Menswear Style Podcast

Helen Farr-Leander, Founder of Watson & Wolfe / Eco-Conscious Accessories

November 02, 2020 Menswear Style Episode 92
Menswear Style Podcast
Helen Farr-Leander, Founder of Watson & Wolfe / Eco-Conscious Accessories
Show Notes Transcript

The Watson & Wolfe story started in 2016 when their intention was to use genuine leather. The business boasts a wealth of experience within the luxury leather industry, so this was a very natural path for them to take. It was during the research and development phase in 2017 that they uncovered the facts and saw the reality of the leather industry.  The demand for leather continues to grow and as a result we continue to cause damage to people, rivers and ecosystems. This was a turning point for founder Helen Farr-Leander who decided to change direction completely. The brand now believes they have an opportunity to produce a product range that is not only safer for people, but more environmentally-friendly for our planet, and which challenges the leather and luxury goods industries as we know them. Their collections are made in a small boutique factory that has a long history of producing the highest quality accessories for luxury brands all over the world. Using the same traditional crafting techniques, they produce a superior product which is cruelty-free and sustainable. By using superior quality materials from eco-conscious suppliers, and fine craftsmanship, they hope to encourage more men to shop sustainably. 

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Watson & Wolfe Founder Helen Farr-Leander about her background working within the leather goods industry. After taking a break to start a family she soon had the desire to start her own company using non-leather materials, which won a PETA award in 2019. Our host Peter Brooker and Helen also chat about how toxic chemical waste is damaging the health of people, the ethics of breading animals for material use, new innovative environmentally-friendly materials such as cactus leather, and working with small independent stores.

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the mentor style podcast. I'm your host people cat. On this episode, I'm going to talk to Helen falinda, founder and director at Watson and Wolf Wolf with an E. And I'm just gonna pull a short clip from the website here which you can find by the way at Watson wolf.com. Our collections are made in a small boutique factory that has a long history of producing the highest quality accessories for luxury brands all over the world. Using the same traditional crafting techniques and construction, we are producing a superior product which is cruelty free and sustainable. The world is changing, and consumers are to buy using superior quality materials from eco conscious suppliers and fine craftsmanship, we hope to encourage more men to shop sustainably. So that interview with Helen to come Helen was a delight. She spoke very eloquently about her brand and introduced me to a lot of new things regarding certain toxic elements within the fashion industry and the possibility of having a cactus leather suit made. So a lot of takeaways, and I think you'll enjoy this one. Before we get to Helen, don't forget to check out the show notes at men's wear style.co.uk. And on the social we are at men's wear style for hit us up if the kids even say that anymore. And if you want to tell us about your brand, maybe you want to come on the show and tell us your journey. You can email us at info at menswear. star.co Uk okay. So let's get to it. This is a good one. And I hope you enjoy it. Here's that interview of Helen Farley and founder and director at Watson and Wolf. Well, it's my great pleasure to introduce Helen Farley and our founder and director of Watson and Wolf. How you doing today, Helen? I'm good. Peter. Thank you very much. Good to be here. Yeah. Well, thanks for taking time out. Helen, where is here for you? Here at the moment, I'm in Spain with some family right now. But the home is usually in the UK. Okay, excellent. And perhaps you can just give us a bit of an introduction to who you are and brag a little or a lot about Watson and Wolf, please. Well, I'm about me, I started on a luxury leather goods journey. For more than 10 years, what I want to ask sort of London. From there I went from I was pivotal there in growing the company from around nought to 10 million pounds. After about 10 years, I wanted to do something a bit different. So I moved on and worked in home interiors, and in for men's accessories brand as well. I then started a family. So I thought well, now it's time for career break. So I had a little bit career break. And I came back with the idea that I wanted to do something of my own is leather good seemed like a really good place to start is something that I knew about. So I began to sort of cultivate ideas of what we would be who we would be and what we would use. I then caught up with a chap called Sanjay Patel, who I worked with leading marketing agency more to he became our FDA was actually the FDA for spice and upon speed for a number of years. So collectively, we had quite a lot of experience in this sector. And what's the move began? From there really, it was going to be a luxury leather goods brand. And it was in our six or seven months later, after that initial conversation with Sanjay that I decided to put it all on its head, turn it around and become a non leather leather goods brand. Wow. Yeah, it was one of those moments when