Ascot X Charlie is an adventure which started in 2018 by a band of friends: unrepentant travellers, seeking out the finer things in life. They had experienced first-hand the difficulty in finding products that resonated with them and their values: products that struck the balance between elegant design, quality and durability - without compromising on their origin, raw materials or respect for the environment. And as someone wise once remarked, if you want something done well, do it yourself. And so the brand was born out of the quest for beauty and harmony, driven by an unflinching sense of optimism and positivity. They travelled tirelessly through Italy and Portugal in search of the best ateliers, and after long months of work and dozens of prototypes, their first capsule collection was launched. Given its remarkable success, the founders decided to expand the range of sneakers whilst holding on to that optimism - and the brand now continues to offer elegant, durable and versatile products that showcase the best of European craftsmanship.
In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Sebastien Laroze and Dhiraj Bathija, Co-Founders of Ascot X Charlie about their backgrounds and how they came together to build a brand together in 2018. Our host Peter Brooker and the Co-Founders talk about filling a gap in the market, tapping into creativity, why quality and durability is important for sustainability in footwear, self-funding a startup, working with ateliers, what makes the brand different to others in the market, and sneaker care hacks.
Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.
Ascot X Charlie is an adventure which started in 2018 by a band of friends: unrepentant travellers, seeking out the finer things in life. They had experienced first-hand the difficulty in finding products that resonated with them and their values: products that struck the balance between elegant design, quality and durability - without compromising on their origin, raw materials or respect for the environment. And as someone wise once remarked, if you want something done well, do it yourself. And so the brand was born out of the quest for beauty and harmony, driven by an unflinching sense of optimism and positivity. They travelled tirelessly through Italy and Portugal in search of the best ateliers, and after long months of work and dozens of prototypes, their first capsule collection was launched. Given its remarkable success, the founders decided to expand the range of sneakers whilst holding on to that optimism - and the brand now continues to offer elegant, durable and versatile products that showcase the best of European craftsmanship.
In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Sebastien Laroze and Dhiraj Bathija, Co-Founders of Ascot X Charlie about their backgrounds and how they came together to build a brand together in 2018. Our host Peter Brooker and the Co-Founders talk about filling a gap in the market, tapping into creativity, why quality and durability is important for sustainability in footwear, self-funding a startup, working with ateliers, what makes the brand different to others in the market, and sneaker care hacks.
Whilst we have your attention, be sure to sign up to our daily MenswearStyle newsletter here. We promise to only send you the good stuff.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete Broca. Today I am talking to Sebastian and Dhiraj, the cofounders of Ascot and Charlie who contemporary luxury footwear brand with an ethos of simplicity and harmony. I'm going to peel off a little information that you can find on their website, which is Ascot and charlie.com. Ascot and Charlie is an adventure started in 2018. by a band of friends, unrepentantly travellers seeking out the finer things in life, we had experienced firsthand the difficulty in finding products that resonated with us and our values products that struck the balance between elegant design quality and durability without compromising on their origin raw materials or respect to the environment. As someone wise once remarked, if you want something done, well do it yourself. So it was born Ascot and Charlie, out of the quest for beauty and harmony driven by an unflinching sense of optimism and positivity. And here is Sebastian and urge to talk about Ascot and Charlie in their own words. So my name is Sebastian, I am French from the west coast of France, Brittany, I studied in Paris at La Sorbonne and ECP Business School. I have been living in a few different countries over the last 10 years, China in Switzerland to mention but a few with pit stops in Paris all the time, of course, as my family and most of our business partners are based there. And I am I created us country a few years ago in 20 2018. And I am now dedicating most of my time to what was initially a passion project and has now become lifestyle. Interesting, there are job to finish it in and like to Buster, quite an international cosmopolitan life. I mean, I did undergrad in the states in New York, and then was back in London for a while, did my masters in Switzerland, in Geneva, and then over the last few years, have been between Amsterdam and Paris. And, you know, we started as for Charlie, led 2018, August 2018. Just because we realised ourselves that it was time to tap into a creative energy a bit more, but also, because we as customers, we wanted, things that we saw just weren't available out there for, especially for male customers. So I think that's really where it started. And it's we started with sneakers. But the