SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker. Today on the show, I am talking to the director of Plowden and Fallow, Richard Plowden, and a little bit of info on Plowden and Fallow, a new contemporary luxury, British fine fragrance house, born in Shropshire, a quiet backwater of deepest rural England, steeped in history, folklore, and eccentric characters. It was here that they began their journey to create the finest aromatic creations of a unisex nature. At the heart of their philosophy is the utilization of the highest quality ingredients and components crafted into fine British fragrances, which, whilst giving an inspired nod to tradition, contain a healthy dose of an eccentric modern twist. And you can find out more about Plowden and Fallow at their website, plowdenandfallow.com. We'll leave links on the show notes over at Menswear Style. But here now to talk about the brand in his own words is Richard Plowden.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you, Pete. Um, firstly, it's uh an absolute pleasure to be featured uh on the podcast. Um I've been a I suppose a regular listener since 2021. Um and I didn't actually think I'd be featured on here one day. So yeah, great, great privilege to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Oh, well, the pleasure's all mine, Commander, as I like to say on a on another Bond podcast. But well, Belissa Richard, it's great to have you on. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Plowden and Fallow.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yeah, so uh a brief background to me. I'm 30 years old. Uh as you said, I'm the founder and director of Plowden and Fallow. Um I think if I had to summarize myself, I'd say I've always been a creative. Uh I think a mild dose of uh dyslexia, which I actually see as a blessing, uh sort of propelled my creative spirit and in many ways uh helped develop Ploud and Fallow. Um and as I said, um yeah, didn't didn't think probably the younger me at the time that I would have um been on this podcast or or or or others or you know, thought I was ever going to start a fragrance house. Um I would have been slightly perplexed, really. Um but there, there we go.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So what is your background, like before you got into launching the fragrances?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So um I was sort of raised in an agricultural household deep in sort of rural Shropshire, which is a county uh sort of lost in time in some ways, in a really nice way. Um, so I think being raised in an agricultural household gave me a sort of green-fingered passion to use that phrase, um, and indeed a deep interest in botanical world. And to this day, I think probably one of my greatest victories as a schoolboy was winning the uh the gardening prize for three consecutive years running, um, which is a victory I don't think I've quite topped yet in my life. But um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um is it too late to go back, you know, maybe get a four for each or not.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yes, possibly. I've sort of I think you know, whilst I'm still interested in that world and I still have a passion for the natural world, um uh it was more sort of traditional genres of uh gentlemen's fashion and sartorial practices and lifestyle and a dissatisfaction, really, with um many generic shaving products that are currently available to purchase that had a large uh bearing on the decision to start Plowden and Fallow. So that's how we got here today.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Well, I really want to get into Plowden and Fallow, but I'm kind of I'm still interested in what you studied, like beyond beyond school and where you got to. There was kind of a like a six-year gap that I'm trying to fill in before you got to launch the brand.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, absolutely. So um, straight out of of university, I I I did a master's degree uh and but working life, I have a background in in sales, so in the auction industry, um, and then I worked in the property sector uh for a few years as well. So not necessarily a joined, but um um yeah, good experience, um, which I'm very thankful for, and it has you know also had an impact on where I am today with with the uh business.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

And so was it just you that launched Plowden Fellow? Is there is there anyone else behind you? How did you how were the stepping stones for you getting this off the ground?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah, no, absolutely, just just myself. But you know, but behind the brand, there's a there's a sort of team of uh four or five sort of creatives self-employed. Um so without them, I I really would be would be lost. You know, they've been great. Um, anyone from uh graphic designers through to uh our perfumers to um you know other other actually friends as well, to be honest, that have given advice and help um from the beginning because you know I think starting a business, um yeah, it's it's it's a long process and it can be quite a lonely one. Um so yeah, I've been really lucky to have some great, great people uh and mentors really help alongside.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And these fellow creatives, were these people that you knew beforehand, were these friends, these knights around your round table, or what did you actually seek them out as such?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Um no, it's it's just a lot of uh networking, really. A lot of networking. Um, some are friends of friends. Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And what do you so I'm curious when you introduce yourself and to your friends, maybe hobnobbing at party, and you bring up Plowden and Fellow, how are you describing it? How is it different to other fragrance houses?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

