wear each day.  Our host Peter Brooker and Jack also chat about letting quality clothing speak for themselves, using surplus fabrics for sustainability, the effects of Covid-19 on trade, and why brands shouldn't discount.

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Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the men's wear style podcast. I'm your host Pete broca. On this episode I'm going to talk to jack Gove. He is the managing director of basic rights. And I'm going to pull a short clip from the basic rights website which you can find by the way at basic rights calm, exceptional materials considered finishing elevated essentials made for wearing short and sweet I like it. So that interview of jack to come and I really enjoyed it jack stretches out into some interesting areas about what he predicts for the retail market when it comes to COVID and how he and the brand they've had to adapt like many others, and I think there'll be plenty to take away from this chat. So that's all to come before we get to jack though. Don't forget to check out the show notes at menswear startup Koto, UK, and on the social app menswear style. All the latest fashion news happening over there Ivan yassky he's just written an article why lever is making a comeback for autumn winter. Wow. For decades. This is what Ivan's writing for decades, the leather jacket has served as the ultimate symbol of rugged masculine he through multiple lenses. Through one perspective, you see a biker perhaps for a crew or a lone wolf who takes to the road with no clear destination but full of a sense of adventure and exploration. Well, I'll be done and there's a lot going on in that photo. That's basically a slap in the face to vegans everywhere. Good old Dunhill. Anywho check out that article and more over at menswear style.co.uk and if you want to tell us about your brand and your journey, you can email the show at info at menswear Stoker UK Okay. Let's get to it. This is a good one and I hope you enjoy it. Here is that interview with jack Gove, Managing Director of basic rights. Okay, well it's my great pleasure to introduce jack Gove, Managing Director of basic rights how it intraday jack. Great, yeah, really good. How are you? Really good. Thanks, mate, listen, jack, For the uninitiated, perhaps you can just give us a thumbnail sketch of view and what it is you do at basic rates. Sure. So So I as some Managing Director of basic rates, that basically means, in short, I'm sort of in charge of, I guess, all of the business related things that go on within the label. So I guess it's sort of everything, everything that's not directly kind of like creative on the product level, or the content level I'm in charge of. and basic rights is a is a contemporary menswear brand where that sells direct to consumer. We've been going a few years now originally launched in New York, back in 2016. And the label was a it's actually the kind of brainchild of our creative director Freddie who is a musician, that's his day job. He is a touring and recording musician that plays a guitar and English indie band called the vaccines. So the the kind of the idea of basic basic, kind of the easiest way to understand what we are is, or I find often the easiest way to kind of explain what we are, is to do with the origin story and what the kind of, you know, the sort of genesis of the brand was when it was originally conceived. And it was originally conceived about five years ago, launch four years ago to conceive five years ago, when Freddie and his band were recording their third album. And for those that sort of, that aren't familiar with, what the kind of realities of like, sort of life for creative is going through recording is like, taking a band like, you know, like his, your sort of living day and night in the studio. And, you know, kind of the, it's just, it's a very, very intense experience, you kind of wake up head to the studio, and then really kind of like bringing everything you possibly can do to what you're doing, which is, you know, the creation of an album in this case. And the idea for for basic rights came out of this essentially, that, that that's the hard enough thing by itself to sort of turn up and sort of, like, bring everything of yourself to, you know, create a task like that. And that knowing that really, you know, how many decisions we have in a day is a is a very finite thing. You know, there's only so many decisions that we can really muster in a given day, if you're handing over one of them to thinking about the clothes that you're wearing, then you're already even in a small sense, taking away from what your potential is in terms of what you can bring to, you know, bring to play that day. So, and so Freddie's was was playing around with this idea and thinking that, you know, on the one hand he sort of, he didn't want to completely give up on you know, The give up on his appearance. And so really what he was looking for was a wardrobe that could really be something that would act in, in a sense as like a uniform that would kind of remove the friction from from his day. So he could really bring everything that he could to the creative act of recording. So basically, it's just sort of born to be that it was it was, you know, what would like what are the things that you could know, if they were in your wardrobe, you could just know that they were going to serve, you could throw them on, they were going to, you know, you will not be sacrificing you know, your parents. But yet, you will not going to be spending, you know, wasted energy in terms of making a decision like that. So it really kind of the more important things, or the things that really matter to you in your life, the things that you're able to kind of like to focus your attention on. So that's, that's interesting. Oh, that's fascinating. And you touched upon the origins of the brand that perhaps give us some of the origins of youth? So you studied at Oxford, I believe? