SPEAKER_02 0:16

Welcome back to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker, and today on the show I am talking to one of the founders of Mallet London, Evryn Oscar. They are a progressive British brand with its sights set on further international growth and global recognition. Mallet combines slick designs with an urban aesthetic and is changing the landscape of premium footwear and clothing. The Mallet London brand is defined by a minimal yet bold style. Their client is fashion forward and has a sense of luxury style while seeking a sneaker that is both affordable and high quality. And to talk about the brand, Mallet London, in his own words, is Everen Oscar.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So I'm 32 years old, uh currently living in London and Dubai. And yeah, we started Mallet around 10 years ago. And I'd say Mallet is an accessible luxury brand, not just a footwear brand. We're in multiple categories now. And yeah, I guess that's the best way to describe us.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

And so you've got one foot in Dubai. How's that going? And what is it that's in Dubai? Were you born there? Any family there?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, no, it's pretty good. I mean, so most of my life I spent in London. I was born here, raised here, and then I spent a lot of time over in Turkey. That's where when we started the brand, we were doing a lot of manufacturing over there. So I was kind of on the ground there doing everything. And then, yeah, kind of had enough of Turkey and moved over to Dubai. It actually worked out really well for us because we've got a big footprint over there right now, it was Mallet. So we're in quite a few luxury stores over there. So we're in Harvey Nichols over there, we're in Level Shoes, number of other ones. So um, yeah, we're actually really excited about that part of the world because it's a part of the world that's actually growing. Where we see some of the market turns in Europe, we're actually seeing the opposite in the Middle East. So yeah, really good South Rus over there. Um, not just in Dubai, but also like in Saudi, in Kuwait, Bahrain as well is another good area. So yeah, lots happening over there. So it's good to be over there and uh being on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

So, what part of London are you from originally? So I'm from North London. I was born in East London, but I spent a lot of time growing up in North London. Uh-huh. So, yeah, that's where that's where my mom's from, is where my nan's from. And yeah, kind of just bouncing up between the two, east and north.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Right, okay. And so how often are you in London? What's what's the split between London and Dubai for you time-wise?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

It's kind of like two weeks over there, two weeks over here. I try and spend as much time as I can over here with the team. Um, but yeah, it's nice to be back in Dubai as well. But yeah, it kind of depends on the season. So, yeah, right now in summer, I've spent most of the summer back here in London. Um, yeah, doing a bunch of stuff with the team. So, yeah, kind of kind of juggling it. It's pretty difficult, but um, yeah, that there's worse things, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yeah, so I'm interested in how you got into the footwear business. Maybe you can take me from where you went to school, education, and then that pathway you took where you got into the footwear business.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So I went to school in East London, a place called Chinkford, and my former education is not really much to speak of. I kind of finished my secondary school career at age 16. And then basically, when I finished, my dad sat me down and he said, right, you've got three options now. You can either go to university, you can work for someone else, or you can come and work for me in the family business. And out of the three, he said that the third one's the most difficult. So I always like a challenge. So I went with uh I went with a third one, and basically we have a manufacturing business where we manufacture clothing for other brands for other like retail retail stores. So that's what I was involved in for the first kind of eight, nine years of my career, just manufacturing, just kind of learning the business, learning the ropes. And I was involved in a lot of sales in the business. So it was basically me traveling around with a suitcase to Europe, to the US, and to Asia, just opening new accounts for the manufacturing business. And then when the opportunity for Malik came along, it just became a matter of like pivoting that and taking everything that I learned and putting it into footwear because mostly it was kind of clothing that we did. I had a little bit of experience in footwear, but not a lot. So it just when we started the brand about 10 years ago, it was just kind of right, how do I take what I've learned here and apply that to footwear? So yeah, when we started the brand, I knew what I was doing in terms of running a business and in terms of like footwear, I had the capital as well. But yeah, footwear was like a whole new thing for me, and it was it was really exciting to get to learn everything. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