whole idea really is that it's that it's grown to a real lifestyle brand with an ethos of really good quality products made a fairly locally in Europe. And very much in our brand that's about relaxed elegance. So I think that was the genesis really of Haskell and Charlie, interesting. And to read you, you mentioned there that you're looking for something that wasn't quite in the market. So exactly, can you just drill down on that a little bit more. And so I think it's when we realised ourselves, you know, when I wanted to buy sneakers, for example, I mean, like, five, six years ago, they weren't really too many brands that were out there that were comfortable, good quality, and weren't exactly your high street, sort of fast fashion kind of brands. And I remember, you know, back in the day, and sort of in a previous life on I had a corporate job. And in London, you'd buy sort of, you know, your leather shoes at Russell and Bromley on on Oxford Street, but there wasn't an equivalent, you know, for sneakers if you wanted nice, elegant sneakers. And I think that's when I realised, I think it was once actually, exactly, I think the immediate trigger. One day was when I bought a pair of sneakers for about 200 euros, I will name the brand obviously. I literally gave way in a week. I think I worked a couple of days and the leather and the stitches started tearing. And it was literally shocked that you know, customers had to pay for things like that really and obviously advertised as good quality products. But yeah, apart from that it was a real desire, I think to do something creative and tap into I mean mine our creative energy. But yeah, I mean to answer your question there, you know, it was really bad. I mean, we just noticed that you know, sort of when you were younger and less conscious as a customer you obviously end up buying a lot of things from you know, fast fashion or high street brands obviously because you're also not necessarily making as much money but when you don't necessarily have the means they don't necessarily know and you don't necessarily know you better, you know, you sort of you know what the high streets and By doing whatever you see, I think probably like, you know, younger generations are going to be different in that they really grew up with their with Instagram and social channels a lot more aware they're a lot more aware of. Yeah, exactly what else you just, you know, so what was on the high street and you bought it and you didn't realise back then. So I think it really came about that way. Because, you know, there just weren't options, then. And you're almost kind of confused or, you know, slightly frustrated at how there wasn't anything that you know, of quality that you could pay for something that would last and looks good. Yeah, that's interesting. And we were just speaking offline about how I've kind of just come into new things in my early 40s, like, looking at where things are made supply chain sustainability, and all that. And, you know, because I've fallen into the trap of just buying, say, free pairs of trainers, let's just say for around under 100 quid, and I won't name the brand thinking, well, I'll wear these into the ground, and there'll be good for dog walking, but yet, they don't last two laps around the block. And I'm already 100 quid in the hole. And I'm thinking, well, I could have just bought, you know, IDs, I could have invested in a decent pair of trainers that would last a lot longer than that. But they're not built to last. Right. Sebastian, could you talk about? So this was your kind of passion at the beginning of 2018. We're talking about can you talk about how you went about raising the capital, and maybe also how you got introduced to durag? How you two met? We actually we had a number of mutual friends. Just I think it was the expats in Munich, because they were at the time. Exactly. Maybe London in Bombay, and we had lots of mutual friends. I had a lot of French friends in Geneva. And yeah, I think it was, yeah, just my friends, cousins, actually, exactly. And found that we have a lot of common interests, especially on those and those things and just immediately clicked and we just decided to start building something together. And you then once you had the idea, did you look to kind of seed fund it or crowdfund it, or did you put in personal wealth? No, it's mostly personal savings, it's actually only personal savings. We've always been privately funded. This really was our intention from the beginning. And I think we really intend to stay privately owned, this is something that is very important to us. And we both had full time jobs in the beginning and had, obviously, very logically had to go slower than what we would have liked to. But it taught us a lot, and obviously made us realise the importance of perseverance and discipline, as any entrepreneur will tell you, really not easy at first, in beginning, but you know, try and make wise decisions and powered through. Yeah, exactly. I think that was definitely quite important. Because, you know, we didn't want to go down the whole sort of raising external capital and pretending to be an independent counterculture kind of brand. Meanwhile, we've gone out and raised you know, whatever million from from private equity investors, something that wasn't what we were looking for, we really wanted to keep the ethos as, as an independent privately on brand and, and also work with, you know, sort of like privately owned smaller businesses, it really was also about creating a community around