One of the few good issues to emerge from the COVID lockdown is Wear London, a quick-rising menswear enterprise that began life as a small on-line proposition. Five years later, it has 5 bodily retailers, an increasing web site and a promising wholesale aspect.
It is run by manufacturing veterans Jim Bender, Matt Lea and Alex Hayes, who admit they’re nonetheless studying about retailing, merchandising, promoting on-line and working what is probably a model, though they don’t but declare that standing for Wear London.
You can not fault their work ethic. As properly as operating Wear London, the trio additionally keep their earlier “day jobs”. Bender provides about three million pairs of males’s denim denims made in Bangladesh to UK excessive road names by way of his firm Denim Solutions. Lea and Hayes are outerwear specialists whose Concept Asia firm sources round 250,000 items yearly from China for British manufacturers and retailers.
Bender, 71, and Lea, 69, first labored collectively within the Nineteen Seventies. Based at Canvey Island, Essex, Jim’s firm, Bender International, specialised in making males’s trousers. At its peak it had 4 UK factories however by the Nineteen Nineties these had been closed and Bender started sourcing from North Africa, then Bulgaria and Romania, and in the end the Far East.
Lea went out on his personal in his early 30s, utilizing factories in Cyprus for outerwear and trousers. He had a menswear label known as Method for a time. He began utilizing UK factories after which added Chinese manufacturing to his provide. In 2006 he met Hayes, who is now 45, after they had been working for Jason Marchant’s excessive road provider May Trading. After that enterprise was acquired by the enormous Li & Fung organisation in Hong Kong, the pair arrange Concept Asia in 2017.
Well over 100 years of expertise in menswear manufacturing was put to good use when the pandemic introduced sudden and unprecedented strain to the UK factories Hayes and Lea used. Something needed to be discovered to maintain them in enterprise. That one thing was Wear London.
It produces well-made, very wearable, unbranded menswear kinds in fascinating materials, all pitched at costs which can be inexpensive and symbolize glorious worth. For this winter season the primary womenswear kinds have been added as ladies had been shopping for small males’s sizes.
Wear London Menswear
EM What was the catalyst for veteran producers such as you to turn into menswear retailers?
AH We had been utilizing London factories to make samples for our Chinese manufacturing. We had been making outerwear for menswear manufacturers like Percival, Gloverall, House of Bruar, Blake Hedley… We had an Instagram web page which we used for behind-the-scenes tales. Although we had been simply mucking about, shoppers stored asking us in regards to the clothes. I needed to maintain telling them we weren’t a model, however after turning so many enquiries away we started to see a possible for ourselves. We thought perhaps it could work, and it is confirmed to be the case.
ML When COVID hit, we thought we needed to take care of our London factories. We wanted to feed them each week. Once you’re employed with factories, it is your duty to take care of them.
AH: There was no lengthy-time period plan at the moment. We thought issues would return to regular and we would resume doing what we had been doing.
EM You requested Jim to affix the enterprise. How do you break up the duties?
JB We really run three companies for Wear London. We run a producing enterprise, which encompasses the entire issues like planning, shopping for cloth, shopping for trimmings, as a result of we provide the factories with the whole lot. We assist the factories by making certain that they receives a commission very, in a short time. And we assist them by buying any machine we really feel will enhance our manufacturing. It’s a continuous growth in enhancing high quality and enhancing what we do with the factories.
Then, secondly, we run a retail enterprise, which makes use of the merchandise. Thirdly, we run a enterprise which wholesales these merchandise within the UK and overseas.
We all work collectively on the challenge, however Matt and Alex do all of the design and the event on outerwear, which is 50% of the enterprise. I do the design and growth on denim and trousers. Matt labored with (menswear model) Peter Werth for 20 years and Paul van Gelder, who labored at Peter Werth, takes care of shirts, knitwear and jersey.
Matt’s brother, David Lea, who is additionally vastly skilled having labored at manufacturers like Full Circle, takes care of HR and workers planning.
Additionally, my major duty is the cash. I act as a monetary director, though with out that title. I now additionally deal with the merchandising, which makes life fascinating as a result of that is by no means been a skillset of mine. It’s nice I’m studying new abilities and making it up as I’m going alongside.
Also Alex takes care of the technical points with Shopify and the whole lot to do with the net gross sales. In all we make use of 26 folks.