So did you did your old man say, look, this is gonna be tough? You're gonna be under my wing, but hey, don't worry, I'll give you a suitcase and fly you around the world. And I was like, you know, you'll it's it's gonna be hard work at some point, but don't worry, you know, you'll be you'll be jet setting on top of that.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I wish that was the case, but unfortunately, unfortunately not. Um, so when I started, it was basically so the first year or two was kind of me learning the ropes, and what learning the ropes meant was going into the warehouse and unloading lorries for 10 hours a day. So that was what I did for like the first year, and then the second year was kind of then I got actually out of the um out of the warehouse, and it's interesting because that warehouse where I kind of done the first year, that ended up being our first warehouse for Mallet, that's where we kind of started, but um yeah, back back to the manufacturing. So after the second year, I moved into the offices. So we had offices in North London. So I kind of started there and learning the ropes, kind of what everyone does in the office, and then I made the decision to actually move to Turkey because that was where a lot of the manufacturing was happening. So I kind of wanted to get out of my comfort zone a little bit because, yeah, as you said, it's nice kind of being the boss's son and like, you know, being in the office and things like that, being in the middle of London. But I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and wanted to really learn about the business and put some extra hard work in. So I moved over to Turkey basically, where I didn't know anyone. It was just kind of the business was there. And at the time we had around 2,000 people there working in various factories, manufacturing the clothes. So I really got my hands dirty over there. I was spent a lot of the time in the dime plant, in the dime mill, kind of in the factories, learning about how garments are constructed, learning about the materials, the different processes and things like that. So that's how the second year went. And then the third year, finally, my dad sat me down and said, right, it's time for you to kind of move up. And I said, Look, listen, I'm ready to move up as well. He said, I'm gonna give you something that's really hard for you to screw up, and you're gonna be in charge of international sales. And the reason you can't screw it up is because we don't have any international sales right now. So go and take this product and try and sell it around the around the world. So literally, I was given an office, a desk just like this, a computer. I think I had a phone, I'm not too sure. But cut a long story short, at the time we had zero international sales, and by the time I'd finished seven years later, we had 20 million in international sales. So yeah, it it did take a lot of hard work because literally we didn't have anything, it was literally a computer, and me for the first couple of years just getting doors kind of slammed in my face and you know, phones uh slammed in my face as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

So yeah, they're not even putting the phone down, they're just slamming the phones in your face. They're just yeah, they're just slamming it, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Right. Exactly. So that was yeah, that was difficult in the beginning. But yeah, eventually I did kind of get some traction, and yeah, it was it sounds glamorous, like jetting around the world and kind of you know selling these products, but ultimately it was like, yeah, it it was really hard work and not a lot of not a lot of help, I guess. It was kind of mainly done by myself. I kind of developed the collections all by myself and sold them all by myself. So that really set the base for what was to come for Mallet.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

So were you doing like a trunk show of basically various different products with meetings lined up before you went out there, or did you move to Turkey, get a foothold in Turkey, and then start pushing the products and then start door knocking? What in which order did it go?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

So I learned very quickly that there's a difference in handwriting, and I'd never heard that that term before. But so we was basically in the in the UK market, but then when it came to selling to Europe and selling to the US, I noticed that yeah, people didn't actually like the the clothing that we were selling. So there was different colours involved, there were different prints involved, and it's the same in footwear, you know, what sells really good in terms of footwear in the US is not necessarily what works well over here. In the US, they like a lot more colour, they like a lot more boldness, you know, it changes quite a lot. So I learned that very early on because when I started to take those collections that we were making for the UK, I thought it was gonna be as easy as just sending them to Europe or sending them to the US, but that wasn't the case at all. And yeah, it just involved me kind of going back to the drawing board and and finding out what kind of designs are gonna are gonna work over there. So yeah, it's it's the same in clothing, it's the same in footwear as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