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. What is that? Exactly? Is that more of the business of fashion? Or is that in the design as well, both very much the former so I am, I actually my undergraduate was, was in philosophy and theology. So it's very kind of like, I suppose highfalutin, and, you know, kind of intellectual and relatively useless. But the eye then, as you said, I got an MBA A few years later, after spending a little kind of brief stint in marketing, because I found just a very interesting thing in terms of trying to understand the way people think, I guess. And my kind of interest in fashion was something that emerged after study. And it wasn't really sort of, I suppose, somewhere in my mid 20s, where I started to care about clothes at all, I really didn't care about them at all before that. And I think that the, the familiar so Penny dropping thing was that was the whether or not you want to what you do in terms of clothes, and the choices you make with your clothes are saying something about you that that in itself is a very interesting thing to think about, from a consumers perspective, and then later, I start to think about, you know, how that would, you know, what that would mean to be a brand and, and to kind of bring a product to market and to, you know, bring an offering to people and stuff. But it's also the other thing, I started kind of make a lot of a lot more sense, as well as the it was the artistry as well, it exists within fashion. And if you're at all interested in culture, you know, any other kind of culture, whether it's film, or music, or books or anything like that, that the same things that it can excite you about that exists as well within the design of clothing and design in general. And those things came together. And I think for me, were sort of a bit of an aha, and that it was really on that basis that I decided to make my way into this world. Nice. And so at what point in your timeline, do you now get involved with basic rights? How did that come about? Well, it was actually, it was very soon after I finished my MBA. And it was, I mean, kind of, like many things, really, I mean, it was it was through the people in my life that it sort of came up and my my best friend from from university, he, he's actually he's a screenwriter now. And he had a he grew up with this guy who was talking about this friend of his who was a guitarist who's in the vaccines, and I'd heard of the vaccines, periphery, I mean, I kind of slightly more into, I guess, electronic, and like soul and stuff like that. But then, you know, like, I kind of aware of the things that are going on in the indie world, so sort of aware of them. And it was this interesting thing that my mate had this pad of mate had another mate that was in this band. And he said, he said that as the sort of interest that I hadn't fashioned sort of was blossoming, and obviously, you know, starting to make kind of more moves into the, you know, into into the industry. He said that you guys should meet up and chat because he's just launched a label. And I think you'd be interested in finding out you know, your thoughts about it. And it really was, I mean, it was a very, very, you know, kind of nascent thing at that point. I mean, it had been going for, for only a few months. So I, although I wasn't there at the launch, I was there very soon after, and it's been, it's been an amazing experience actually helped him to kind of, you know, to help shape it over the last two years to sort of bring it to what it is now. And what I'm very excited, I think, is going to be, you know, in the not too distant future. So I guess, yeah, that's probably in summary. Great. And so how often on a daily basis, do people ask you for backstage passes for the vaccine? Well, the answer is, it's not every day, but it does happen. And But yeah, I mean, it's sort of it, it pops up actually, it's a funny thing, actually sort of this world because it's not it's not just free. He's obviously friends with lots of other musicians that have like big profiles and stuff. And so they kind of, they sort of exist within the the basic rights universe. So you know, like, whether we'd like shooting, shooting them in our clothes and we're interviewing and all that kind of stuff. So these are quite high profile rock stars and are becoming, it's becoming just a normal thing to be like texting them and stuff like that. And, and it's a, it's a sort of funny thing, like the older you are like 1015 years ago, that probably would have been a, I don't know, like a potentially debilitating kind of thing. You know, I mean, it's like, it's like people freeze up, they see a famous person kind of thing, whereas now it's just like, well, they're just people, and they want free stuff as well. And you know, they will kind of do anything for it. And that's all I've learned, it just becomes normalised very quickly, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And how Front of House is ready when it comes to the brand. So I'm going to try and put some balance to this, because I know, I think people will try and draw comparisons for other musicians that have started their own brands, over the years like Liam Gallagher, that is pretty green, who were launched real stars are rare back in the day, that didn't really take off as well as I think he hoped. And but he was actually when I met Paul, well, he was actually very modest about the brand, he would turn up for launch day. But he didn't want to do any modelling, you don't want to be kind of on the front of the website or anything like that. So he had like this very modest reverse reserved approach to marketing it. And I think Liam Gallagher has a bit of that as well. You don't see pretty green with Liam Gallagher's face. