Q&A with Kestin Hare

A/W 22

Rob sits down with his new best friend and chats fashion, retail and the Scottish borders. Welcome to the Basement, Kestin.

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Rob

First of all, mate, we're delighted to finally be having this conversation. Because I feel like we've had numerous sort of near misses in the past. We're delighted to be welcoming the label into the basement.

Kestin

You know, I've been a big fan of the store for a number of years, and we've been mates, you know, over the last few years. I think we're going to be in good company with the brands that you've got in there already. And I think, there are lots of similarities between where we are in Edinburgh and Winchester. So looking forward to it.

Rob

It's great to be back in Paris. As we have this chat, we're currently sitting on the Left Bank in Paris on a lovely day, looking at Spring Summer 23. How is it feeling to be able to show again? Is it nice to be back?

Kestin

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Last January we were meant to be here and then couldn't be because of the restrictions and that was quite frustrating. I think what we do as a brand, it's all about the quality of the fabrics and all the different textures. And you need to be able to get up close and see that and that's quite difficult when you're trying to do things digitally. It's been a little bit easier for our domestic UK stockists because we've been able to have the London showroom and people have been getting there. For our international partners in Europe, it has been a real challenge. And not just from a buying point of view but from a personal point of view as well. Because we've got great relationships with all the stores. They're friends of ours. So, you know, personally, it's been difficult but it's great to be back.

The John Muir Way, East Lothian, Scotland

Rob

Fantastic. So obviously, you're from and based in Scotland still. How was it growing up in Scotland fashion wise for you? What were your cultural references? What were the stores that you used to shop in? What were the kind of things that you held dear? Was Scotland kind of influenced by what was going on south of the border, London, Manchester, or did it kind of have its own identity?

Kestin

I was always into brands and I was into clothes. My dad was an architect, my mum was an interior designer. So that creativity was already built into me. I spent a lot of my early days going through to Glasgow, because Edinburgh and Glasgow are so close. Glasgow had a great club scene. It was all about John Richmond Destroy and wearing that and going out clubbing. But then when I got to 18 I left Edinburgh and went down to Newcastle to study fashion at Northumbria. So the first thing I had to do was was to get a job. So I got a job in Strand which was an incredible independent department store, which allowed me to work two or three days a week. I was really influenced by what brands they were buying and Dave Dalby, who was the buyer and owner, was buying Neil Barrett and Prada Sport and it was that technical influence that I'd never really seen before; with fabric innovation; with some really interesting and clever product. And at the same time I was studying fashion, I met Nigel Cabourn and so I was going up to The Windmill in Newcastle which was Nigel's studio and helping him cut patterns. He kind of took me under his wing a little bit and I ended up going to to work for him afterwards and became Head of Design there for four years. So I think that the influences of all of that were within me. Scotland as an influence didn't really come to me until later, when I came back and was a bit older and appreciated what Scotland is all about. The history of textiles within Scotland. The Borders in Scotland has been incredible in terms of weaving fabric and there's some great mills still there today. So, I think Scotland as I've got older has become a kind of a reference point. And it's definitely a reference point for the brand.

Rob

So going kind of full circle. You recently opened a lovely brand new store, in Stockbridge, Edinburgh during the pandemic. Bricks and mortar is very close to The Hambledon's heart. How important is a bricks and mortar store to you in what is a widening digital landscape?

Kestin

Yeah. I think we originally started when I moved back from Newcastle and from London back to Edinburgh. We needed a place to work or studio, but it was also important for me that we had that kind of interaction with customers and to be able to see how customers reacted to seeing our products. So we started off this operation in the very early days. And then when we needed more space, we moved to Leith, which has been our home for a number of years now. You know Leith is such a great kind of creative place and surrounding ourselves with all of that is really important. So we've always felt like we wanted to get back into Stockbridge where we first originated from. Stockbridge is a place that's really close to my heart. Although we always say that as a brand we're based in Leith and the studio is very much based in Leith but Stockbridge is almost like a little villagey area. And that's kind of why I see the connections between The Hambledon and the store in Stockbridge. It's very kind of old school, beautiful architecture, really old shops. That was a difficulty about opening this new store. A lot of our stores previously had been quite minimal in terms of the design. We had gone for quite clean lines but with this we really wanted to try and make it feel like it had always been there. So that 20 year old kids could come in and go 'we really like this, you know, it's, it's cool.' We wanted seventy year old dads or granddads to be able to come in and feel comfortable within the space as well.

Rob

Who's your customer?

Kestin

Well, I think that's it. We range all the way through. 20 year old kids buy it. We have seventy year old granddads buy it. My dad wears it, you know. It's nice to be to have that kind of age range. We're not coming and going, you know. We're not reactive. We're not a trend brand. What we like to do is timeless classics that are really good quality and will last as well.

Rob

So we're currently sitting in a room in Paris, which is full of beer. It's a sweltering hot day.

Kestin

And we're not drinking any of it.

Rob

Well, it seems a bit weird to be talking to you about Autumn Winter but obviously we're really excited to have the brand making his debut with us. Can I just ask you a couple of questions about the inspiration behind AW22? What are the pieces that stand out for you? What was the process? And did it help to kind of have a bit more time because of lock downs from a creative point of view? When it comes to putting a collection together, I know how much work goes into it and how tricky sampling can be and the challenges that everybody faces. So it's kind of a two prong question really. Did the extra downtime help you as a creative? And of what came out of that collection, what were your favorite parts?

Kestin

I think lockdown encouraged us to try and make things more locally. When we couldn't travel to factories in Portugal or even within the UK, we ended up starting to make a series of products that we could make within 40 square miles. We would get the cloth from Howard Stevenson. We would make it in one of the factories in Cumbernauld. Try and make it as close to home as we possibly can. We definitely got more creative in that period. I got some sewing out I hadn't touched for 20 years. It was nice to sit there with my kids and start trying to make some stuff again. I think I touched on it before, when you're not able to travel, you're always inspired by what's closest to you. So the Autumn Winter 22 is called the John Muir Way collection. The John Muir Way is where I was brought up, which is just outside of Edinburgh, and it runs along the East Lothian coast. John Muir was born in Dunbar, which was was close to where I'm from originally and he was one of the first people to realize we need to start protecting this area, this is an incredible, beautiful coastline here. I would encourage anybody, if you're in the area, there's some incredible beaches. John Muir, he's got that history behind him. He went out to Yosemite and started the national parks out there. So you've got a kind of Scottish Americana type influence. There's influences there from Scotland and the colours, and the John Muir way. I spend a lot of time walking the John Muir Way so that's obviously a massive inspiration: the colours, the textures, all of that. And then I started to look at John Muir and the history of him and that Americana influence. And you can see that with some of the plaid checks and those types of things, that kind of blanket and looking at old American brands, like Eddie Bauer. I've always been trained (from Nigel really) that the vintage research, and the depth through all of that is really important. And I've always been trained to go out and do your vintage research. We bought a few old pieces that we thought were going to help us to design the collection: some old Eddie Bauer styles, some great down filled jackets from some of the American brands. And then it's almost like Mr Potato Head. It's like taking vintage pieces from here, another vintage piece from there, putting them together. And that's the way I was taught to design. It's not rocket science, but it's my way of being able to kind of put things together. And then it's about fabric research. And we've worked a lot with some Scottish mills, some great Italian mills on the technical side of things. And then it's bringing it all together and I think all of those influences have, you know, really helped us to kind of produce a collection that I'm really proud of. The John Muir Way, Autumn 22 collection is probably our best collection to date.