you just sort of say, what about if we didn't do this? You know, what about if we just did it a bit differently? And then you'd sort of start talking about how that might look instead? Well, what I really loved about spending some time on your website was all the information that you get on vegan levers and other forms of Lega Lega. you're introducing a cactus lever in November. So we'll get onto that in a sec. But so much it's it's a fountain of knowledge, I learned so much just being on the website. But perhaps you can fill us in a little bit and why the leather industry is causing the environment, so much damage. What is it in particular about that? It's actually not one thing, it's a bunch of things. I think one of the things as you quite rightly pointed out, when you come to our website, it's really not about you know, totally, it's not all about selling what we do. It's about there's an element of education there and it's about changing the perception of these materials that we're using. And not just to replace animal products. It's not just about being vegan. It's about Addressing the environmental issues of materials we've been using up to this point, and leather being one of the most damaging from several for several reasons that from the amount of toxic chemical waste from the tanning process, which has dumped into waterways and destroys ecosystems and landmasses around those, those areas of the world, that water is affects the human health of the people living in those areas as well. A tannery worker is his average life is about 54 years old, just because the health implications and the suffering that he will get from using being in touch with all of those chemicals every day of his life is just so so vastly impacting on him or her. And the animal suffering Peter, I mean, you know, animals aren't the animals used for the leather industry years ago would have been those as a byproduct of the meat industry. And that's correct. But these days, that's not the case. The vast the sheer number of animals required to to provide for the leather industry is just too big. It's too big. It's like 400 and 20 million animals or something by 2025. I mean, that can't be supplied just by the meat industry. There's lots of other animals being used to subsidise that. And animals being trafficked from one country to another because it's illegal to kill them in one country, but not the other. It's the way in which they're transported, which isn't necessarily right, either or ethical. So it's, you know, and don't let's not forget that we're using animals also that one of the primary contributors to climate change, you know, house. So, you know, if we want more leather, do we make more? Do we have more cows to produce that leather? Kind of, you know, we have to sort of change our thinking about things. Like we all everything else, really when it comes to climate? Yeah, I think that's perhaps one of the misconceptions is that people just think it's maybe one thing like, Oh, well, we shouldn't just be killing cows for the sake of having accessories and clothes. But it's a multi pronged attack on the climate, isn't it? I mean, just again, going through your website, I learned so much about how I know, I knew that the fashion industry was the second biggest polluter in the world, because my girlfriend works in the oil industry. So I like to think that been us, we've got the one and two covered. But with the fashion industry being like the second biggest polluter in the world, it's mainly because of the toxics that are found in these garments, and especially within leather, like you were saying with the tannery process that aren't biodegradable, so they can't diminish anywhere. They're just literally being dumped upon landfill upon landfill, we're sending it all around the world to different countries who are now sending it all back saying we don't want your rubbish anymore. Anyway, like you say, so. It's a huge, perpetual cycle of, of crap, for want of a better word. You know, it is one of the things we talk about on our website. And certainly in the blog information, the post that we send out to people is that, you know, that there's these new materials are all about reducing many things, they're about reducing the amount of chemicals that we use, so many of these new materials have have little or no chemicals in them at all, which means when they put into landfill, they break down probably the same as leather because leathers designed never to break down. And but they don't leave chemicals when they're breaking so many. So where's animal leather will Leach chemicals for the whilst it's breaking. And in the manufacture of these materials with many of the companies innovating these, what to use less water. So less water means less natural resources. They want to use an organic material, we come onto things like pineapple or wine leather, or you know, cactus leather, any of those materials, they are all using an organic base material, the one we use is for uses corn oil as a basis of the of the material, which is renewable, which is actually carbon neutral because it absorbs as much carbon as it as it lets out when it's cut down or use. So it's an environmental it's not it's not and you know, we're a small companies that we market to a very finite audience at the moment, which is the vegan audience. So we don't have enormous marketing budget. But actually I'll put up for anybody who wants to lower their environmental impact, because these materials