Winter warmth with Sheep Inc & Klättermusen

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's programme is all about winter essentials that deliver performance outdoors and timeless style for your wardrobe. First, we'll meet the co-founder of a sustainable clothing brand making high quality knitwear from free roaming merino sheep in New Zealand. They live very, very free lives on these vast, vast, vast landscapes on New Zealand's South Island. And of course, animal welfare, on top of just being vital in the sense that we want our sheep to be well looked after, it's actually also imperative to get better quality fibre.

0:51And later, we'll meet the CEO of a Swedish winter gear brand trusted by outdoor adventurers all around the globe. We are an outdoor brand. We make outdoor gear and we do that on a functional level first and foremost. And we don't look at nature as something that needs to be conquered. You know, it's more about living nature, being comfortable with nature. That's more Scandinavian approach. Wrap up warm, it's time for The Entrepreneurs, with me, Tom Edwards.

1:26Edzard Van Dwyk is the co-founder of Sheep Inc, a natural fibre clothing brand committed to regenerative farming and making sure that people know exactly where their garments are coming from. After previously running a label built on synthetic materials, Edzard saw the environmental impact firsthand, and so, with Sheep Inc, set out to make high-quality, long-lasting pieces without costing the planet. Sheep Inc launched in 2020 with a single Merino crewneck. Since then, it's grown into a brand known for craft, playful design, and its so-called connected dot that lets customers trace every garment all the way back to the farm.

2:05Edzard popped by Midori House to discuss changing consumer habits and making sustainable fashion accessible to more people. He began by explaining the challenges of bringing these practices to the broader market. The evolution that's happened in the clothing space over the last so many years is that we now buy things at a cheaper value, but they also don't last, right? So it's these things that are very kind of transient in your wardrobe. You may wear them a handful of times and then you get rid of them. And of course, you know, don't need to be kind of doom-mongering about the facts, but it's kind of horrific the amount of textile waste and the kind of synthetic impact of microplastics to our environment of course is humongous now the thing that we need to almost get as a consumer is we need to make that shift in understanding the kind of the long-term value of clothing right and i think that the fast fashion what it offers is kind of that quick fix of something you can have you can buy it cheaply but again it's not going to last i think that's the bit that we're obviously a big proponent of is kind of buying stuff that yes is more expensive but it can be a lot more durable and you can wear it for generations, basically.

3:06And I always use the same example, but after my father died, I took all his kind of cashmere sweaters that he had in his wardrobe, and, you know, he had a few, and he'd been wearing them for 30, 40 years, and you could still wear them. Now, if you would break that down to a kind of value per wear, it would obviously, you know, kind of exceed anything from fast fashion simply because it can really, really last. And I think that's the mind shift that needs to happen. Now, I do understand, of course, that still is a complicated one in the sense that you still have to buy the item in the beginning, which is more expensive.

3:37And that, of course, for a lot of people is prohibitive. But I do think that idea of value has massively shifted. And, of course, ideally, we just move to a model where a lot of these kind of fast fashion players who can offer things very cheaply, also because of all the shortcuts they make during manufacturing, they get less attractive. but of course also ideally they do get penalized for the fact that they are causing a huge amount of environmental damage because if you look at the big old circle of this thing of course the environmental damage that gets caused eventually we as citizens of the country will have to pay for because of the damage that it's creating overall to society.

4:13I'll just jump in there because it's interesting even some of the metrics that even some industry or trade bodies now you're quite hot on this don't really reflect that longer term but they don't take in the full life cycle of goods. So you can have these bizarre scenarios where by certain metrics, even some short term use synthetics can outperform, I'm doing air quotes on the radio, things like merino wool, which is patently absurd. So it's really important to have this conversation, isn't it? Because people have got to factor in that whole life cycle of products. 100%. And I think that's that kind of the real kind of cradle to death kind of impact as well.

