JACKET REQUIRED UPDATE

Following the cancellation of Jacket Required's July edition, moving forwards the menswear portfolio will be curated by Karen Radley, Founder and MD of Scoop. This new edit of menswear collections will mirror the premium line-up of Scoop's women's fashion labels and will be part of the show's exciting September 2021 edition.

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06 September 2019

Spotted at Jacket Required… Ash Bellis, Manière de Voir





Jacket Required is a collective of some of the industry’s most innovative and up-and-coming brands, and so it only makes sense that our buyers and visitors are just as exciting. We spoke to one Menswear Buyer Ash Bellis to get his thoughts on the show and what trends he’s keeping an eye on in the seasons ahead.


Tell me about your business


Manière de Voir is an online, trend driven fast fashion brand for men and women. We’re sold solely online at the moment, but we’re currently working on our first store in the Trafford Centre.

Like I said, we’re very trend driven, but we have a lot of kind of “core” products. Our demographic is growing up with the brand and as they’re getting slightly older, we’re moving from the 18 to 24 age range into the 20’s to 30’s range.

So, before he started the brand, our owner was a footballer and kind of an influencer in his own right. People liked the way he dressed so he wanted to start a brand. Some very close friends of his had already started a very successful fitness brand, so he saw their success and they all collaborated to help him start his business.


What’s the Manière de Voir aesthetic?


It started out as a very athleisure-y, sports luxe kind of brand, but we are now moving into a more smart-casual, slightly older demographic, but definitely still with a bit of an edge. We do have three main customer types, so the casual sort of stuff, more formal smart-casual collections (which is formal for us!) and then we have the sort of higher fashion streetwear items as well.


What are the trends you’re excited about right now?


We definitely get a lot of flack for not having a lot of colour in our collections, so it’s exciting to explore the colours that are out there at the moment that are still on brand for us. We’re trying to introduce more colour at the moment, and it’s worked for the summer period, so far. We’ve offered a lot of colour and customers have responded well to that.

One of the main trends for us are cargo; cargo’s a very exciting trend which is sort of casual but also quite street in a subtler way. We also do very well with hardware and more industrial looks; a lot of brands at our price point can’t compete with us because they can’t seem to find the quality of hardware that we offer.

Because of who our target audience is, the more smart-casual workwear is also really popular for us, in the men’s and women’s ranges. I think the way people are dressing for work now is a lot more relaxed, so yeah – suits and sneakers all the way!


So, you touched on colour there, what sort of colours are you buying into for the season?


We’re really just easing it in at the moment. The pastels have been really popular, but black and white are still our strongest colours. So, we’ve trialled pale blue, pale pink and mint green – they do very well. In womenswear we’ve had a lot of success with yellows and reds and in menswear, we always do have a red, but I’d say the pastels are doing better for men’s right now.


Why did you come to Jacket Required today?


Well we were just at Pure and we were invited to come to Jacket Required as well. It just made sense to visit while we’re down here as we’ve never been here before, so we thought it was definitely worth seeing. It’s always nice to come and meet other people in the industry as well – it’s such a social thing to do. We didn’t know that much about Jacket Required so it’s nice to come and discover what it’s all about and get some inspiration for the site as well. It’s nice to see how we kind of compare to the industry as well. The talks have been great. I love that there’s been a sustainability focus, as this is something that we do need to work on a bit more, especially if our customers are starting to know more about it as well.


Has anything caught your eye at the show?


There’s been a few products that have caught my eye for sure; a lot of things that I could see fitting in well with our ranges. There’s a lot of cargo vests going about and a lot of mesh as well. Also, a lot of the ombre trend, which we do a lot of, but I’ve seen some different techniques today which I haven’t seen before, so that’s been interesting.

There’s definitely some cool brands here as well – personally, I’m a fan of the workwear brands. There was a Swedish brand I’ve been talking to who have some really nice olive and pale pink rain jackets, so they’ve caught my eye.


How would you describe Jacket Required in 3 words?


Relaxed, informative and “good vibes”.


 
Jacket Required will be back for the AW20 edition on 22nd and 23rd January.
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