are designed to exactly that. Lower the impact to make the wallet lower the impact of May I told that so it's not just about animal rights, animal welfare, it's about a whole bunch of different things too. Yeah. I fell in love with your coke belts by the way when I was on the web, then you there are classic Yeah, I've never seen them before. I hear a lot of different things with belts how they make Oh, like driving seat belts and now belts that you can wear around or tarpaulin truck maps and you can now fashion that into about sort of cork belts. That's new on me and I don't know if it's been used for a long time probably has. Yeah, but it's fine if it's new for you. I thought I think They look fantastic. I noticed also that you won an award in 2019 for the Peters best men's accessory brand of the year. That must have been a wonderful accolade for you. Yeah, we were only trading for a year at that point. So to be recognised that early on was really, really special. Yeah, really pleased with that. Yeah. So you're the real deal over there. I must ask you about cactus lever. Yeah. So keeping them quite strong cactus leather, isn't it? So for people that have no idea, again, I went on the website, and I found a really helpful video that showed the two pioneers putting this together and you know, doing the patent, but perhaps it will come from your mouth, if you can tell us about the range and what cactus leverages, please. Well, this is a prime example of what we were just talking about when we're talking about innovators of these materials wanting to make change. So the two founders of deserta, who make cactus leather, one of them was the facet from the fashion industry. One of them was from the automotive industry, both who use leather, both who recognised that the damaging pollution of the of the product was unsustainable, and wanted to find a solution. They live in Mexico, one of them, but one of the things that's abundant in Mexico is Papyrus, it uses very little water to grow. So it's incredibly sustainable and renewable. And in fact, they don't, it's a bit like cork, which is obviously my tree, which is left intact. Cactus plants are the same thing. So that whole cactus part is left intact, and they just take the new leaves. And within a few months, it's grown new leaves again. And all the while using very little water. The cactus material itself is actually made with, with no toxic chemicals whatsoever, completely chemical free, which is, if you think about it, quite incredible. And so we were, we want to be pioneers of these new materials. So cactus was definitely on our radar since I heard about it. And with all new materials, there's obviously hiccups with production, you know, how you want to use it, how it can be used, what's possible, what the limitations are. And we're all learning that all the time. So we've got a small range of items made with coming out, which we hope will be the end of November, but because of COVID-19, that's also impacted some of our supply chain. And so that may well be pushed back a bit. But it is coming and we're really, really excited about it. And well, I guess people tune in to the website, what's an wolfen? Sign up to the newsletter and we'll we'll get to hear about it. Follow us on social media, we talk about innovations and what's coming up and new items of stuff all the time. So yeah, definitely. And that's what's an in Wolf with an E on Instagram for anyone tuning in. How far are we away from having a cactus suit, Helen? How far we'll wait, maybe six to eight weeks. Okay, that's that sounds pretty good. I just want to the next party that I'm allowed to go to or whatever press event it will be. I want to be wearing a cactus suit. And I want people to ask, and then I want everyone to suit. Okay. Oh my God, he's a cactus suit. Well, this is a practice boxing glove already that they've made for the first ever practice leather boxing glove, which is the first boxing glove ever to be made outside of animal leather. Wow. Yeah, that's just happen. So. And these guys have got really great ambitions at Desert. So I've no doubt that in even 12 months time, the landscape of where this machine will be used, it will be used to be limitless, really, I just really loved that video because it was two guys on a journey. And then after you see like, it's one thing that you can't mentally transpose from one to the other. So you see the cactus plant. And then it all goes into pulp, I kind of get that I like seeing things going to poll partly. And then I've got a blender, I make all the cool Miss movies, my girlfriend is boring, actually quite like it. And that might be on the turn, you know a bit of fruit, waste free, it's got to be waste free pizza, that's good. You're using up all that stuff. It's all in there. And then you know, cut smash, you see it will be made into pulp and then all of a sudden they're rolling it out and rolls and you can seal this lever and you think about that is beyond science, science. And that's something magical in my mind. It's clever, it's clever. And actually, you know, I into my mind, having come from the leather goods industry, where we seem to have covered it with a word luxury. Many things that are wrong, like pollution, like animal suffering, like human health problems, we seem to wrap that up and call it luxury. You know, somehow somehow over generations that's happened. And when actually luxury really if I if I'm if I'm you know, to my mind should be something that's innovative