EM How a lot do you make within the UK?
ML A big share of what Wear London sells is made within the UK. I’ve been working with a few of the factories for 20 years or so. We’re making all of the outerwear and all of the trousers and overshirts in East London. We make our jeans in West Bromwich. We’re making our T-shirts in in Golders Green, north-east London.
We make our knitwear and caps in Turkey as a result of UK producers can not match the costs we want. We use primarily materials from Prato in Italy, plus some from Como in Italy. For our corduroys, we use (British provider) Brisbane Moss, which additionally makes in Prato. I’ve relationships with mills going again 40 years, so we get nice costs. Our outerwear units the degrees that the whole lot else has to measure as much as.
At first we had been shopping for 100 metres right here, 200 metres there, however as we’ve grown over 5 years we’re committing to bigger portions.
AH We have an outlet retailer and for that we do usher in some issues from offshore, however 90% of what we promote is UK-made.
Wear London Womenswear
EM What are these UK factories like?
ML The major outerwear manufacturing unit employs about 20 or 25 folks, primarily skilled Bangladeshi males aged from the mid-50s upwards. Some have been working right here for 30-plus years. Making within the UK is a significant profit; it’s a candy spot for our clients. The draw back is the factories want feeding each week. We are within the factories two or thrice every week monitoring the whole lot. Making within the UK has pluses and minuses.
AH Typically manufacturers dip out and in of utilizing British factories. They don’t construct relationships and so they don’t get the costs or service we do. One concern for us is that new, youthful folks aren’t coming into the factories. The subsequent batch of machinists might become Turkish and even Chinese, however younger folks in the present day do not need to be sitting in a manufacturing unit. That’s the reality of it.
ML Another concern is that a variety of British manufacturers begin out utilizing UK factories, then they take on outdoors funding. When they’ve to begin paying again their traders, they’ve to maneuver offshore to get the margin. We are financing Wear London ourselves.
EM What is your relationship like with the factories you employ?
JB Previously we now have by no means been in retail, solely manufacturing, so we’re coming at retail from a totally totally different angle. We’re manufacturing items after which retailing them, versus shopping for items as a retailer. It’s a unique mindset. We’re all very deeply product-primarily based, which is our power.
The monetary aspect and cash management is not new to me. It’s notably necessary with retail that it’s essential to management the money. It’s triply necessary to us as a result of we’re operating three companies. As a precept, we pay our payments inside seven days, which was a lesson I discovered working with C&A, which all the time paid suppliers weekly. We’ve adopted that enterprise mannequin, which is crucial as a result of it means the factories have gotten stability. They know that they will pay their wages. They know that in the event that they ship to us Monday to Wednesday, they receives a commission that very same Friday. We pay our cloth suppliers in the same vein.
EM Why are you so eager on bodily retailers?
AH We began Wear London on-line throughout COVID after which tried a pop-up store in Broadway Market, a busy road market in Hackney, East London. We quickly obtained nice suggestions from a number of generations of consumers, which inspired us to have a look at different retailers.
JB Online is an especially tough enterprise to be in in the present day as a result of it is a very crowded market. Everybody thinks it is a budget choice for launching a model, however it’s actually not low cost. Another downside with on-line buying and selling is which you could’t contact and really feel the product. You do not get an thought of what the standard is, which is why the return charges are within the trade as a norm are very excessive, though menswear is not as unhealthy as womenswear. We discovered our return fee was very small as a result of, not like with many of the trade, when clients obtained one thing from us, it was higher than they anticipated.
ML As the pop-up labored, we adopted Paul Van Gelder’s suggestion to open a store in Commercial Street, Spitalfields. This was supreme, so we then added one other in close by Brushfield Street. It appeared proper to be there as we make in East London. Then we added Berwick Street in Soho – one other of Paul’s concepts – which has proved to be an awesome location. We have our outlet retailer in Hanbury Street, additionally in Spitalfields. Our first outdoors London is Brighton. It took us some time to get issues proper there, however it’s understanding OK now.
AH We all work within the retailers, and the most important studying for us has been on the store ground coping with clients. This is why we love bricks-and-mortar retail since you be taught rapidly what sells and what does not, by speaking to clients face-to-face. We get suggestions, comparable to if we’ve missed off an inside pocket, or one thing in regards to the cloth, or the size of the garment. You get little suggestions on-line, so being there face-to-face, has made us higher designers and higher operators general.