I suppose sort of put in its most um simple form, uh, we're a niche British fragrance house, uh, and we exist to create luxury fragrances and wet shaving products uh here in the UK, and that's uh that's a point I'll probably labour throughout. Um we have artists and craftsmen and women, um, but not really, that that make noses not only sort of sit up and take notice, but also create a sort of metaphorical aura of confidence um around those that adorn our creations, um showing them off as the very best versions of themselves. I suppose that's the that's the sort of more the simple short answer. Um but as a business as a whole, we take inspiration from a number of notions. I I've always felt the cosmetics and fragrance industry, in my opinion, uh to some degree, has become the equivalent of the fast food sector, or it it had done until recently. Um should I call it fast fashion, sort of with giant uh faceless corporations mass producing products and factory lines for shareholder profit, whereas you know, we still believe in sort of slow fashion uh and the sort of spirit reminiscent of Britain in times gone by where products were made to last and made by hand. Um, and just to give some examples of that, um, all of our products are produced here in the UK, uh, and that goes from our leather wash bags, just to name one example, made by hand just down the road from our offices by an artisan leather maker, uh, to our fragrance boxes, which are produced by a fifth generation London boxmaker and London stockyards who's had the same employees working for them for 20 plus years. Um and all of that's all of that's very important to us. And I think the decision to work with local and artisanal producers, I acknowledge, does come at the expense of our profitability to a degree. But to us, this is this is vital. Um, and these are values that we hold close, and it helps us ensure uh that we're an ethical business um from reducing transport miles to ensuring fair wages and supporting local people in industry. Uh and these are all sort of notions that uh myself personally and the brand um we're very passionate about.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah, just hearing you talking that picking up on that, it's it's interesting. I've got a friend who um has been on the show. He he runs a brand called Hemingsworth, and he has a his the fruit line of his company, or the heartbeat I should say, is that everything is made in the UK, made in England, and very sustainable, and you know that the price kind of reflects the honesty of the brand. You know, like you say, it's it's not made in factory houses out in Bangladesh or anything. This is something that's entrenched in the brand is very, very British. And I I've said to him that it's a lot easier to start out like that, I believe, than kind of do it the other way around. So, for example, if the if the brand doesn't really take off and you're just kind of hanging on to the last rung of the ladder, and then you go, do you know what? We're gonna throw all of our morals out the window here, and we're gonna go to that factory house in Pakistan, and they can do a cheap run, and maybe we can just salvage what we have of the brand and sell all the rest of the stock. It can't it does not work like that because your identity is what you start out with at the beginning, which is the honesty and the integrity. And it sounds like to me, putting it back to you guys, it's it sounds like you're taking the same approach where you're starting out like this, and this will be the identity of your brand going forward.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Absolutely. Um, and you know, we've had some great feedback. So we've been uh trading now for uh about two years. Um, but previously I was in sort of full-time employment in uh working in other sectors, so didn't really have time to push the business, but we've had a we've had a great sort of last year, and we I'd say our niche really is not only British production, but um it's our strong eccentric undercurrent with a slight modern contemporary twist. That's how I describe our products, and we simply couldn't get there, um get there with without using the creatives and the sort of great businesses that we found in the UK. I'm sure we could get there abroad, but um we I don't feel we would be able to produce the quality and hold our values in in terms of reducing transport miles, in terms of uh reducing our carbon footprint, etc., if we were to do that. Um and the advantage to smaller businesses with working um with with manufacturers here is actually quite a lot of manufacturers here can can cope with smaller um order volumes and batches, which um which really helps. Um you know, we can order fragrance boxes um uh by a hundred at a time, whereas if you start outsourcing it um say to uh the far east, you're gonna have to consider you know a lot larger uh ordered quantities.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, no, interesting. How what are the obstacles? I mean I'm curious to know when you when you start a project like this, what are the things that you really have to look out for? Because I know for a fact, like any grooming products, my sister is also in in the sector, and it's branding, it's bottles, it's labeling, it's packaging, it's testing, it's getting samples. It's a it's a real long process, or at least it was for her anyway. Um what was it like for you getting the samples and trying to you know bottle lightning, as it were?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, so this this is probably something you'll have to shut me up on because I could go on for for a while. Um, but on the face of it, it might seem like a simple exercise to start a fragrance house. And indeed, I think in the last few years we've seen quite a few niche British fragrance um houses appear um as a category, which has been um great, but I would sort of always urge caution um as there's some sort of large hurdles that need to be circumnavigated. And I would say the first is cost um to bring a single fragrance to the marketplace by the time you consider development, testing, regulatory compliance packaging, uh the cost is considerable or can be considerable. Um and I'd say this is perhaps the largest barrier um to new entrants, and it's not only the cost of uh development. I think as a smaller brand, we produce products and batches. Uh this can mean we struggle to take advantage of purchasing power that larger cosmetics businesses have. For example, uh, we're just about to um start production of our woodpecker shaving cream, an aftershave balm. Um the fragrance in this product contains a a large quantity of sandalwood essential oil, which we have to source from Australia um where we source it sustainably. Uh, the cost of sandalwood has significantly increased uh recently, meaning that in this product line alone, our sort of cost of production has doubled. Um and in this example, we could have opted to have used synthetic sort of sandalwood alternatives, but it was important to us that we sort of didn't cut costs and only used essential oils to fragrance our shaving products. Um and and on cost, you can you can experience a cost in this world in an area that, for example, we didn't even first consider. I mean, um, intellectual property is just one of those areas, um, a really important one, but one at first that went sort of straight over our head. Yeah, it's very hard to trademark a smell, but you can't just name a fragrance uh or a product any name you fancy. And if you did, um it might lead you open to all kinds of legal issues.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