and clever. That has the least impact on our environment. That's the product that should have the highest price point. And not this other way around. So somehow it's all got mixed up over the last generations. But I think now, because we'll think about sustainability a lot more, and we're all thinking about less, using less natural resources, and how we can use up waste plastic bottles, and all of those sorts of things. I think, isn't the sort of questions that we need to start asking ourselves when we're making purchases as a conscious consumer? Do I want to contribute to that? And even though it's even though, inherently I'm led to believe that's a luxury product? Or do I say no, I'm gonna buy this product, which I believe also has the same standard of craftsmanship, but uses these materials, which are far more future, future proof for our planet that are much safer and healthier for for our planet? Yeah, that's a really good point. And so Well, congratulations. Not that you need it from me. But I thought the for all the products look really, really good. And I don't know if I'm supposed to notice the difference between vegan levers to real levers. I mean, I don't know if there's any kind of discernible trait that I've missed, but they all look really, really fantastic. as does the website as well. Perhaps you can talk about what it's like to being like the founder and a director of a company what a day in the life is like for you. We spoke a fair about, I was just on the website. And then Helen pops up on the chat. And I'm like, Well, I wonder if that's the Helen and and you're like, it is me? Me. I cover I'm most most of the days you can find me in front of my laptop. I think that's the same for most founders. But I'm working on planning the next thing. Day in the Life is pretty much yeah, if anyone is on the live chat, I'm always there to answer their questions. Because it's me, I'm generally there till quite late as well. So we get lots of international inquiries quite late in the day. So I'm genuine on how to answer those questions. And we're very much about transparency, as you probably guessed, guessed from the website, as well. So any, any questions, and we'll open about where we manufacture what we do how we do it. And so my role really is about cost. liaising with our customer services person growing wholesale, we've got a whole house wholesale personnel working on growing our wholesale business. It's about planning and executing the marketing campaigns. It's about liaising with designer factories and sourcing materials. So it's pretty much ground. Ground Zero up with is what I tend to kind of fit into my day, every day. And how hard is it for you to delegate? I imagine because this is pretty much your baby. So right from the start, you know, everything you see is yours, to even give some bestow upon someone else to do some imagery or, you know, functional things for the websites or add on designs. I guess that's quite an investment of your trust. Yeah, it is, it is. And I think that comes with time. And when we're not, we're at the point now where with we're starting to wait, well, we'll have no choice really, but to start finding key people over certain aspects like, you know, email marketing, or, you know, social media help, or, you know, just other aspects, you know, especially when the website is concerned, because obviously, that's our, that's our key driver. And so for us to grow online is paramount. And, and obviously, as much as it's great to have a presence on the hype right now, in this climate, it's not, that not the best possible place for us to be even though we'd love to have stockists. And we are working actually, mostly in that area with small independent stores, because they tend to be in these little areas of the country where there's little tiny, like shopping hubs, really, if you take somebody like rye, or Leon C, or Suffolk or Norfolk, you know, they've got these little areas, little pockets of local shops with independence in them. And it's kind of those independent stores that we're trying to support with newness. And with, you know, with our innovative products, and they seem to be doing you well in those sorts of local shopping areas. So we're really pleased about that as well. But yeah, day to day is busy. Peter, busy. Well, especially running families and Well, our Yeah, well, different clock. So maybe we can just talk a bit about how the pandemic and how COVID I mean, this is kind of on the back of Brexit and all these, like sweet one twos that we've been getting recently. Just walk me through a couple of the headaches and obstacles and maybe some of the things that you've had to do to adapt to the current climate. We went, there's, I mean, there's lots of things. The first thing I thought about was when, when just shortly after the pandemic hit, we did see declines in sales. And I think everybody probably saw that too, as everybody sort of took a deep breath and thought, goodness me what's going to happen and, and our response to that was to really look at how we could operate better. So it wasn't about switching everything off and stopping and waiting for things to calm down, it was about looking at the areas where we could improve our customer journey. So things like we, we installed clear pay on the website. So people have the option to pay in four instalments rather than in one payment. And so even a cardholder in full for payments, which is like three pounds every fortnight or something