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And I think these, I think these guys are just saying, Let's hope let's make the clothes speak for themselves. And if we have to do a bit of a kind of a press day, then maybe I'll turn up that that sort of ethos, how is Freddie's attitude towards basic roads? Well, I think the answer is very similar to the two examples you just brought up. I mean, you know, you're gonna have you go on our website. And, and I think at the moment, there's not a single photo, Freddie, I think I'm writing that, except for No, there's there's one journal entry where there's photos of him, and it's his own journal, and then that's it. So, you know, we mentioned him on the about us, but we like the justice, you say like our focus, we know that if we're going to be if we're going to build something that's going to last, it's going to be on solid foundations, most of the foundations being a product business is going to be our product, and so we have to make the best product possibly can do. And we do that first. And once we're happy with that, then we can start to kind of stretch the legs into other things, and, you know, like, to the storytelling to do with, you know, all that kind of stuff, then the other part of it, and it's something that we talked about, he and I talked quite frankly, about is that he's just I mean, you know, we're he Drake, you know, if he had a, you know, an audience that size, and I think we probably would have a slightly different marketing strategy. But, but he, he isn't, it's, it's just enough of an interesting angle, and that brings enough in it that's fresh and new, that is kind of reason enough to exist in the world, that it's not just a kind of prestige, or repeat, something's gone before that, that we want to really sort of focus it, like I said, mostly on the clothes and less on, you know, making it about the label of, of a musician that like has something of a profile. So So yeah, I think that's it. I mean, and the truth is that is that Freddie is very involved in, in, in almost every aspect of the business. And it's a great thing because he, you know, his, his day job as a musician plays a guitar band. And he hasn't trained at this as a designer, either of clothing, or graphic design, or anything else that we might use. But he's got a superb eye and a very clear sense of what it is that he wants. And so my job in many ways, I think, is to provide him with tools that he needs in order to kind of realise, you know, whatever visions he does have, and we're very fortunate in that we work with some some fantastically talented people, and it's taken some time to bring together the right people, but act in many ways, I guess, like his hands, you know, and whether that's designers or photographers, or you know, or content creators, writers, whoever, it's, you know, all of these people are kind of there to help to kind of realise sort of central vision. So, yeah, I think I think the, to answer your question very little about kind of tethering it to, you know, him and whatever profile he has, and very much the case of, of using his individual perspective as something that we, you know, can really sort of give us a reason to exist in many ways. So, yeah, interesting. Yeah, it's talking like this just reminds me of my old days where when I was in a band up and down the country word, what I like to say Heron hope, which I haven't even I do remember quite vividly with discussions with management, about how to dress when you're on stage and how you're communicating a message and everyone needs to almost be themselves but dress the same I mean, that's why when you see function bands are all dressed in black, right, they're all going to be kind of like the, the sole numbers but no one's going to be able to kind of dress how they want in like Flamingo shirt. So yeah, one's gonna be wearing a peacock suit over here, etc. And the other guy is going to be wearing Hawaiian Elvis shirts over there. It's kind of the message is got to be very Clear, like this, I get from my band, this is what I want, I can relate to them. And not only can I relate to their music, their lyrics, but I can also relate to them by what they're wearing and what I'm seeing visually. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I didn't really have a question at the end. But I think it's really interesting point, I mean, because we like, we're actually sort of like a label, in many ways, the creative of our label, kind of, in some ways, existence of dichotomy between those two, those two pillars that I spoke earlier, you know, if you're, if you're a touring musician, then you spend, like, you know, not hard not, it's not like 5050 or anything, but like, half of your time is spent in you know, in writing, recording music, and then the other half is spent in touring and performing that music. And the truth is, is that you sort of you're a bit Jekyll and Hyde in a sense, you know, because the, you know, the, the uniform that you would go to, to, for the creation part that we spoke about, there is almost always going to be a very different thing from the, from the, you know, the costume, yeah, for the, for the performance part, and we as a, as a label have, I mean, we sort of we broadly speaking, have a, we have a few different kind of like clothing categories that we kind of work with, and of our core collection, which is very much tailored towards that first category of clothing, you know, so, this is the stuff that you would just throw on that you can then you know, it is one less decision in your day. And, and it is one less piece of friction, which means that, you know, you have just