howies & Nau

I love howies, not only because they make great clothes (I bought a bunch in London when I was there in April - fully worth the price), but also because they have so much belief in what they do. We blogged about them last summer, but now as a proud wearer of their stuff, I feel compelled to keep talking about them.  Their spring catalogue was created with this thought: "we needed some nice sunny weather to shoot our spring/summer catalogue.  But we didn't feel it was right to send a group of people on a plane in search of sun.  So we packed up the clothes in some FedEx boxes and sent them instead". Nice. Mark Earls talks about howies in his book Herd and outlines how their passion and self-belief set them apart from their competitors. It's all based on a fundamental belief in quality. That is hardly earth-shattering, but its founded on the idea that better clothes last longer, meaning less resources taken up with making/buying more of the same…which surely can't be argued.

While howies continue to be a small and successful brand in the UK, I had the same hopes for Nau - a brilliant Portland clothing company which grew quickly based on a similar philosophy to howies.  However, as you can see from the link, it's "Goodbye For Nau" as they wind down their business because they "can't raise the necessary funds to continue to move forward." Nau's closure is sad, because it suggests that their philosophy is one that doesn't fit with a more cautious investment environment. In my opinion, NOT taking their approach is the more risky one. Long live howies and all the best to Nau - let's hope we see you around again in some other form in the not too distant future.