And what's the brand that we're talking about here, your your dad's brand that he was working for? Was it his own brand? Is it a name that we'd recognize?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

That was just manufacturing. So he we would be manufacturing for like names that we'd all of here are like high streets, are like Zara, Mango, CNA, HM, um, S Olivar, Marks and Spencer's back in the day, brands like that. Arcadia Group.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I'm curious that when you when you moved to Turkey and it was just you. Where was it in Turkey? Was it Istanbul you moved?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Unfortunately, not I love Ista, I love Istanbul, but uh it was a place called Bursa, which is about two hours from Istanbul, and unfortunately, it's nothing like Istanbul, there's nothing there. I literally, yeah, I had a small flat and it was yeah, it was 12 hours a day in the factories, and then back home, that was it, you know, not really much happening over there.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah, so that must have been a challenging time. You must be thinking, oh, the red pill, blue pill scenario. I wish I chose the red pill of that situation because there's the glamour of moving abroad and getting the heat and and being somewhere else outside of like North London, but then it's almost like you're going from one place of uh condensed isolation to another place, even more so if you're on your own out there.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah, exactly. No, it was difficult in the beginning, but I mean ultimately I knew that I was setting the foundations for the rest of my career so that I was really, you know, learning what to do, I was learning the ropes basically. And I always uh you know, I got into you know this this kind of business journey knowing that it was going to be tough, so yeah, I didn't mind earning my stripes early on.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah. Well, let's get on to mallet. I'm I'm curious, how did you leave your dad's business and then get into mallet? Was it was it a smooth transition for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Well, no, like I said, I mean, so when we first started mallet, I was still much doing the manufacturing. I kind of like made a little name for myself, like you know, running around doing all these sales. So when it comes to starting mallet, it was a matter of, as I said, applying what I knew in manufacturing and applying the business knowledge that I had into mallet. So the first kind of question that we had to answer was how do we make these shoes? I mean, we want to make them, but um, who's gonna trust us? You know, who's gonna trust us to kind of develop these shoes? So yeah, I found a few factories, five or six. There were a couple that said they would work with us, and I kind of used like the reputation that we had as a business in Turkey for the factories to kind of trust us and you know um, you know, start making our products because you know, as a factory, it's it's it's difficult because you know you're you're obviously you're obviously working with a lot of different brands, and you know, when a new brand comes to you or a new kind of person approaches you, you don't really know what to do, you don't really know whether to trust them. So that definitely helps early on.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Um, are we raising capital to get it launched to get it off the ground, or are you investing your own money? How what are the starting steps financially for this?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, so I invested all my own money in it. I was I put all the money in in the beginning, and then that first warehouse, the one that we had in East London in Leighton, that was our first warehouse. So we were able to stay there rent-free for the first couple of years, and that enabled us to kind of get off the ground. So, yeah, that that first collection that we made was actually interesting because yeah, it took a long time to kind of get that together and make it just because of the reasons I explained. No one kind of really knew who we were or you know, wanted to invest in us, but finally we got the collection done, and I think we made I want to say 40 pairs or 50 pairs, and anyone who's in the footwear business is gonna gasp when they hear that because they know how difficult it is to make 50 pairs of something, but nevertheless, we got them done, put them in the warehouse and done the little website, and we were in business.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

The website. So talk to me about the e-commerce site. Then have you got uh have you got experience in making those, building those, or are you now starting to build a company, getting other people, you know, getting a team together to do all this for you or with you?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