that slight edge on, you know, what you can bring to whatever, you know, is required that day. But then the other on the other hand, we've got kind of a seasonal collections that we do design, and that kind of we we release in line with a something that is looks quite like a normal fashion calendar, that does definitely take in things that could that would look more at home on a stage rather than, you know, in a studio, for example. So we do have these two dichotomies. And you know, like I said, My job is to, to sort of get things out of the way for Freddie so his vision can come out, and those two things exists within him. So I think it's an interesting thing. And but I completely agree with you, I think that the the thought that goes into that second category of units of performance, there has to be like, a lot of thought has to go into that such that there is a message that has been communicated through what you wear. So yeah, it's very interesting thing. It's, yeah, it's interesting, also, how you're saying that when you go to the studio is more or less your kind of day to day almost like a work uniform, you know, you're not going to be seen by a whole bunch of people is going to be the sound engineer, a couple of chicks lying around. A boy who the artist is, exactly. And so you don't really put as much care and attention. And when you do and it's stage night, always Good night, obviously, there's a there's that extra four that goes into what you're wearing. But now with social media, and like videos going around inside the studio, you know, how much of that line is now going to be one side or the other. I mean, you know, you can't just put on your joggers and use your sweatshirt, when you're playing guitar and laying down a track. If the sound engineer is now doing the behind the scenes video of you, you know, and that's true, yeah, got to be representing that image on stage, almost ever now. 100%. And so that kind of goes back to this point about when you know, the sort of this this idea that Freddie had, which was that if you wanted to sort of take a thinking element as what you're gonna be wearing that day, you've got a choice. Either, you have to stop caring about your appearance, which is something that Pete you know, it's a choice that some people make, and frankly, I'm you know, I'm all about individuals make whatever choices makes sense for them. So power to anybody that wants to do that doesn't care how they look. And often that is, you know, like, that's a sign of true style. But then there's, you know, if you then the other choices, you have to build, you know, something that you that takes the decision out of the question, and really that will that what that is down to is sort of the foundations of a strong wardrobe. You know, so like, so for us, it's sort of, you know, what we've done is we've sort of decided we're kind of constantly tweaking and distilling what what our current vision is of what those foundations are going to be. So yeah, I think that, you know, to your point, it's like, if you choose that second route that I just described, then, you know, if, like, behind the scenes stuff is being taken, you know, in the context of recording musicians, for example, but this could be any, any avenue of life in which somebody thinks they're off duty. Is that you've, you know, that you're, you're kind of covered, I guess, yeah, I'm trying to say, Yeah, you're not gonna be running around asking people to delete photos. No. Well, I guess I'm kind of air stewardess thing. I know where that came in. I get I'm, I was catching a flight once and someone was recording the air stewardess or the cabin crew, I think is probably the right term nowadays. They were filming her doing the kind of life jackets on DSC you know, as fire exits over here, blah, blah. And I this guy in front of me was just filming. And then after she was done, she goes right now you need to delete that off your phone. And you know, she deletes it. She goes now you need to go to your deleted files, your empty bin and empty trashing that, and oh my god, it was hilarious. Oh, I really loved it. I mean, seemed like a grown man being brought back. About right, you shouldn't do that sounds great cameras in people's faces. I mean, what? Exactly, exactly? Yeah, that's funny. Sorry, I digress massively. I didn't really want to bring it up. I suppose I have to COVID. Yeah. What is the deal with COVID? And how have you reacted to it as a brand? Wow. So that's the loss in that as there is for everybody? And the answer. I mean, can I go? So I mean, on one hand, we are like, well, COVID changed everything, obviously. And it's the within return within fashion, the most dramatic and immediate change, of course, has been those who who have physical stores. So when they were shocked for months on end, and that, you know, revenue stream went to zero, that put a lot of people out of business, but a lot of broke brands and financial distress, and all of these kinds of things. And luckily, we don't have any stores we just started consuming, we just sell through our website. So we weren't hit in that same way. The next thing is that it also had enormous impact on the wholesale business, and the wholesale business, which has been, I mean, it's been pretty rickety for quite some time. There's all kinds of issues with it. The power dynamics between brands and retailers are not where they should be. The the buying cycle is doesn't make any sense. It's insane. The margins don't make sense. All of these things about wholesale don't make much sense, which is sort of one of the reasons why razor direct consumers been so kind of, I guess, you know, so, so pronounced. And, and so that was also hit very hard to brands that were very exposed and how big wholesale businesses took a big hit, we