GEAR SPECIAL
in countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A study published earlier this year reported that many clothing workers earn around £5 a day in an industry worth billions. New guidelines are regularly introduced, but it’s not always easy to patch problems in distant factories using Western red tape. Outdoor-gear companies recently hit the UK papers over claims that geese were live-plucked to fi ll down jackets. The videos of shrieking birds having feathers mercilessly ripped from them went viral, and public outcry led to many companies painstakingly tracing and reforming their down supply.
There’s growing public concern about where, and how, things are made. Not just the conditions of faraway factory workers and down geese, but the environmental impact of transport and pollution. And, as more people try to buy products made closer to home, could Britain’s gear manufacturing industry be tentatively reseeding itself? Small cottage industries are springing up in garages and on kitchen tables, growing organically when profi ts allow.
“IT’S STILL VERY DIFFICULT FOR A START-UP TO COMPETE WITH ESTABLISHED BRANDS.”
“There was a hunger in the climbing community to buy gear made in the UK,” explains Gareth Candlin, who started Momentum Bouldering in 2012, making bouldering pads on an old Singer sewing machine. Nowadays, small companies can set up an online shop, Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo and have a powerful marketing tool in their hands, Gareth explains. “One person can effectively be head of marketing, sales and manufacturing. Twenty years ago that wasn’t possible.” But it’s clearly not as easy as it might appear: Momentum Bouldering folded recently, partly because “it takes money to build a reputation”. Aide Jebb has a few years on Gareth: he founded Blox Climbing in 2009, making climbing clothing and chalk bags in Barnsley. He tells me that, even with the advantages of the web, it’s still very diffi cult for a start-up to compete with established brands: you can’t offshore small production runs and it’s comparatively expensive to manufacture in the UK. “Don’t expect to become a millionaire, do it because you enjoy it,” advises Aide. Will more brands move manufacture closer to home in the future? Despite the many concerns with overseas manufacturing, it seems unlikely. A report produced by the government last October revealed pessimistic fi gures. Nearly 9m people were employed in British manufacturing in 1966; by 2011 fewer than 3m were. Manufacturing
MADE IN THE UK Snugpak:
outdoor clothing, sleeping bags and rucksacks,
Yorkshire.
www.snugpak.com
R DMM: fl ying the Welsh fl ag for British climbing hardwear. Photo: DMM.
processes have moved on apace overseas, making our old factories look like museums. Yet the study suggested there could be more manufacture here if Britain found a niche where it could compete with Asian factories, suggesting high-quality products, tailored to customer demand. One man is ahead of the game here. He’s experienced the rise, fall and tentative regrowth of the industry, and learnt a few things along the way. With relief that he’s out of it, Peter Hutchinson recalls the later years of running Mountain Equipment in the 1990s: “I found myself with 90 employees, many of whose names I didn’t even know. Instead of talking to climbers, I had designers calling me about next years’ colours.”
Sarah Stirling is a freelance adventure- sports and travel journalist based in Chamonix. See
www.sarahstirling.com.
Peter sold Mountain Equipment shortly afterwards, and set up a small factory in an old mill not far from his original farm shack, called Peter Hutchinson Designs (PHD) in 1997. Since then he’s employed local craft- workers, many of whom were made redundant during the offshoring revolution, and sources over 95% of his materials from Europe. How does he make such a sustainable small business work? “The textile industry follows the economical needle (the cheapest place to sew) and I’m not so sure that the UK can compete,” Peter tells me. “What the UK can offer is fl exibility and very high standards of workmanship.” Neil McAdie from Rab agrees: “We can’t see our manufacturing returning to the UK in the short term. But we do continue to make the small production run high- altitude expedition down clothing here in Derbyshire.” The benefi ts of UK manufacturing were made clear to me recently when a friend ordered a sleeping bag from PHD, and was surprised to receive an email back from Peter himself. “He asked what I wanted the sleeping bag for, and said he wasn’t sure I’d chosen the right one. We ended up speaking for ages on the phone and he came up with modifi cations to suit exactly what I wanted.” Rather than just taking his money, this man, who has clothed mountaineers from Dougal Haston to Andy Cave, and celebrities from Madonna to Tom Cruise for fi lm sets, seemed just as keen to make sure every customer had the right outdoor gear for them. What a service, and one that many people don’t even realise exists, since you don’t see much advertising from the handful of relatively small brands who still manufacture in Britain. It’s a complex situation, but the answer, as ever, lies in our wallets. Next time you need some new outdoor kit, will you scour Amazon for the cheapest deal on a brand made in Bangladesh or will you check fi rst to see if you could get something British-made? Would you really be willing to pay slightly more for gear that’s made in Britain, reducing the environmental impact and encouraging the regrowth of a once-great British industry? It’s your choice.
Terra Nova: tents and
outdoor gear.
www.terra-nova.co.uk
Troll: outdoor and industrial
clothing and equipment, Yorkshire.
www.trolluk.com 54 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
Know of any more outdoor-gear brands that are still Made in Britain? Let us know at
summit@thebmc.co.uk.
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