Ask Giles Anything
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I too love the history of the brand and it’s evolution over time.
Also, I love the collaboration and camaraderie between IH and other brands/retailers.
I’m very curious (as I already know the story of how you and H connected), how did you you connect with Josh over at GA and Kiya at SE?
Also, since you said you were open to transparency, what happened with Viberg? My ultimate grail is the 310 Viberg/IH collab, when I asked a few years back another forum member said there would be no more collaborations with Viberg and all boot footwear collaborations have been with Wesco (which of course is another amazing brand).
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Josh loves Iron Heart, it was inevitable that we should meet at some point. Paula's wedding band was getting smaller and smaller :-), so she needed a new one, I got in touch with Josh to discuss making her a replacement, we ended up speccing an engagement ring, wedding band and eternity ring. Josh and I both needed to be in Japan at about the same time that year, so we agreed to make it exactly the same time, so we met up and he showed me what he had made her…
Kiya emailed me saying that he was opening a shop and wanted to stock Iron Heart, could I send him some samples. So I did.
Viberg is a complicated story better told verbally. Suffice to say, my expectations from the relationship were vastly different from theirs.
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A couple things…
Read an interview with Haraki where he stated he is not concerned with fades whatsoever, just tries to make the strongest, best built and darkest denim possible.
Additionally he mentioned he does not really follow or is concerned with what the competition does, that he prefers not to know as to not be influenced with outside ideas (it went something along those lines)...Whats your stand in the fades craze (companies designing just for fades, people sleeping in their jeans and other extremes)?
And of course your competitors, do you do any market research or sample their products? And I’ll add, if you don’t mind saying of course, who if any do you admire/like what they’re doing?One las thing... Is this the same jacket in both photos? Looks great BTW!
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Other companies can do what they want and it really does not bother me that much. We make what we make and have a customer base who will buy it. I'm guessing the other companies do what they do and they also have a customer base. If they do what they want to do and there is no demand, then natural selection will take over. There's stuff out there that I think is absolutely awful, but that is a purely personal view and who am I to pass judgement?
And if individuals want to sleep in their jeans, never wash them, jump into the sea with them, use abrasives to accelerate the ageing process, that's 100% up to them, and nothing to do with me. All that matters is that an individual feels comfortable in his or own skin and comfortable within his or her peer group.
In reality, the only market research I do is into other online stores, I'm always wanting to improve ours, so seeing how other people sell to an online audience is what fascinates me. How is stuff presented, how does the check out work etc etc etc? I'm always intrigued by how I differ from my bricks and mortar retailers when we are in Japan, they love going into physical stores and seeing how other shops display and sell, it has no interest to me.
From other brands perspective, Alex and the crew look at other brands to see who we should stock for Sonder, so I guess the lazy answer is that I like and admire the brands we stock on Sonder.
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And you’ve done an excellent job with your online store! Simple, easy to use, everything is where it needs to be and no gimmicky videos or stuff that slow the website down. Love the comparison feature and it works flawlessly!
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Thank you. A new version is going live in the New Year….
That's cool, can we hear more about it?
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@Nkwkfld:
Thank you. A new version is going live in the New Year….
That's cool, can we hear more about it?
This is why it all started:
https://www.ironheart.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=231.msg658637#msg658637Once we decided that we needed to start again, we really started to analyse things we could do better. We are reshooting all imagery on a 5% grey background, adding new flat lay images to pants, changing the order of images taken and how they are presented to add more consistency to the images and how they are displayed on site (this is a work in progress, and we may launch without this being finalised). We want to add more depth of content - improved CMS pages explaining our cuts, refining our glossary into a sort of denim encyclopedia, and much more.
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Thanks @Alex that sounds great. Looking forward to seeing it.
I live in Southsea so am lucky to be able to visit the Gosport HQ, but it looks like not for awhile now… -
Not sure if you missed the second part about the jacket in the pictures… if the one gifted to you by Haraki 10 years ago in the Instagram picture and the one you’re wearing in the second picture sitting with Haraki is the same one... just curious [emoji3166]. Thanks!
Awesome changes on the new website @alex… Looking forward to it!
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Sorry I missed that….
The jacket is one that was in the first-ever shipment I got from Iron Heart in July or August 2005.
It has been worn a lot. I must have left it in the office once and Chess stole it for a photo opp
Here it is tonight - safely at home and un-borrowable.....
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Awesome jacket @Giles!!! Gives me a peek into the future of what mine will eventually look like [emoji2]. Looks very relaxed and manageable… Was a bit afraid that the 21oz would always keep that heaviness and rigidness to some point but yours looks very soft with flow, drape and plenty of character.
Love the leather patch label btw... Perhaps even a bit more than the current one.
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Thanks Nephh - my contribution…..
But Levi's told us we had to stop using it, and the red tab and the OG arcs.....
As I have said elsewhere before, Levi's flexing their legal muscle and frightening the crap out of the relatively insignificant Japanese brands, and making us run for the hills, was the best thing they could have done for our fledgeling industry.
You have my eternal gratitude, you unimaginative corporate wankers....
Don't ever knock Levis, they made us - not once, but twice.....
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I thought it was only the red tab (love the red stitched W btw, much better than the red tab!), good to know, and awesome that Haraki took the high road into freeing his designs!
Additionally was this iron flower thingy part of the original design or did you add it @giles? Looks great!
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Alex and the crew look at other brands to see who we should stock for Sonder, so I guess the lazy answer is that I like and admire the brands we stock on Sonder.
I went ahead brought a couple of trophy t-shirt… and wool hat
A brand new brand looks very inspiring..I think I will be spending a lot time there buying a few things...
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