weren't one of them. So we we were insulated from that somewhat. However, the the like, that doesn't mean that we weren't hurt at all, because although the first three months of lockdown, so the month of March through to May, there was within e commerce as a whole. So everything that is sold over online, not just clothing, there was it's reported that there was the same amount of growth in that three month period for the e commerce industry as there was in the 10 years that led up to it. So essentially, what it means is that if you're talking about a quarter of a quarter of years period, seeing 10 years worth of growth than that, then the rate of growth increased by 40 times over that period. So there was just this massive movement towards e commerce, which, of course, you know, like, helped all of these huge ecommerce players, the sort of big generalists, you know, these massive giants of Amazons and Walmart's and Asia JD and Alibaba and, and you know, these companies, the thing is, is that the all that growth that was seen was people buying yoga mats and houseplants and PlayStations. It wasn't people buying tailored trousers, or, you know, goods like that. And in fact, the data that I've seen, the market research that I've seen so far today puts ecommerce, fashion sales, particularly menswear, which is the thing that's kind of anchoring down the, you know, all of the different subcategory of women's wear, kids wear etc. was for long periods of the year down 50% on the year before. So although we saw a huge growth in e commerce as a whole, there was a huge hit in terms of in terms of fashion, e commerce, it was one of the, you know, subcategories of e commerce that did not do well. So, you know, we weren't immune to that we, we, although we were able to continue serving our customers and getting orders out and we kept the lights on, this was going to be a very big year for us in terms of growth, and we and you know, all of the activities that we have kind of planned to support that we had some really exciting things planned. And we had, we frankly, just had to put all those things on ice, you know, it was like many people, it was sort of, you know, pulling up the drawbridge and making sure that we were kind of in some ways going into, you know, into kind of protectionist mode to make sure that we could ride this one out. But we knew that if we did that, then and continue to invest in product development, making sure that we continue to put our resources into making our product as strong as it could be continuing our sourcing efforts to make sure that we're sourcing the best materials that we could, and that we were, you know, communicating with our consumers in a way that was like direct and you know, and, and, like, honest and open, then we would be you know, positioning ourselves properly to come out to this the other end. And now, the other there was another thing that so that that's kind of like what our response was, in many ways it was a real success because actually the kind of new product that we've been releasing recently has been doing fantastically well. And you know, I had expected it to because of what we put into it and the people that were working on it and just how good you know they are they do but the what we've seen recently is that there has been essentially when when lockdown started All of the stock that brands had couldn't go anywhere. So it couldn't go anywhere. The accumulated, you know, it was just sitting on their balance sheets, which is sitting in their warehouses and the brands need, they needed to get rid of it and liquidate that stock. So they can make way for the stuff that has been coming in too late to cancel. So what they did, so the summer sales, which normally followed a fairly standard pattern is, you know, starting sometime kind of early mid June and finishing kind of early, mid July, which by this, by the way is insane. Like anyway, but that's when it happens. Because you're you're marking down summer product, when there's still two and a half months of sunshine left doesn't make any sense. But the bat normally lasts for a month. And I've been tracking our complexity of other brands within the space and whether or not they're still on sale. And about 40% of the brands that I check out on a regular basis is still in the second week of October on this Summer Sale In in one form or another, it's almost half of the brands that are on that now, that has an impact. Market wide, you know, if they're if everybody's on discount, then it encourages Firstly, it trains the consumer to just look for discounts and look for sales and shopping sale. And that has an impact on you know, that has an impact on brands has an impact on the whole value chain, actually. But it also it's it's a bit like the the thing that they talked about in retail, when when talking about discounting is it's bit like taking a drug, in that you get a kind of short term fix a short term hit that ultimately compromises the long term health of the body in which is in which is being delivered. And that is weak, like so I would expect to see is that now lots of brands are getting hooked on this drug of discounting is I think that's going to with there's gonna be second order effect that we'll see into next year in terms of like brands, brands and retailers going into distress and struggling to keep up with things because they've relied too much on the discounting. Because ultimately, it's it's an unsustainable way of doing business. And so, you know, we're kind of our way out of that is, is the same as it was six months ago or nine months ago, you know, when when we were responding to this, which is that we need to continue to invest in the thing we know to be true, which is that if we make the best product, we possibly can do it our price