So in the in the beginning, we freelanced everything. So we freelanced the the the website design, the website build. It was kind of trying to make the most out of that situation. So yeah, I think at the time we had maybe I want to say one or two staff that were kind of, I think no, we had one staff in in the beginning who was part-time, who was helping us kind of unload the lorries and ship out the orders. I was doing all the customer service on my phone, just like messaging people. It was like it was scalable at that time. And yeah, it was just kind of bootlegging from the beginning because when we started the business, I mean, we didn't really know what it could be. We were just making these shoes because we thought they were really cool and we thought our friends would buy them, we thought our friends would be interested, and they were, but we didn't think that it was going to be become this global brand, what it is today. We was kind of just taking every day as it comes. So there was no like five-year plan or 10-year plan. It was just okay, let's let's put these cool shoes out there and see if people want to buy them. And yeah, it turns out that they did.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

But I mean, was there a marketing plan though? And I mean, the reason why I ask, we have a lot of people that listen to the podcast that also, you know, might be thinking about starting their own brand, you know, following in your footsteps, Pardon the pun. And I guess some of the hurdles that people have early on are they have a good idea for a product, they've got a good idea to conceive it and design it, they might be able to get a prototype together, but then that's kind of where the trail ends because they put so much heart and energy into getting something physical and then forgetting that they now have to sell it. So it sounds like you've you've been through that stage and you were smarting, starting small, but then kind of how do you, apart from friends and family, how do you really push this?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

So I think it's about getting other people on board that have been there and done it before. So the first thing that we wanted to do is kind of like get the product into stores because I mean you can shout about it on social media and you know and online as much as you can, which really does help. But if people, if you're a new brand and people can't actually see and touch and hold the product, it's very, very difficult. So the next step for us was getting into stores. So we got involved with some local agents that were able to do that, local agents and distributors. So for the first couple of years, it was them who kind of partnered up with us to get them into the stores. And once we did do that, we were at a time, you've got to remember this is 10 years ago. So luxury sneakers had kind of just been born. So previous to that, there wasn't really much of this happening. Like luxury sneakers were just starting to become a thing. And at the time, you had like the top-top brands who were, I mean, prices are crazy nowadays, but at the time they were talking about you know, entry price, you were saying three to four hundred pounds, and then on the other end of the scale, you had your sportswear, so you had your Adidas Nike's rebook, all the rest of it. In the middle market, there wasn't really that much going on, so that was always like our kind of USP was we'll make a really, really good product and we'll put it an at an accessible price point. Too many A's there. Um, and yeah, that was basically the uh the strategy from day one. And once they were in the stores and we was we had the adjacencies of the luxury brands and the product was really good, then yeah, the the the self-reuse were just were just crazy from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Interesting, and yeah, I guess the product has to be good. I mean, I do believe that when it comes to footwear, there is a certain sense of meritocracy involved that if the product is no good, then you'll get found out pretty quick, or if things start to fall apart for what people are paying for it, if they feel like they're not going to get any value, then the word will be out. But you also started this like 10 years ago. So I think social media, like all right, let's dial it back, let's just say it's 2015. I'm only really starting finding Instagram around about that time. I mean, it wasn't the monolith, it wasn't really what people were fascinating with and obsessed with back then. I mean, it was a thing. Did you did you sense that it was gonna be a lot of social media that there was gonna be a a big kick as well in the social media sphere for your brand to live?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I mean, not really. I mean, that was kind of what everyone was doing at the time. Uh my co-founder had a decent following at the time, so we monetized that in the beginning. But I mean, I guess this age of like influencer marketing and digital marketing, that kind of just started to take movement. Yeah, so it just kind of seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I mean, nowadays it's very different because those kind of strategies have really been exhausted, so you've got to like be a little bit more creative and think about different avenues. But um, yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah. Talk about the designs a little bit. So in and the actual process of making these. So, are you thinking about the design of the shoe? Are you are you now also having other people come in and collaborate and help you with designs? What's the process like for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, so our first ever collection was done by a girl who actually still works with us today. So she was in the beginning a freelancer. We went to see her. She'd done, I think, six or seven designs for us, and we picked four out of those. And some of them, actually, one of them called the Diver, is a shoe that we still sell today, still in stores today. Nice. So, yeah, that was actually one of the uh the OGs, if you like, of the collection. And yeah, she's our head designer now, and she's been with us from day one. So she's been absolutely great. And yeah, since then she's got a team underneath her, and she's kind of doing all the designs. And yeah, the names of the shoes, a lot of the names are made up from streets and places where we grew up. So we've got, for example, the Hoxton, you know, the Holloway, the Archway. These are all names of areas from East and North London. What about the Chingford? Nothing in there. So some of them are are a little bit more um sharper on the ears than others. So uh we are limited. I mean, I don't think the uh I don't think the Stoke Newington is gonna do as well as the uh as the great golf course, though.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Well, I've got a mate who lived out in Chingford, my best mate from school, who I actually ran a clothes shop with way back in the day. And he moved to Chingford, and I'm now kind of well, I'm west London, I'm about 20 minutes outside of Heathrow. And even though when we say to each other, yeah, we both live in London, we should meet up more, we only meet up like once a year, basically, if if that, because it just feels like there's I don't think it's like any other city London, in where you go, right? You know, you you live in New York, let's meet up for lunch. Great, there's only about like 10 streets and a park in between. You know, we can make that happen. If you live in London and you're out in Chingford, you're all the way east, and if you live outside of Heathrow, you're all the way west, and it's a planes, trains, and automobiles to get the hell over there, or vice versa. So we're probably just lazy, yeah. We are just lazy. Um but yeah, so the you I think you do have a new collaboration that I saw on your site with TFL. Can you talk about that at all?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