what we do and unable to make our own choices as well. Yeah. So like, you know, Sebastian, it was definitely slower in the beginning, because obviously, we didn't have as much capital as we'd have liked to invest in everything at once. You know, you always have to then kind of prioritise between inventory and marketing. But you know, we've time ticks begin to fall into place. Timber, you don't see it in the beginning, but yeah, now 333 years in, are beginning to see it's all falling into place. But the trailers are great, guys, congratulations. Talk us. Talk to me about the concept. And also we touched upon some sustainability elements. What is actually in these trainers were they made specially maybe offer to all our sneakers are handcrafted in Italy. It's very small. Family owned, utterly Tuscany. It's a family business. So the person we work with the director of the attorney, he actually noted that actually from his own father, and it's been like that for a few generations. So we're, it's it's a super small community of people we work with. And this is super important to us. And to know that the full ecosystem of classic craftsmen and women work there. Interesting. What were the conversations like? Early on, I don't know, if you had the more you did to Raj about some of the design elements, do you have ideas of what can go into the trainer? And then do they tell you what's possible? I think what Sebastian does a lot of the designing the sketching, but we had conversations jointly. And we were quite lucky to have found this subtly. It's a real, you know, pearl of an atelier. I mean, you know, we sort of card factories and materials everywhere in Italy, Portugal, Spain. And we realised, like a lot of the ones in Portugal were a lot bigger, more sort of industrial scale. And we want to, you know, really this the small one, like I mentioned, so the design was, I think, was very collaborative, we, we had an idea of what we wanted, I think Sebastian's the, you know, the quiet genius when it comes to designing and sketches where you can spend hours sketching things, and not as patients, you know, and so, go to them. And we learn a lot from experience as well. So we sample a lot of, we make a lot of prototypes, we sample a lot of products, and we try them for months, before we actually decide to, you know, to launch production and to release those styles. So it's really, I think, over the past three years, we've really seen some things that work, some things that don't work, and we sort of, you know, learned from our, you know, mistakes at the beginning, obviously, with the help of the atelier. And yeah, I think we have a pretty good understanding now of, you know, how, how we can create stuff that, you know, resonate with people. Right, and, and tell me some SEM, what transferable skills did you have from your job to this? I mean, look, I'll tell you, I do some sketching as well, but it's not going to make me any money. I do design them. My girlfriend literally just tells me to put the pencil down at some point. But the see did that. Was that something that you had earlier on in your career? What's what when it comes to design, I'm pretty much self taught. So I started long business, but not exactly related to to this. Unless you're drawing like caricatures of judges and people in the jury, you know, I am also trained pianist. So I guess it's some sort of combination of discipline, and an understanding of how many, I think my design philosophy is really guided by need or sense of harmony. I'm always trying to visualise how all our designs and ideas can fit together in something that resonates with people. Interesting. And I don't know if we've tapped on it, really. But perhaps you can just elaborate a little bit more what makes these trainers so special and kind of what sets them apart from your competition, would you say? I think it's it's really the quality. I mean, we we wanted to make sure really that we have sneakers that are built to last and genuinely use premium material. So our sneakers are all handcrafted, and they're stitched, not cemented. So a lot of the sneakers that you find out there are cemented, which means the Altos are actually glued to the insoles. Whereas in more qualitative products and qualitative shoes and sneakers, you'll see that the outsides are actually stitched. So I think that's a form of construction, that's that really distinguishes quality issues from from more standard ones. And I think in addition to just all the materials we use, we use leathers from last quarter, which is, you know, one of I think the best tanneries in Italy, are outsoles are always margam, which is really the reference for for outsoles. And so it really was about getting, you know, together really premium materials, quality craftsmanship, at what is, you know, we think the right price for customers are early to close to that. But it that's really the difference there is that most sneakers out there that you will see tend to be cemented, then more mass produced. These are really handcrafted by artisans. You know, so the craftsmen and women there spend at least, you know, six to seven man hours for a pair of sneakers, it's almost 200 steps that they need to go through to make one pair. Wow. And is that something that you can ask, say like the salesperson or the supplier, you know, you're out shopping for trainers, we might not be on your website, but we might be out in a local store, whatever. And we might not be able to tell immediately by picking up the trainer if we're quite novices