like that, so you can still buy something nice for yourself, but it's just not coming out of your bank account straight away. And we also looked at gift vouchers, so rather than gifting a 50 pound wallet, or a 40 pound card holder, whatever we did, vouchers, so people can buy a five pound voucher or a 10 pound voucher that gets emailed to their recipient with a message. And it's about looking at those token ways that we can still access people can still access what we do. And and obviously, our response to COVID. It's also just it's reinforcing that we need to be making sure that all of our materials and all of our processes are as animal free as possible, really, you know, that we have got less reliance on our on our resources, and that we are being as compassionate as we possibly can in everything that we do really great. Well, I mean, I can't imagine what it's from the retail industry, I had my own independent shop just outside of Cambridge a few years back. And I already mentioned that at least two to three times per episode. So listen to this podcast will be very well aware of the shop. But I can't imagine what it would be like if I still had that shop dealing with, you know, supply chains being behind and you know, all the kind of headaches that are layered on top of being an independent, you know, I mean, yeah, it's, it's not the most easiest thing in the world to do, especially when you're up against such juggernauts in the industry and creating awareness online. I remember when, when my shop had the main road was closed in the village. So we were kind of out in the, in the tracks there, you mentioned, like these kind of parochial little places like North Korea, right now in farmer's country, and they shut the council or shut the main road off, which was like the bloodline to our village in our shopping centre. And so we had no traffic coming to the town. And I thought, Well, there you go. That's, that's, I, there's nothing that you can do to kind of anticipate this, you just, you just get blindsided by so much within the trade, but I think it's just for the love of the game that we keep punching through and overcoming them. It do. And I think as much as you get kicked back, I think, you know, we are always encouraged by reviews from our customers that what we're doing is the right thing. And, you know, as I said before, you know, we've been impacted a little bit by COVID-19 on our new collections, and, you know, it was like, Italy was really impacted and we get a lot of our materials from Italy, for example, and one of the major materials we use, we couldn't get because the company had gone down and the company that bought them was not going to keep making that material. So coming out of in pandemic, we're, you know, we're looking around for new materials from companies that are open or you know, because our supply chain and fundamental part of our supply chain is broken. So I'm sure there are lots of companies just like us that had all those same experiences and it just means that you know, as much planning as you can possibly do the last quarter of the year which when you're gifting company, it's so important that you kind of just got to go with the ups and downs and say okay, well you know what we have we're not going to have everything that we thought we were going to have it and that's fine but hopefully everyone will still love it and hopefully it won't be too late that it you know impacts on last quarter but we're lucky ducks at the moment with legs going really quickly. Well, I think I think the brand looks terrific. I'm really excited to see what you're doing and you're just getting started right they've done so much Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If any women listening or whatever we are we are launching women imminently that will be here before Christmas as well. Well again my my girlfriend was having a look through the website with me and she was getting let me know when the bag so yeah, we were asked like almost the first exhibition we ever did, where we had a standard veggie Fest in London. We had women going gt women's it we even see women's and we're similar. We've got so much to do for men already that we kind of wanted. that's a that's a gap. That's a gap. There are we're not there's nobody doing what we're doing for men. So we kind of want the men will get more good first before we start doing anything on behalf of every men. Thank you. So I really encourage people to check out the website. It's Watson wolf Morford. any.com is a place you can go and not only just find someone for products, but some great information on what we're doing to impact the climate. Vegan smoothie recipes, how not waste a thing over Christmas, by the way, you've completely reshaped what my Christmas is going to be. Thanks. and everything in between. So hello. And thank you so much for taking time out. Pleasure, Peter. And well how about that, and I didn't even get to talk about the film The grey. Your film about Wolf's I'll have to get back on. We'll do another hour on the grey. Anyway, make sure you're supporting the guys and girls. Head over to Watson wolf calm that's Watson Wolf with an e.com and treat yourself or a loved one and keep an eye out for those cactus leather goods coming soon. In the meantime, thank you for tuning in. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to leave us a review. It does help our egos mainly mine. Until next time

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