point, then we know that it's going to be the thing that will get us through it ultimately. So our response is to is to pair everything into product. And so we continue to develop, we continue to you know, get be very busy in terms of our sourcing. And we continue to try and innovate on those, you know, on like when it comes to that and in small way in like small ways as well as big. And so I mean, that's kind of it in a nutshell. I could I could talk for hours about COVID. Yeah, it's I know, I, whilst you were talking there about sales and price reductions and stuff as a, it feels like last chance saloon, sometimes when you're a brand doing this, when I was running an independent fashion shop just outside of Cambridge, a few years ago, we did what was called a free for two, and we would text our database, we're not we do about once a month, if we had a couple of bad weekends in a row, we try and throw them up back in, you know, do a really good sale, and it would prove very good. And we're banging the test out the night before. And we'd see a very good day, the next day, the trouble is, people would get very wise to that. And they wouldn't come in during the month, they were just wasting subtext. And so once once people have had a taste for this discount, and like you say it's both for the consumer and for the brand, you get that fixation, you You almost can't find a better idea of cutting your prices in half. There's no there's not a better idea for the current though, that's for sure exactly the exam. And I think it's one of the reasons why a lot of the designer brands things like Gucci never goes into sale or Yeah, one of the heavy hitters. And they they kind of stick true to this model that, you know, you may as well sit on your stock, perhaps, I don't know, what would you say to these big companies, and I mean, I'm guessing that you have a short production run, so it's not so bad for you to sit on, perhaps stock that might be, you know, harder to churn out. But when these guys that have invested so heavily and have so much of it, you know, what are these guys gonna be doing? Well, I mean, it's very difficult to say, I mean, I think that the because the thing is, is that the thing that makes it particularly difficult is no brand exists in a vacuum. You know, like whatever choice you make, you have to be aware of the fact there are 30 other people also making a choice, and that if somebody goes there, then then that's where consumers are gonna go and then you know, it's like it's a bit you know, you know, like you see this thing about I just had this image in my head of you know, the antelope at the side of a river when there's like a crocodile kind of thing, you know, it's like, and they they they need criss cross the river. But yet there's like nobody wants to go there. There's some I mean, it's not perfect metaphor actually. In fact, I might scrap the metaphor but you can get some this idea of herd mentality the wild hog As well, the reason why this was thinking about it is that is that, you know, like that there is a herd mentality going on, which is that like, all of these brands and retailers know that they need to, that they would do themselves more long term value, or they would protect more long term value if they don't resort to tactics like that. However, if everybody else is doing it, and your cash reserves are so large to get you through, you know, X amount of months, and you're forecasting that this, if it happens, is going to last x times to, you know, number of months, then, you know, that you have to in order to survive. So, like I think the answer is, is that every brand has to has to make a choice according to what makes sense for them in terms of their financials, their stock position, all of these things and, but that I think that that is a very sensible strategy is that crises like this are a good opportunity to sort of trim a lot of unnecessary things that you know, brands and companies will be spending their money on. And instead focus on the fundamentals and your core, you know, business and for us, that's, you know, that is this, this uniform piece of these, like these timeless pieces that we want to make sure that that that serve our customer in a way that makes sense. And that like, ultimately, it's all about if you think about the consumer, it's all about engineering value. So like, if you have the example of like the text message you sent to your database three for two thing, like what what are you doing there, you're, you're offering value in the value you're offering is it is money saved against a full ticket price. Now, that's one way of offering value. But there are other ways of offering value. And the one that like I said, that we're quite relentlessly focused on is making sure that we can engineer a product that we're very confident punches well above its weight in terms of price already. So and the thing is, is that is that's something that is reflected in what we see we have a we've got an excellent repeat customer rate people and have an excellent returns rate. industry standard is anywhere sort of like you know, anywhere between 20 and 40%, in our part of the market, and it's sort of if you're, you know, the fast fashion past market, it can be as high as available. So you can, your customer can be as high as 70%. Now, we're kind of, you know, between some 10 to 12%. So we've got an excellent return rate. And we put that down to the fact that our product, it punches well above its weight in terms of the quality to price ratio, the way that we're able to do that is that and the solution we've got that makes a lot of sense for us at this point in our brand's life is that we, you know, we talk a little bit about this on our site, but actually most of the work has been doing and most of the work to date