SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker. Today I am talking to the founder of XPO, Ben Mears. XPO are a cutting-edge brand for men's fashion that prioritises style, sustainability, and performance. Through their groundbreaking approach to development, they have been able to produce the lightest, warmest, most durable and waterproof styles ever seen in the industry. They achieve this without compromising on their commitment to avoiding petrochemical materials and using subpar production methods. And you can head over to Xboard.com to get more information about the brand. And as ever, the links will all go over to menswearestyle.co.uk. But I'm going to bring in Ben here to talk about XBO and enjoy this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, so I'm Ben Miers. I'm the uh the founder uh of XBO. And how do we get XBO off the ground? Well, Xbo is is a is a lifestyle business, a lifestyle brand. I guess it's not a sort of fashion fashion brand. It's probably a bit more enduring than that. Um and you know, like without sort of sounding too grand, we we sort of create the world's sort of most advanced weatherproof outerwear, and we do so without as best intention compromising on performance planet or style. So some pretty big claims off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

No, I like it. I can't wait to get into that because there's so much information and useful information as well on the website and xbo-tailored, and we'll put all the links over on menswearstyle.co.uk. But you've got at least, I want to say, about 20 years of tailoring and training coming into this project. So perhaps we can start from your humble background.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, I mean, um, I guess I was really lucky. So I, as you say, it is about 20 years now. Um, I cut my teeth. I sort of studied fashion design at Kingston. And during that time, you know, in the summers, I'd work with, I think it was Timothy Everest at the time. Um, and that's where I sort of found my love of menswear, you know, of tailoring and of craft, you know, seeing that the cutters work their magic was um was something rather incredible. Yeah. Um, and then from there I bounced on. I was fortunate. I went to work for uh Yves Saint Laurent at the time before Gucci bought back all the licenses. Um, so I was a sort of tailoring designer for them. Um bounced on through to Paris with Emmanuel Ngaro, uh Jaeger, which at the time was having a, you know, Jaeger in London was having a great renaissance, a sort of British uh of heritage and British tailoring. And then I went out to Tommy, who wanted to sort of formalize um some of their sort of sportswear. Um before sort of more recently, I was in Italy for four years with a business called North Sales, which is uh a high performance sales business uh that had a sort of European and perhaps Italian-centric uh lifestyle business. So yeah, I've had a bit of a sort of um uh you know, an interesting sort of flow to to my career, but it's the I guess it's the sort of culmination of years of tailoring, years of sort of, you know, focus on on fabrics and details, and then more latterly understanding, you know, about high performance sportswear. It's that sort of blend that sort of stood me in good stead to get Expio going.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah, that's interesting. I I haven't actually thought about it, but a lot of the people that I've perhaps had on the show talking about starting up brands, many of them all come from an entirely different background to fashion and they wouldn't have that knowledge, the minutia of fabric, you know, manipulating fabric, how fabric forms, etc. And I think looking at XPO or just the broad strokes of it, it would have to take someone like you that has that foundation of knowledge to come in and start something like this. Because of, you know, if you if you came from investment banking, for example, you might just go, right, let's just design a swim short where that looks good, and then let's get that out there. But you've got a a you know, a very in-depth approach. So can we talk about some of the garments that have been launched with XPO and and what makes the fabric so special?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, so I think I think this um, I mean, certainly in this sort of first capsule launch, it's sort of um there's two key things that are going on. And the first is the the material. So that's um we sourced a yarn from a business called Folgar, it's a bio-nylon yarn. So that's a yarn that's designed, um, it's a nylon yarn, but it's made from castor beans. So from the castor beans, uh you can then um take the oil, and from the oil you can create the the nylon. So it's still plastic, there's not getting away from that, but it's not made from a virgin petrochemical source. So there's a certain, you know, um it's the it's a good option for a bad plastic, if that makes sense. I'm still not not overly happy that we're continuing to use plastics, but in this sense, where I wanted something that would perform at a high level, um, that we could, you know, dare I say it afford, um, this is a great option. Um and you know, much better than a recycled polyester or uh a virgin polyester.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Right. And so how hard is it to get hold of these fabrics to make many duplicates and runs? Is this kind of like a prototype capsule for you just to see how it goes?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, I think so. I think you know it's a prototype capsule. I wish I wish I could sort of make a smaller prototype capsule, but with these things, there's no the you know, the the minimum order quantities on yarn and on fabric, and you know, we have to we have to find the yarn, we have to uh dye the yarn or dye the fabric, then have to back it with a membrane. So you you know things start ramping up on scale quite quickly. Um, and actually the you know, some of the economic strains, um, you know, when when sort of I think it was um near the first invasion of of um of Ukraine and the oil prices spiked, and then you know, there was a knock-on effect for it for everything. So I think at that point I just said, well, okay, let's let's just move forward, commit to you know, bulk fabric and uh move things forward. So um yeah, it is a prototype uh sort of you know range in that sense, but uh it doesn't feel it, it feels pretty committed. Right. And where are the garments made? So they're made in in uh in China. Um but um yeah, that's that's is with a business called stealth. Um, and that's you know, that's the the other sort of special part to to uh to the collection. We're using a stitchless uh technology where we use uh a sonic weld to fuse the uh the fabrics edge to edge, and then we use a patented technology to apply a tape on the reverse using a high frequency weld, and basically it's super refined and it's really high performance, and no one else in the world is doing this. Um, so yeah, it's pretty, pretty damn special.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