So how does that work then? So you've you've created a product, now you have to go to um like what do they call it, the the pattern house and get it registered?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, so the um uh it's through the the government um intellectual property um house. Uh can't remember the name of it now, should know the name of it. Um they know you, don't worry. They do. Uh but so yeah, we we've had to incur a sort of number of legal costs um uh to ensure that you know not only are we not infringing on other people's existing rights, um, but uh you know, our our products are also protected. Um and it's something that a lot of this a lot of people in the industry have to take quite seriously. So it's it's an area that that you know can cost you a lot of money if you get it wrong. Um and just to add on to that, the sort of third tranche of cost has been significant product development timelines, um, which we you sort of touched on earlier. Um in some cases for us, it's taken two years uh to get a single finished product. Um but some of that's down to us as a brand. As I sort of touched on earlier, we have a an approach that embodies slow fashion. Um, if you're a larger brand with a large bank role, you can just chuck cash around and shorten development timelines. But personally, I don't believe chucking money at fragrance or product formulations is the right formula to create a sort of outstanding product. Um, but setbacks have been sort of inevitable um throughout that process.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I see. So how does it work when you get the sample back and it's like, okay, I'm happy with this now? Are you kind of the nose and then you put it to a panel? How do you test it to make sure that it's not just your overriding opinion that you're gonna you know pull the trigger on?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, absolutely. So um we work with a with a small team of um perfumers. Um so uh I'm I'm not trained as a as a perfumer myself. Um I have quite good knowledge in the stereo, but I wouldn't profess to be one. So it's it's uh a combination of myself, uh our perfumers, um, and then literally uh testing with the general public as far as possible. Um so yeah, it's it's a long old process with to produce a single fragrance. You know, we've had we've done on certain fragrances, countless revisions to get to where we are. And I think um I keep going back to the shaving products, but they're they're something that's incredibly tricky to grade. Um and just to give an example of some of the issues we've had in in with them, um, in a recent formulation, the addition of vitamin E uh turned the product bright pink. Um so it's there's weird things, you know, when you're when you're dealing with um cosmetics, there's all kinds of chemical reactions, etc., going on. So um it can take a really long time. Uh and and that's not that's not the smell we're talking about, that's performance and and the aesthetic sort of look of the product. Um, so yeah, it does take a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Um interesting. And on the look of the product, you've got to have a lot of thought towards the branding, I guess. So, how did you approach like the branding, the labels, the name, design of the bottle? This all comes, I guess, uh you know, under the same heading. You know, talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, absolutely. And actually, I think one of the first pieces of advice I was uh given is um uh considering marketing. Someone once said to me it will uh take you at least twice the investment made to create a fragrance to market it. Um and I think you know that's that's a very accurate, um, very accurate thought. But um as a small business, we have to consider every marketing spend very carefully, but we haven't tried to cut costs um on the packaging. Um and as a generic rule, you know, we take inspiration um as a brand from the bizarre and eccentric, um especially historical characters, we're inspired by folklore, uh sort of lofty ideals and uh good all-round British etiquette. Um, so as I said earlier, we're based in rural Shropshire, which is sort of a land forgotten by time in many ways, and a land littered with stories, eccentric characters, and it's a place steeped in folklore. And I think this along time alongside um working with the team of sort of creatives, um, we're we're never short of inspiration. And indeed, there's probably another five or six fragrances that we're just dying to bring out, but I sort of have to temper this desire um at the moment um and ensure we're not running before jogging. Um, I won't say I won't say walking as I feel we're sort of already doing that reasonably successfully.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