4:47Again, the microplastic shedding that happens with synthetic fibers once it gets disposed of is is a huge problem, right? And that's causing a huge amount of environmental damage. But even in the case of things like washing, right? I mean, merino wool, why it's such a great fabric and why we kind of really focus on it as the kind of base natural material that we use is that it also doesn't need to be washed that often. I have items, I mean, it sounds a bit gross, but I have items that I've never washed because they simply don't need to be, right? They are self-cleansing fibres and therefore you're even taking out that use of the washing machine and the power that that kind of uses.

5:19So there is a real benefit to moving towards these natural fibres. And if you look after them properly, then they can be very durable, of course. Let's talk products. You've talked a little bit about some of the foundational values that informed, I guess, the beginning of the journey. I guess the relationship, you know, looking at supply chain, really interrogating that, finding suppliers, finding products that have that amazing tactility, the feel that also tick the boxes in terms of sustainability and people who are sourcing things correctly. you've then got to think about pivoting into production and designing pieces and collections.

5:50Just give us a quick snapshot of how that journey progressed. Sounds fun. A wry smile is playing on your face. These things are never easy, but tell us a little bit about going from the abstract idea almost then into the real world of getting stuff moving. Well, that's definitely, as you kind of alluded to, has been a lot of evolution over the years. We actually launched with a single crew neck sweater and we wanted to take what is, of course, a real wardrobe staple the crew next to Esa and created in a better way and show that there was kind of a better way of making it right and you know a real focus at that time was on the actual craft of it so taking everything from the raw materials all the way through to the kind of the final production so it was really kind of refining that supply chain journey also what we did was slightly counter to what of course a lot of fashion brands how they operate in the sense that we started talking with farms before we started talking with manufacturers and you know we have relationships amazing relationships with our farms.

6:44We go out to New Zealand, where our marina wool is from, we go and visit them. And we ensure, of course, that they're doing the things that they say they're doing. And in our case, there's a huge focus on animal welfare and biodiversity being the two kind of main pieces with biodiversity, in our case, leading to the extent that they sequester more CO2 than they produce. And of course, animal welfare, on top of, of course, just being vital in the sense that we want our sheep to be well looked after, it's actually also imperative to get better quality fibre, because of course, it's a bit like getting very stressed or getting very afraid, your hair starts to fall out.

7:14It's the same for sheep, right? If they have a very stressed life, there's breakages in the fibre. So the animal welfare piece really kind of played into also the quality piece, right? And again, these farms are amazing, by the way, just as a kind of side note, when you go and visit them, it's like going on safari, you know, you're kind of going up into the mountains and the sheep are roaming totally wild. It's not like our, I suppose, our traditional image of farms here in the UK, which is they're all sitting kind of in a wet meadow. They live very, very free lives on these vast, vast, vast landscapes on New Zealand's South Island.

7:44But, you know, sorry, to go back to the kind of, I suppose, the design journey, we wanted to launch with a product that sat in every person's wardrobe and make us the best crew neck out there and show that there was a better way of making it. In the beginning, we very much kind of built on, first of all, those kind of really essential wardrobe pieces, because we felt those are the stuff that kind of lives on and you can have generationally. And over the years, we've then added a kind of design layer to the business where we really started to also be kind of, you know, have more kind of expressive design in there.

8:12And we're working with two amazing designers internally who have kind of really bought the brand's life there. But I would say even from a design point of view, our huge focus is not to make it transient design, but to make it something that can live for a long, long time. So we've just done, for instance, which is now, it's been an amazing success for us, a kind of a version of the houndstooth pattern, the sheep's tooth. I see what you've done there Super clever branding but that kind of you know that's worked incredibly well for us but it is actually a piece that still can be relatively perennial in how it kind of lives right and I think that for us has been very important that we kind of layer in these design pieces but again make sure that they're real generational design and then what we also have I suppose if you look at the kind of three layers of product development that we have we have our continuous kind of development of making I would argue kind of best-in-class essentials, as it were.

9:04So hoodies, crewnecks, and even kind of knitted T-shirts, all made from merino wool. And then we have our design layer, which is kind of all the design products. And then we actually have also introduced an innovation layer, which ensures that we're kind of always looking at new uses for natural fibers. So how can we kind of take natural fibers, really push them, and use them in places that potentially you wouldn't really expect? And so this year, one of the products that we released was swim shorts made out of merino wool, which again are 100 % merino wool with biodegradable lining inside. And they perform just like regular swim shorts.