And so I'm trying to get to the the bottom of where this was percolating in your mind. Was it all the way through your career, like from like Jaeger to Tommy? Was there something that was bubbling away in the background that you wanted to start your own brand and it was always gonna look like this, or did something happen at a crossroads?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, do you know? I think I probably I didn't for many years want to sort of do anything on my own, and and even out of university, I never wanted to do anything. I didn't sort of like the idea of it being so narcissistical and you know, oh, it's about me and people I've created. And even now I'm a bit shy about it, so I have to sort of push push forward and you know, um into doing uh you know interviews with very kind of. Um so yeah, just sort of um when did it come? I guess it came in latter years when I understood more about performance, when I understood more about sustainability, and when I understood more about the commercial elements, you know, it began to sort of piece things together. There was a short period in here as well, actually I didn't mention, but I was a CEO of a small business in in London for a bit, um, of a sort of fashion business. So I understood, I began to sort of put all the pieces together to go, hold on a minute. Well, that works, that doesn't, that could work. What you know, where's my paying threshold? Which bits am I good at and which am I not? Um and I think it probably wasn't until uh you know, until I was 40 that I'd sort of realized that you know, I'd probably made enough mistakes now in other people's businesses and I should you know try and try and do it on you know on my own. So um the I guess the the sort of catalyst, I mean it has to be both the eyes on sustainability, because in my latter role, the recent role in in Italy, you're working a lot with sailing, you're working a lot with the environment, and so you know, plastics and and and pollutants and things you you can't escape from. They're they're intrinsically linked with the business. And once you start, once you open the door to look at, well, you know, hold on a minute, where's that dye going? Or what plastic are we using there? Or is that where's that fiber going? And then suddenly, you know, you can't close that door, you realize it all. And I think I began to um yeah, I began to question in myself a little bit about oh, you know, where do I want to be on this? Where do where where's my integrity level at? And that's you know, not to uh speak badly of any sort of form of business, but it's it's a sort of personal thing to sort of go, well, where do I want to be? What what would I like my legacy to be? I'm not sure. Yeah. Um what what good can I do?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