JB Online is now about 22% of our gross sales, having doubled over the previous yr. We are assured we’re getting most of gross sales from individuals who have been into the retailers and both seen the product or purchased it. We’re getting clients from as far afield as France, Germany, Italy, Brazil and the US who’ve been in to a store whereas on vacation in London and so they’ve continued to purchase from us.
Alex Hayes and Matt Lea on the Wear London retailer on Commercial Street, E1
EM Who are your clients?
ML It’s throughout the generations, we now have dads who inform their sons about us and sons bringing their dads in. We have round 11, 500 followers on Instagram and we’re accumulating about 2,500 to three,000 new e mail addresses from each month by folks buying within the retailers. We do plenty of direct e mail advertising and marketing.
AH We prefer to say we’re menswear made easy. We are understated, so we attraction, for instance, to fairly fashionable South Korean and Japanese guys. Wear London is for males who need good suits, good materials, no branding, no fuss, and a Made in England label. It’s an actual broad combine. We have simply added some womenswear as we now have been promoting males’s overshirts in small sizes to feminine clients. It’s been developed by my spouse Kate, who has a background in womenswear shopping for. We’ll give it some gentle promotion within the run as much as Christmas and see what occurs.
JB We are eager on pricing. Outerwear is our power and our jackets retail from £150 to £250. We have a very good raincoat at £195. One of our greatest-sellers is our white T-shirt. We discovered somebody in Leicester who had the standard of cloth we had been after; we make the clothes in London. They give a very good slot in an awesome cloth and retail at £30. We considered it as an add-on, however it actually caught fireplace.
EM How do you wholesale Wear London?
JB We have just a few unbiased stockists within the UK and wholesale clients in Italy, Spain and the US. It’s very small, however it’s rising with out us really placing an excessive amount of effort into it. We don’t take ahead orders. We simply function as a inventory home. It is a little bit of a unique mindset.
We’ve obtained a small buyer in Manchester who buys from us repeatedly. When he takes his supply, in the identical month we get an uplift in on-line gross sales from that area. Having a wholesale arm is not that worthwhile, however it is a software by which we are able to improve the visibility of the model.
EM How many extra retailers do you propose?
ML We’d like one other two in London in 2026. We might have eight in complete within the UK. We suppose we might properly in Cambridge, for instance. People inform us we should always open up north, however would a store known as Wear London be welcome in Manchester, Leeds, or Glasgow? I’m not satisfied.
We haven’t got set plans but when a retailer got here up tomorrow, we would be within the place to maneuver in. The problem is getting the proper retailer after which the proper workers.
Longer time period, I want to see us with a few retailers within the US, particularly New York. I go to my youngsters there lots and the retail panorama for males is surprising. And we get so many Americans who’ve been within the retailers shopping for from us on-line.
EM What’s excessive on your 2026 To Do record?
JB We earned a revenue final yr. It was not magnificent, however it was a real revenue and price having. But given all of the rises in our fastened prices, we are able to’t simply do the identical once more or we’ll fall right into a loss.
Even on this poor retail atmosphere, store rents are going up within the areas the place we need to commerce, like Soho, Covent Garden, Spitalfields… Business charges are doubling. We make use of 26 folks and we pay them properly above the dwelling wage. National Insurance has gone up.
We can’t simply stick our retail costs up, so Matt has been excellent at making financial savings by barely adjusting how the clothes are made. We received’t change the material and the shopper received’t discover the distinction, however we are able to make financial savings in our manufacturing prices. We’re not grasping with our margin. We flip issues over rapidly. If one thing sells properly, we are able to make it once more rapidly in our factories.
We’ve obtained the flexibility to try this with product as a result of we’re in all probability the final folks retailing who’ve ever stood on a manufacturing unit ground within the UK.
Beyond product, we need to double our gross sales on-line once more in 2026. Most importantly, we need to get Wear London extra recognisable. At the second, we’re a great distance from being a model. We’re a product producer that is put a label on clothes. Our ambition is to steadily construct Wear London right into a recognisable model.
Main picture: Wear London administrators Jim Bender Matt Lea Alex Hayes