9:37And the idea behind that is really taking a product that arguably a lot of people would think would have to be synthetic because of its quick-drying properties and the way that you wear it just because we've become so familiar with it as a synthetic product and show that you can actually also create it using merino wool. And so that's been a great success for us. And I think that's been very exciting to see that people really engage with that because they really love the idea of having a product that is inherently synthetic, but they've found a natural alternative. And so that's, again, what we're constantly focusing on, is maybe taking some product categories that are at the moment majorly kind of, on the whole, synthetics or has a synthetic piece to it, and then creating a natural fiber alternative to it.

10:21So we're about to do a fleece, which is made out of 100 % wool as well, which of course is, again, the traditional fleece is primarily synthetic and sheds a huge amount of microfibres. So we've created one that's literally like a sheep fleece. So it's 100 % wool with a cotton lining. Next year, we've got also some kind of exciting developments coming out, again, taking kind of traditional synthetic products, but again, turning them into kind of natural fibre alternatives. So there's that real kind of innovation there in the business that we're always looking to push on. And, you know, in stuff like dyeing as well, we've got a new dyeing process that we're looking at next year, which will again be a kind of a huge evolution for us from an impact point of view.

10:58Because I wanted to ask you a little bit about this idea of a business that features craft, thoughtfulness, taking time, doing things properly, which are associated, as we've sort of discussed earlier, with the premium space, luxury space, but then also embracing the transformational power of technology. And I'm sure a lot of people would assume, probably incorrectly, that those things are oppositional in terms of their influence. But I think one of the things that I find super interesting about sheeping and your approach is you absolutely want to pitch squarely in and be like, how can new tech, blockchain, whatever, how can these things aid not just supply chain, but the way we approach all of our business questions whilst at the same time building on these foundational values, which have heritage and tradition and the natural world at their heart.

11:41Did people, I don't know, people with whom you've partnered or people with whom you discussed the business say, well, hang on, this is nuts. You're talking about this, but you're also interested in this. That's a circle you can't square. Has it been fun to prove those people wrong? And And how do you marry up those two things, which are sometimes oppositional? 100%. So my co-founder, who has the most amazing analytical mind, Michael, doesn't come from the fashion space. Actually comes from a background initially in banking, but then moved into a fintech business. And our excitement working together, we're long-term friends, but I suppose he really brought in the thinking of how do you take all these great initiatives and the kind of the supply chain piece, but how do we create something that we can then deliver to the customer and use technology to that extent and so what we've developed is something called the connected dot which is a little nfc tag that goes into all our garments that you can then scan with your phone and you can kind of see the whole supply chain journey behind it you can literally you know kind of adopt a sheep through it through it and we've made that experience deliberately kind of really fun but also made sure that it's very data robust as well so every piece of information in there whether it comes down to carbon impact or the journey that your sweater has taken, has all been third-party audited to ensure that it's not just us saying things.

12:56And I think actually, funnily enough, having a physical product with a digital experience offering hopefully makes us kind of quite interesting in the market. And when we first set out to fundraise, and we've just completed our Series A last year, I think actually having that technology component was a huge benefit, actually. Like, people were excited by it and also by the potential of it. And I think also, it also feeds back not just around the kind of innovation of the brand, but it also aids that important piece that we wanted to do, which is how do you get consumers to engage with the story?

13:29And because we made the connected dot such a central point of our brand, and when you get the box, you kind of register your sweater and bits and pieces like that, like you're almost immediately involved in the story, right? You're immediately kind of interacting with this thing that gives you the provenance and gives you the background rather than it's something that you may have slightly taken on board as you've kind of made your purchasing journey, but then potentially don't have enough information on to be able to talk about it or it kind of disappears into the background of your thinking.