That's interesting because you'll always be um answerable and and responsible for it, especially if you're you're you're almost front and center. But uh yeah, I guess if you're if you're starting out and you've already seen, you know, you you can't unsee things that you've seen. So now if you're gonna start your own brand, you can't be a hypocrite to your own values.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yeah. Which is interesting. When I when I started, um, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna use performance wools, and that's really all I wanted to do. I was like, I will take tailoring. I know it can work. I've done a bit of this, you know, before. Uh I know some of the Italian mills and I know the UK mills. I will develop wools into performance wear. I'll use shorter meterage because it's you know, you you you can with wool than than you could with uh with nylons and polyester. And I'll keep classic styles and I'll move through great wool and colour and and you know, and it'll be a sustainable performance business. And you know, this is this is the thing. Every day's a school day, and I began to learn, hold on a minute, well, what wool do I need? And what happens if that tears? And you know, is is is wool good? You know, is it is it good? What happens for the muling? And is that like, aren't we using loads of agriculture that could be used for other things about farming and and so on and so on? So, you know, I began to question things and at the same time was exploring uh exploring different materials. Okay, well, you know, these these nylons and cellulosic fibers and various others, could we use these? And um I called up various, you know, I didn't really know. I knew that um I knew that there was a business, I can't remember their name now, in in the UK, and they'd just done a deal with Heinz to replace all of their sachets uh with a sort of biodegradable polymer. I was like, so I called them up and I'm like, so you've got this polymer, right? And it can be sort of water resistant, and yet it biodegrades. Can you extrude it into a yarn? And you know, and all these engineers who just didn't want to speak to me. So I just kept pressing and pressing, trying to find, you know, what's the avenue here? How do we do it? And you know, I spoke to the Woolmark, and and we developed some clothes for them actually. I think they're on the site as preview styles using Optin wool, uh, which is a sort of pre-stretch yarn under weaving, goes back and it creates a water impermeable top surface. Um, so they're on there. So but I was I was very much trying to yeah, bring new materials and concepts into I think I, you know, I as you say, I couldn't I couldn't start up without sort of being principled to what I wanted to do. Um and yeah, pretty focused on it.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, that's that's interesting. It sounds like there was a lot of research, but I mean, research in terms of just getting people on the phone and getting through to the right people, which is all part of the process, but then the actual research begins, right? I guess like the product testing and and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I mean, that's it. And it, you know, I was saying to um someone yesterday, I send a lot more emails than I receive. You know, it's constantly sort of asking, does that work? Does this, you know, pushing and probing um and testing and and and trying to see? And when I sort of partnered up with these guys, stealth, they you know, they've got this technology that they developed, and it had come, it was born from a problem in in sort of camping, essentially, where you roll up your tent in a you know, in a humid state or whatever, and you would get delamination on the on the seams from the tape sort of coming off. I don't know if you, you know, perhaps some of the the the audience will have had this, so they sort of look at the tape seams and you see that sort of peeling off. And it's because the tape uh comes in contact with with moisture and air, and then it's sort of the the glue delaminates and your tape's gone, and then you got your your tent in this case is no longer waterproof. So they developed this technology that didn't use any glue, didn't use an external heat source, and you know, would use this tape, which is I don't know, it's like a polyester TPUPU thing, right? This sort of tri-layer tape, and they'd got it dialed in. And I was like, wow, like this is this is incredible, right? Like, you know, we need to do this in clothes, you know. This is I'm in.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Um yeah, that's fascinating. I I think that's one of the best definitions I've heard of fashion meeting technology. I think most people, when they think of fashion meeting technology, they envisage something out of total recall or a Philip K. Dick novel where perhaps you'd touch the polyfibres of your t-shirt with your fingernail and it would change colour all of a sudden. Or perhaps your jacket has some kind of thermal coppers in the lining that when you hit a switch, these wires become heated, and now you've got a jacket for winter. It's yeah, but I think the the most interesting part of where fashion meets technology is ironically what could be perceived the most I don't know, boring elements where people don't quite understand these little tiny pushes that technology is making fashion better and more functional, especially in a more sustainable way. So yeah, I've got a lot of time for this.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Yeah, I know, and yeah, even now just talking about it, you know, I I get excited because it's you're like, Oh, how does that work? That is incredible. I mean, it took me working on that now for nearly three years to understand how to, you know, what materials to use, what membranes to use, because once you've got your fabric, you then have to back it with a uh, you know, a membrane so that you know you've got your full waterproofing. And the membrane's integrity was as important as the fabric in under the welding conditions. And so you have to test the hell out of it. I mean, it's you know, it's really, really tricky to sort of work out. And there are so many, you know, I know every sort of founder and every, you know, all the startup guys go, oh, there's always problems. But there are, you know, I sort of the the phone goes off at night and it doesn't go on until I'm set in the morning because I know when I turn it on, there'll have been all sorts of problems with you know the a fabric shrinking or something, all of these challenges and things that in stitch garments or in other other ways perhaps I wouldn't have realized existed. But being the front runner on this, you know, you you encounter them all. So yeah. But that said, I've resolved them all. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

