arn mercantile

"Hype's quite Expensive" says Neil Christopher, co-founder of ARN Mercantile. "We don't do it because we can't afford it."

Selectism have a nice feature on a guy I had the pleasure of meeting through Kato denim (which I love also). He has now started out on his own with his wife with Arn Mercantile. Its such a great read for people who care about the ethos of what they wear.

And so...

It was here where Christopher began red-lining, "traveling across the states searching out vintage denim and other bits for collectors and stores. We used to go down and set up stores and then basically we'd buy jeans, just go up to people and say 'we'll buy your old 501's for a very competitive price (for us)' so we'd never have to do anything. I worked with two Kiwis and an Australian guy and we never shaved for three years, That's how I got this hair. I left with a short haircut.”

He did this for several years, eventually winding up working with Carhartt in the US. Soon after, he also started working with Carhartt in the UK, something he said happened by accident. "I worked with Boxfresh, had a split that wasn't very amicable and there seemed to be an argument about who I was working with - and I didn't seem to be involved in the argument. I got this phone call at one in the morning saying 'you're going to Carhartt and I said 'do I not have a choice? You're drunk and you're telling me to go to Carhartt. I'm not gonna argue with you because, as far as I'm concerned, the wage packet is exactly the same no matter where it's coming from. But it was just one of those bizarre 'this isn't an option' things - my options were I could go to Carhartt or I could not work. So I took the option of going to Carhartt. It was a tough decision".

In addition to working for the likes of Levi's, Adidas and Nike, Christopher also developed a small New York-based factory that made vintage inspired garments for a large company he declined to name. Discussing his time with Nike, Neil states “We developed and worked with Jason Porter from Nike. We developed the Jackknife range and the woven range and the superfly stuff and the oblivion and all that. You'd walk along the street and every once in a while people would get a bit carried away with them. They were original-issue wovens, They made like 20 pairs of them. Mine are knackered because I wore them everyday and just destroyed them in about a year.

I went to Tokyo, doing a shoot for Free & Easy and just happened to take them - this is really sad and completely un-fashion - but they flatpack really nicely when you travel. So I was walking through Tokyo and some guy is chasing me down the street saying 'your shoes, your shoes, I buy your shoes'. I just said, 'well, I'd be going home with socks and that'd be a bit silly'. Then he just took a load of pictures of them and went off. You kinda forget that you're in this really lucky situation to get these things. But then also, you just wear 'em. It's clothing isn't it? Isn't that what it's for?'

Soon after this period he and Akimi, who'd previously worked for Spencer Hart and Oki-Ni, took on the role of developing denim for Japanese label Kato. At the time there was a distinct focus on all things organic, “Akimi comes from Osaka," says Christopher, "the heart of the Japanese fabric industry and her skills and knowledge of all things organic came from this upbringing. She has an amazing mind, a great eye for the details of the cloth and is open to pushing the envelope. She also controls all the finances while I drift about."

He continues, "We loved working with Kato, he's a great guy, but we made the step away because of what was going on and how they were working with the larger corporations in Japan. Once you get to a certain size - because these were organics as well - it becomes a question of supply of raw material over demand as opposed to the other way around. When growing a brand you should be going for as many stores as humanly possible, trying to push the brand forward. You get to this point where there's only so much you can push out because of what's coming through the door. And because you're using organics, it slows down what you're doing.

We were doing that triple A collection with Kato and planned on keeping it very tight but there was a sudden explosion of interest. The fabrics and production changed and we became slightly disillusioned with what we were doing - which is nothing against what they were doing because I still think Kato is one of the best ranges out of Japan. What he does is great and the triple A collection is really good, but there were pressures on him to move his brand and his product in a different way. We owned the name and we owned the company external to that but when you have home market pressures, eventually you have to make that jump.

We used to call it a long time ago, a Dufferism - nothing against Duffer - but the Duffer process, which is when you've got to a certain size, your rents cost XO, you've got a certain amount of people working for you, you have to do things to make money as opposed to the intellectual exercise. You go 'well now we've got to sell X amount of shirts', which is very much a UK buying process at the moment. Last season 'we sold X amount of shirts and this season we need to raise our profits by this much so therefore we'll gonna buy 6% more of this shirt and then we'll have 1% of our budget to buy something new'. And that then becomes what you're looking at, as opposed to looking at the clothing and the process. That becomes important instead of growing a brand and allowing it to develop.”

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