13:56We really wanted you to have the purchasing journey where you kind of were obviously engaged with the provenance. But then the first piece that you get when you get our clothing is obviously hopefully you like it. you try it on but that kind of interaction with that story that sits behind it immediately makes it kind of gives it value in the sense that it immediately adds a story to it and i think that's the one thing that we've really felt and seen in our customers is that internally we call it kind of made for the interesting it's like people want to tell those stories you know they kind of want to be able to sit down and you know kind of in a pub in a dinner party and be like you know it's really interesting the sweater let me tell you about it and we kind of give them the tools to do that and again that circles all the way neatly back to all the way in the beginning where we were going how do we get people to engage in the stories and how do we start to bring in that automatic reflex of asking interrogating where things come from we start to build that habit into it by allowing people to talk about that clothing and that's kind of how we we use technology to close that circle it's pretty smart listen and foregrounding storytelling i think is always i think it's a good idea if you can do it if you can do it properly and communicate that authenticity to to your customers just on that point talk to us a little bit about the engagement with customers and you know the means with which you communicate with them you've got your sort of flagship store can we say yeah which is not too far away but you know i don't know personal favorites you brick some water there's something amazing about that we're obviously big devotees of that here you get to talk to people that you know you get to literally watch them engaging with your products which must be kind of amazing did you have all of that in mind right at the start of the journey how you were going to shape that?

15:30Have you had to adapt and pivot? Talk a little bit about that side of things. We definitely did. I mean, we're a very tactile product. So we kind of knew obviously existing in a physical space was going to be important for us. But we launched 2020, we launched straight into COVID. So we had our, and funnily enough, well, I don't know if it's funny, but you know, basically ground zero of COVID in Spain was where we were knitting our swesses. And so we had to exist digitally. And we all were obviously, as everyone was working remotely, But therefore, the idea of a physical space, which was early in our thinking, kind of almost got pushed further and further just because of the reality of the world at that moment.

16:03And so we became very digital centric. Again, we had a digital product going alongside a physical product. So kind of being online, it wasn't the wrong strategy. But ideally, of course, we would have brought in more of that kind of physical experience earlier on. But as I mentioned, we just completed our Series A. And a big part of that was also being able to build a first kind of retail experience. and the great thing is, you know, we've completed that fundraise with some amazing partners called Inside Out who are huge supporters of the business in every single sense. The reason they're fantastic is that they won't allow us to push past any red lines when it comes to impact for the sake of growth.

16:40That was Edzard Vandwick, the co-founder of Sheep Inc. And you can find out more about the business by heading to sheepinc.com.

16:57You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Gons Ferreiro is the CEO and owner of Klaatamusen, the celebrated Swedish outdoor equipment maker known for its uncompromising focus on technical design and performance. Founded in 1975 by a local group of climbers in northern Sweden, it's long been an insider favourite, but under Gons' decade of leadership, the company has scaled fast, tripled sales and expanded its footprint. Monocle's Tom Webb caught up with Gons to discuss growing a once-niche brand, keeping its character alive, and why Klatermuzin is marking its golden anniversary with a new book and a community-focused retail space in Stockholm.

17:37Tom began by asking how Gons keeps the brand's roots intact, while always pushing it forward. So on a product level, we don't shake it up at all. For me, that became very clear very early on. we're an outdoor brand we make outdoor gear and we do that on a functional level first and foremost and the approach that we take towards sustainability material development construction sort of all these considerations is very much for purpose this is for hiking or this is for skiing this is for trail running and that's very clear that's very pure that's our you know our dna that's the only thing we know how to do but then in terms of communicating that we're creating a world where we can use these products to inspire people and to kind of you know engage with them in a different way i think that's where we have a huge amount of potential there's different elements and i like to think of it as sort of multi-dimensional there's of course like how a product itself a jacket you know that they become a brand in themselves or you can talk about them on a factual level like on a specs level and then you have a whole world of how we see it especially coming from scandinavia how we see nature and how we see people interacting with nature on a day to day you know we don't look at nature as something that needs to be conquered you know it's more about living nature being comfortable with nature that's more scandinavian approach and so that's the world we're kind of threading and that's relatively new so we've gone from having a brand that is very product focused to having a brand that's very product focused but it's trying to also create a you know a point of an extension of that how for people to connect with.