has been doing it and less about talking about it. And we're now going to focus more attention on educating consumers and talking about it is we work a lot with deadstock fabrics and surplus is a rubbish collection. Yeah, yeah, it is. But it's actually more products than just the rubbish collection that we do. So we so what deadstock for, for anybody that hasn't heard that term before means is essentially, it is the surplus meterage that happens in any fabric production run within within a meal that then ends up not getting bought. So a large brand will order say 2000 metres of fabric to make a pair of trousers or shirt or shirt style or something like that. And after a series of cancellations or last minute changes, changes apart, they may decide that rather than having 2000 metres of this fabric, they want 1900 metres this fabric and so the mill is left with a with a surplus of 100 metres of fabric. And yet there's very little in the way of a marketplace to move this fabric on, it's already been made, but they don't you know, the brand does want to cut it and lose even more money there. So it's just left. Now what we do is we go through, we go to Mills directly and we go to marketplaces that we can find that sell it and there's a few interviews with people that we work with to help us here is we buy up this fabric normally from luxury brands and luxury Mills that, that that essentially for pennies on the pound, and then use it to engineer into our products. Initially, it was our core product range. There's still a lot of our core product management product ranges made use of that stuff. But yeah, as you say is it's a collection that we call the rubbish collection. And the reason why we call it rubbish collection is that if we didn't buy it, it would otherwise make its way to landfill or the furnace actually and so this like beaut what's often beautiful fabric is you know, is either sitting in a warehouse for you know, an ungodly amount of time, only to sort of end up making its way to landfill or it goes to the furnace. So we buy it for pennies on the pound. And then what we can do is we can both save it from the landfill on the furnace, we can avoid developing fabrics, which is the single most damaging part of the value chain because of all the pollutants and things like that, that get pumped into water supplies and all the other things that go on during the fabric production process. But we can also like it is as I say because we can we're buying it off people that don't really have anybody else so we can then put it into a product and then maintain A healthy, healthy margin for our business, which is ultimately direct to consumer. So it's already cutting out a middleman. And it means that we can create a kind of luxury quality product, price, that sort of accessible premium price point. And I was actually speaking to somebody today, only about half an hour an hour before we started talking. That was, that's reviewing some of our products at the moment. And he was I mean, and he was really gratified cool, because he was saying, just how, you know, surprised he was at the quality level for the price point. And that he was thinking that the only other thing in his wardrobe, you can compare this against a high waisted trousers, which is a core staple of ours was a pair of custom made tailor trousers that he had made, I think the price was around 450 quid now also at 100. And to me that sounds about what we're aiming for, we're trying to, we're trying to offer that level of differential. So back to your question about other brands and discounting the the answer for me is that if you can find other ways to offer value, I think that's going to be thing gets you through. And so for us, it's at the level of the product, and always will be nice. Well, thank you and feels like we've got an upbeat and note to the conversation. JACK, I want to be respectful of your time. Thanks so much for jumping on. basic rights calm is place to go. And people can find those great value products. I recommend not just the rubbish collection. But look at all the garments. I particularly like the giving tees selection. I wonder if that was a play on The Giving Tree verse. exactly exactly what it was. It's only about 10 pages. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's also the reason why I like it, but it was mainly drawings. And I guess Oh, well, one last question. And then you must get asked constantly, if you want to, or post breakup sex? Which one? You'll have? To be honest, I actually think post breakup sex is my favourite again, they're bigger. Their biggest song is actually if you want to lay this down as issues. But I think there's something about the attitude of post breakup sex and I think is, is very true to the kind of indeed that there is a band where, you know, we're very much very much all about in that and that first album, so for me, that's that's it hands down. I wish I had some kind of tick correct button. I like to put it in post. But yeah, I have a video too. That just reminds me of every dingy house share. Exactly. 1819 isn't ham. Thanks again. And people that basic rights.com is the place to go and, and I hope to catch up with you soon. Take care. Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you. Well, how about that? How many times will I get to mention Shel Silverstein on a podcast? The giving treato really is the best book ever written. And I defy anyone to tell me otherwise. Anywho make sure you're supporting the good guys and head over to basic rights calm and treat yourself or your loved one. In the meantime, thanks for tuning in everyone. And if you like what you're hearing, leave a review on your smartphone there. It does help. How are you guys and until next time

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