That's all that's yeah, yeah. You got there in the end. So did you have to um paint in any of these fabrics, like the bio nylon, for example?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, so the the you know, biofabrics are, I would say they're new, but they're they're not, you know, cutting edge anymore. They've been around for a few years, um, and new materials are coming through. What I've been trying to do is use them in conjunction with this painted the patented technology and welding, um, and adjoin the two. And I guess I'm sort of at the most advanced stage of that. I did look, you know, with some lawyers to say, well, hold on, do we want to patent this, you know, as a combined sort of you know, trilateral patents or whatever it was called? Um, but when they came back with you know the the bill for that, I thought, well, I'll just wait and see how the reaction is, and and if the reaction's strong, then yeah, we'll do that. But um, there are so many new materials coming through. Um, and thank you for um sort of booking this in tonight, actually, because you got me out of of um going to a cocktail event tonight, which which would have been dragging myself over to the other side of London. Um, because it's this week it's the uh textile exchange conference. So it's a sort of the big conference where everyone comes together to talk about solutions, um, you know, innovations in in textiles and manufacturing and you know how to move things forward. And all you know, all I'm trying to do is use the best materials possible with the best manufacturing and try and break break the shackles a bit of of what's gone on in the past. But without, you know, like you say, it used to be that innovation was, you know, um pressing a button on a jacket and it was all heating up with wires. And do you know what? It's really funny you say that because I remember in one job and it wasn't too long ago, but I won't say too much. But you know, they said, Oh, we want to do this tech project, and and the supplier had brought in this jacket that was wired, and you know, you put it with an iPod charger or something. And I was like, that is not my idea of innovation. You know, this is that's that's that's not modern. This is modern, you know, this is this advancement because it makes garments better and they look better and they last longer so that you know they're in turn sustainable. So yeah, I've sort of uh gone off on a tangent slightly there.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I welcome the tangents. I mean, so I mean, two things. I've said I've said this on the podcast a thousand times before. Every person I know has had an idea for a t-shirt brand. Not everybody has gone through with the idea and is sitting with 20 boxes of t-shirts and 500 quids worth of garments in their shed that they can't shift, but they've all had an idea for a t-shirt brand. Number two, I think at every stage somebody's had an idea of well, wouldn't it be great if I could just put the key fob in the sleeve of my jacket and then I could get through the checkout at Sainsbury's quicker without getting my wallet out. That that is an idea, but it's not innovation. It's not innovation, it's not pushing anybody forward.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

You know what? Also, a really good point. Like this is, you know, you the the garment's got to be fit for purpose, right? Yeah. So this is no, but you know what? The you saw a joke about it, but it's really true. Like some of my projects that I've failed on, um, I've failed big, but my intention's been there. And so the I I sort of have this um, you know, the the XPO is built on on you know style, performance, and sustainability. And like I use the word sustainability loosely. I'm not happy with it, but it means the sort of good intention aspects. And if any one of those isn't up to scratch, the whole thing fails. So let's just say it was, you know, uh a jacket for shopping uh at sort of, I don't know, I was gonna say Asta, but let's say Harold's food hall, and you needed your, you know, you needed your your one pound token or something, and your jacket didn't have it, well then people wouldn't buy it for that purpose. And and I um I made some bags once in in Sri Lanka um for uh the business north sales. I don't think anyone mind me reciting the story, but I used the dead sales that were ending up in Malta and ended up in in uh in Portsmouth. And the problem is with sales is they've got dynema and nasty chemicals and things that you just can't get rid of. The other problem is that a lot of the sales are huge, you can't actually cut them. So I was like, well, how can we make these into bags? What can we do? So I spoke to the factory in the down season, the factory made the sales in Sri Lanka, and we ended up shipping them back or taking, you know, a sale return business. And then I went over to the factory and you know, went on the line to try and teach them to make some bags, right? These sort of holodles and various other things. And we used back in back then, Coca-Cola was having a push, a big push, a big drive for you know, recycled materials and recycled polyester. So they had a um, you know, a return bottle facility, which we partnered with. So we had recycled webbing, recycle, you know, it was right there in Sri Lanka. And it was, I can't remember, I was going to try and call it like the 30 mile project. It was like get everything from there. So all this recycled webbing and recycled stuff, and these sales that they would cut up and make into fabulous bags and things like that, and um made them and got them into the stores and so on. And everyone was like, meh. I was like, but they've just done this, it's this, it's this. And the reality was that the style wasn't good enough. And since the style wasn't good enough, it didn't matter how much effort I put in to make this hugely sustainable, interesting project and initiative. I hadn't solved the issue, which was the the bag the sales were going to landfill. All I'd done was make it into a product that would go to landfill because it wasn't good enough. So uh, you know, in a roundabout way, that's that's my way of saying that perhaps we all need key fobs to, you know, our jackets or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yes, oh no, indeed. I mean, we all need key fobs in our sleeves. And look, I I'm tempted to quote George Orwell to you when he said, All revolutions are failures, but they are not all the same failure. So I think if you have your heart in the right place and you're pushing through with an idea that you believe is true to your own values, but you ultimately know that it's going to be adding value to the end user, then just go for it. Swing for the fences next time. On that bombshell, uh Ben, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

You can send them to uh the website, which is uh www.xbo-tailored.com.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

And your Instagram handle you like to hang out there? Oh, that's uh xbo underscore uh tailored. Great. Thanks, Ben. Next time. See you soon. If you've been listening to the Menswear Style podcast, be sure to head over to menswearstyle.co.uk for more menswear content and email info at menswearstyle.co.uk if you would like to be a future guest on the show. Finally, please help support the show by leaving a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast. Until next time.