But um yeah, yeah. Well well, you mentioned the razors, I'm I'm curious about that. So was where are they made, for example, and the the grooming range? Did you release everything simultaneously or did the fragrance come out first and then the add-ons after and the accessories?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

No, no. So the um the fragrance shaving products was was uh a sort of add-on to the fragrance range. It's um they're a relatively new release to us here. Um the shaving products uh are due to be released in the next three months. Um, but they're such a natural companion uh to our fine fragrance ranges. And the inspiration um was, as I said, was my dissatisfaction with the myriad of sort of shaving products uh we currently see for sale. I mean, just myself alone, I I tend to have a more sensitive skin type, and I found many products out there would cause uh shaving rash. I also wanted to reduce uh plastic waste, and many many shaving products just seemed dull visually and tracked, in my opinion, from the bathroom environment. So it was these factors that drove me to explore this side of the brand. Um, in terms of where they're produced, they're produced in Sheffield. Um so the heart of um metal working country and yeah, the lead mill industry.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Um, and so as with all our products, yeah, made here in the UK by hand by artisans that have been training their craft uh for years. Um and yeah, as I said, our shaving creams and art shape arms haven't haven't been released yet. But in the next three months, we're hoping um to get those uh get those on the shelf. Um as I can uh as I said earlier, it comes back back to we don't rush the process, and it's taken a considerable amount of time to get finished products that we're we're really happy with and happy to put our brand on. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Are you looking to do any collaborations at this point? Are you just trying to firm up the name yourself? You know, make sure the brand is established before you kind of join forces with anyone else.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah, we've been we've we've had a few discussions. Um nothing I could sort of uh release, but the sort of first, I think our our main priority is is to get the brand name out there. It's um, you know, we believe we're offering um exceptional British-made eccentric products, and and we really want to get the brand out there. So that's something uh that we're gonna be working very hard across 2024 to do. Um because you know, uh the marketing side of it things we're we're up against uh an industry where sort of you know, companies have million pounds plus marketing budgets, and that's that's that's nothing. So it it is hard to get noticed. So yeah, we're planning a few uh sort of cool um quite unique marketing campaigns uh which I I can touch on in a bit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, please, if you can, whatever you got.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Um so probably can't probably can't go into them actually, because none of the names are confirmed. See, I tried. I tried to get it out, yeah, but you I probably shouldn't. But cool things to do with um country houses, vintage sports cars, and some quite well-named names. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Awesome. All right, let's watch this space. Um, Richard, it was um it was a real pleasure talking to you and and really getting into the weeds, finding out how these how fragrance houses come about. Um it's fascinating to me. And I mean, do you like do candles as well? You're thinking about candles, or is that too left field?

SPEAKER_01 22:39

No, no, we we haven't um we haven't ever considered candles. I think what we're trying to do now is is really get well known for the ranges we're actually producing. Um and yeah, it might be something that one day we look into.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Um I've got an idea for a candle range.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Go on, hit hit me up with it.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

All right, so I was in Austin a couple of weekends ago, and I was in this store, and they had all these candles, and they're each name of this candle was like a Bowie song, right? Space Oddity Web. I'm sure they're infringing on someone's IP, no doubt. The Bowie estate for one. But it's a it's a a quiet enough store where I feel like they can just do a small run on it, make a quick bug, which I know goes against the complete ethos of what you guys do. But um going back to my idea. I always think there could be a great idea for a candle that has uh like something James Bond oriented. You can call it the odd job, you know. You you could you could call it the Vespa or something like that. Then people will go, oh brilliant. I know a mate who's got who's a Bond fan. I'm one myself. You know, if someone bought me something like that, it could be oh, how about this? It could be in the shape of a martini glass, so you wouldn't even have to have that much wax. All right. I'm going off piece, but uh that's that's I I like it, I like it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

A slightly um yeah, no, definitely a gentleman's um gentleman's candle, perhaps. But uh reminds a bit well, we produce um uh a fragrance called Audacity, um, which that the notion there is uh quite similar. But um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Like it. Well, listen, if people want to check out the range, the um the accessories and the fragrances, head over to plowdenandfallow.com. We'll leave a link in the show notes. In the meantime, Richard, it's been a pleasure talking to you and thanks for taking your time out.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

My pleasure, Pete. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

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.