19:16Now, some of these themes you do share with other brands, it is a very crowded market. How are you able to really amplify your differentiation from the competitors? So the truth is, I only know my kitchen, right? So, you know, I can only talk about what happens inside the kitchen of Cletimus. And on the outside, there's a lot of brands. And again, there's many different levels to this, but there's a lot of brands with whom we look at as peers or competitors on a product level or an activity level and a market level. what we try to do is is to just be very truth to ourselves and find our solutions and find our ways we've been from the very beginning since 1975 very dedicated to questioning things that maybe haven't been questioned by others or finding new solutions that maybe others can't you know when we started you know we're much bigger now but even at the beginning when we were working with materials and some material supplies we were always the guinea pig we were the ones to test out new fabrics or new developments.

20:20And that's something that we still really like. There's pros and cons to that, of course, with some risks on that. But in general, I think people, our customers and also our peers sort of look at us as being a little bit of a counter brand, you know, sort of the anti-establishment in a way, which we take as an important responsibility to keep trying and keep doing things. and we build that I think from the product development side but through the entire culture of the company so if you're talking about retail if we're talking about retail stores interior designs of our stores that was a big project we started a couple of years ago and it was you know okay we know what a store can look like but what would a you know a store that doesn't want to look like a normal store look like and how can we use materials in a different way and how can we create the Kletemusen world of a product within a store I think we find interesting answers because of the way we ask the questions.

21:14And that ends up being presented in a different proposition for people. Then at the end of the day, as you say, we are in a world where we make products for the outdoor and there's many other great products and great brands that do the same. So I think it's all about finding what makes us distinct and keeping to that consistently. Now, let's just get into the big milestone that you've reached this year, the 50th anniversary. there's lots of different ways you're marking this which are very very interesting can we start with the book yeah of course i mean it felt like we spent 50 years just writing the book actually i mean for anyone who's done written a book i mean now i have such a huge appreciation for anyone who does a book it's an amazing amount of work we started with saying okay we you know we're swedish we don't really like to talk about ourselves so it feels a bit weird writing a book about ourselves so why don't we not do that and turn this a little bit on its head and instead just try to feature the people that have been part of this journey who we feel a huge amount of gratitude towards and who of course have had a big impact in in helping us shape who Klaip Moussen is and then we also had so that's a big theme in the book you you see a lot of the photographers we've worked with a lot of of course the gear testers the ambassadors you know a lot of the people internally in our team that have been part of this journey and then at the same time we you know we are product makers and product maker means we've failed and you know and we tried and we've done prototypes and we've created products that didn't work and so it almost sort of felt more accurate to to call it you know 50 years of failures of failing rather than 50 years of you know it takes um what is it that expression that says that it It takes 50 years to be an overnight success.

23:02And that's sort of how we felt at it. Like every product that we have now that is successful is, you know, it's maybe on its hundredth iteration from our perspective. So we tried to put those two things together. And then as I was starting to think about this book one year ago, I was sitting in a mountain hut in Japan and I came across this book called Mountain ABC, which was a very old heritage book, you know, about when mountaineering was starting in Japan. And it was basically a really fun and educational way of describing mountaineering for someone who doesn't know, right, from an outsider, instead of going chronologically, going from defining each letter of the alphabet to different things about mountaineering.

23:46And I thought that was also quite a nice, maybe a fuller, more accurate way of describing Klatemusen since it hasn't really been, it's not a linear way in which you develop, right? you kind of go up and down and all around. So, yeah, we came up with this Klautimus and ABC title and format and filled it up with lots of stories that took a long time to put together. And it came out amazingly. It completely exceeded my expectations. And you've got a new physical space, or you've changed the use of a space in Stockholm. Yeah, we actually took over a space in Södermann, in the South Island in Stockholm.