whoever these are stitched or symmetric, but do you think we can actually ask the people on hand and they'll be able to give us insights? And hopefully, I mean, I think sometimes of course you have sales staff that that are well trained and they know exactly what goes into the making of the sneaker So in our pop up store in Paris, you know, we've, we've really sort of trained our colleagues there are our sales manager at the store, on sort of, you know, the making official with, you know, if we show them a video on how it's made, and we actually dismantle the shoe entirely. I mean, that's one sort of, you know, pull it open for, for him to show sort of what the inside of my stitch. So I think that that's, you know, as customising you cannot stuff, you know, is it stitched? Is it cemented? Are these handcrafted, or you know, where they're made? So it's definitely something I think customers can start asking when there are issues, because it'll give them an idea. I mean, it's the idea is not to throw the sales stuff under on the spotlight, but to have an idea of what you're actually buying, right? I mean, because you'll also want to know, what the quality is like, and how long it's going to last. I mean, especially, you know, especially if you're paying good money for. So you mentioned you got the pop up store in Paris, Sebastian, any any ideas of coming over to the UK at all, and bricks and mortar here in London? Well, I mean, we don't know what things are going to be in the next, you know, the next month and next years. Obviously, we are thinking of opening more stores across France to Benelux and most likely in the UK in the coming years. So yeah, I think this is this something I already have started thinking about. Especially because I do get it a good pre Brexit at least a good 30 to 40% of our customers online. Were from the UK. So I do know that we have like, you know, we have a really loyal following from our online customers in the UK. So it would definitely make sense. It's just a matter of, of timing, we do think we might have time. I mean, obviously the last year and a half of COVID hasn't helped at all because we haven't been able to travel and you know, but uh, hopefully now that things are getting back to normal ish. We can start travelling more and you know, start exploring things, or that'd be exciting to see you guys come over here. I mean, the trainers aside from maybe some maybe watches, I suppose and sunglasses have a real community, don't they? I mean, people if you're a sneaker head, you know, they're really immersed in that kind of culture of collecting and, and buying these these sneakers, guys, I've got a I've got a personal question to ask you because I always find this with the way that I'm built and the way that I walk I always kind of wreck my mid soles before anything else I'm pigeon toed so especially when I have sneakers that I've got the white mid so they always get really battered before anything else in the trainer. Do you have any advice on the aftercare sneakers? And especially the ones with the white mid soles? Yeah, look, you know, we usually always recommend to customers a golden rule is you know, avoid moisture. So you want to make sure your sneakers never get too wet in the rain. And if they do, you want to keep them as dry impossible as possible. If you do have them wet, you know you dry them right away and sometimes also use like, talcum powder. In other words, wonders keeping your teeth is great. But in terms of cleaning gum, it's it's really making sure you always remove the surface dirt as soon as possible. I think that's something people forget to do or wait a longer time to do so. You know, if they notice surface dirt on their sneakers on the outsole midsole or any part of the sneaker, you want to take that off right away, don't wait for a few days thinking you know, I'll clean my sneakers next Sunday or, or you know, if you notice surface dirt on there just as soon as you know. Just just remove them, you know, and then just tear shoe wax and soft cleaning fabric. You know, definitely be the first thing to think of to clean your your sneakers. And for the soles. I think one of the hacks I would recommend would probably just use a bit of toothpaste sounds a bit weird, but it's okay. And self cleaning fabric with a bit of warm water and just rub the you know the song with a bit of white to taste of course. Give it that minty glow. You'll see miracles happen. Okay, all right. That's good to know. I'll employ that in my cleaning. After code my trainers. Thanks. Well, Jen, thanks for taking time out on Sunday. We're recording this I'm not sure when it will go out but you've given up time in the in the Sunday. So appreciate that. Ascot and charlie.com. The place to go for people to want to invest in a decent quality pair of sneakers and we'll keep an eye on you guys as well. Hopefully bigger things to come and you'll be over here in the not too distant future. Years crossed. Okay. Awesome. All right. I'll let you go. Thanks, gents. Enjoy. Thanks. Fantastic. Thank you, Sebastian. Thank you durag and once again, the website Ascot and charlie.com is the place to go. We'll leave all the links over on the show notes over at menswear styled at CODIT UK. More articles pertaining to travel, fashion, grooming, everything's over there. You can follow us on the social app menswear style, and if you want to come on the show, maybe tell us about your brand and your journey. You can email us here at info at menswear styled or CODIT UK Okay, and until next time