24:25One of the things that came out of spending time thinking about the last 50 years was actually realizing also some of the, maybe the spirit of what has been lost along the way. Maybe it feels strange to say like this, but we originated from a workshop, a Werkstad, where people would come together and share their experiences in nature and create patterns of products and borrow or buy fabrics and make their own products and then go out and empirically test them and come back. And these kind of, you know, craft nights or evenings where these things could happen feels now very, also very modern in a way.

25:08So maybe a few years ago, everything was going digital and everything had to be online. But I think now what we've learned also with, as we've been opening stores is people for a brand like ours want to go in to a space and they just want to chat and they want to connect and they want to actually talk to like-minded people. So I kind of wanted to turn things around a bit and say, OK, well, as we're growing, how can we also, you know, take a step back and build deeper roots? We created the space where, you know, the thesis was, you know, if Kladen Moussen was a person today, what kind of space would Kladen Moussen like to hang out with?

25:45And who would they like to hang out with? and what kind of content, what kind of programming, what kind of workshops or events or music or art would they be wanting to experience? And that's sort of one part of the space that we did in the worksite in Sothermham. And the other part was, okay, what happens, you know, we're part of this environment, we're part of this ecosystem of outdoor products and, you know, we're all gearheads, so we all love gear. We all have wardrobes with more jackets and backpacks than we probably need. why don't we create a space where it's you know us as gearheads can go in and actually sell and and buy secondhand gear not just cladmusen because it's not a cladmusen space but just gear in general because we're in an outdoor context right and that was you know both of these parts of the space got us all very excited so that's what we've tried to do with this space and it's a lovely idea of bringing like-minded people together in the way that you've done but you do also now have experiences.

26:46Yeah, again, it's sort of all pulling from the same thread, right? So becoming 50 years old where the business is going in a good direction and we feel very confident about who we are and why we're different and how that can actually manifest into a growing business that actually opens up more doors for us commercially. Then as soon as that happens, then you open the door and say, what else can we do? that was you know maybe a logical extension is to say well you know the way we in which we are defining products and the way in which we live is it's Scandinavia that's our playground that's our backyard outdoor is actually you know it's very local and not a lot of people realize that but the way you interact with outdoors in the Alps is not the same as in Scandinavia or in you know in Canada from that perspective there's a whole cultural element there's a whole you know there's it's a very personal thing to go out in Scandinavia.

27:42We thought that is what's really driving our products. If we can somehow invite people to come and experience it firsthand, and then we don't really need to explain why we make these products or why we make them in this way. It sort of defines itself, right? Explains itself. And it's amazing. I have, you know, I'm not Swedish or Norwegian, but every time I go out in nature in Scandinavia, it's an amazing experience where you feel that you're somehow back in time you have this amazing mountain huts and amazing corners of sweden where there's no wi-fi you need to bring out the water from the well you're really you know facing the elements as they are and you're meeting incredible people the quiet places where you're actually not so far away and it's not so far you know not so difficult to reach but the amount of tranquility and like unpluggedness you know if you can even say that way that you can get it's remarkable it's very therapeutic and we thought within Kletmusen our our vision is to get people to you know inspire them to to go out in nature and we have this amazing backyard as I said where we can do that relatively seamlessly so we also work with guides of course to gear test and to develop products you know create let's create them and bring them into this platform as well instead of telling them like hey here's a sponsorship deal where we're going to, you know, put some jackets on you.

29:04It's like, hey, what kind of trips, what kind of ways do you want to work? How can we make your work easier within the Clattermussen platform? So yeah, it all kind of, it's all pulling from that same thread where like we've got bigger and bigger ambitions and we feel more confident. So we want to get more of this world connected in a way that is from the same Clattermussen point of view. That was Gons Ferreiro, the CEO and owner of Clattermussen. And you can find out more about the business by heading to klattermuzin.com.

29:42And that is all for this episode of The Entrepreneurs. We'll be back at the same time next week. The programme's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by Jack Dewars. You can listen again and find out more at monocle.com. While you're there, why not subscribe to the magazine and ensure you're reading more about better businesses every month. You can also follow us and catch up with the archive wherever you get your audio. If you'd like to get in touch with the team, do feel free to email Laura. She's on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to The Entrepreneurs.