So that was one that we actually did last year. So we've done a number of collaborations. That was I'd say that was our first big collaboration. Since then, we've collaborated with Reebok, uh Smiley. We've got another two big ones coming soon. I don't think we can talk about those yet, but two really big ones to announce later on in the year. But no, the TFL one was actually really good for us, obviously, being a London brand. You know, it was um it was really, really satisfying to collaborate with them. Obviously, TFL is rooted in London culture, so yeah, really excited to partner up with them.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Nice. And are they getting hold of you? Are like the collaborations coming in now? Are you actively seeking these as like a another way to expand the brand?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I think it's a bit of both. I mean, since TFL Bock and Smiley, we've had a number of brands approach us. Some of them are things that we're going to explore and things that are really going to work. Some of them not so much. But yeah, there are a lot of people approaching us right now. But yeah, as with any collaboration, there's always a chance to kind of expand and grow and kind of utilize each other's audiences. And yeah, I think with every collaboration we've done, it's been like with a purpose. So yeah, each collaboration has been significant in its own way. So yeah, we'll be continuing to collaborate with big brands later on in the year and into next year as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

And what is like the prerequisites when people come to you and go, hey, I think it'll be a great idea. Let's team up. You go, Yeah, yeah, that might be a good idea. And then you what what are you looking for in them that will fit in with your ethos?

SPEAKER_00 22:51

I mean, I guess there's kind of two ways of looking at it. I think as I said most of the time, it's it's kind of do is it a conflict? That's I guess the first question. And if it's not, then it's kind of does it make sense for both brands? So if there's no crossovers, if there's no conflicts, and you think it can be cool, um, and you think your audience is gonna adhere to it, and if you think you can benefit off of the other audiences and vice versa, then it definitely makes sense. I mean, collaborations have just become a thing that brands do nowadays. I mean, people are dropping collaborations every week now, so yeah, it's it's a big part of our business as well. I'm actually going to see somebody tomorrow, which is a new a new potential collaboration. So yeah, that we've we've got a bunch lined up, and yeah, it's it's a big part of the business now. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Yeah, tangentially, I had a couple years ago, I had a chat with uh Chad McQueen. Chad McQueen was on this podcast, son of Steve McQueen, and uh he was like in karate kid, and he's been in a whole bunch of films, and and anyway, he's also like got one hand in the licensing of Steve McQueen. So the Steve McQueen estate basically gets approached every other day, like you know, can we like windshipers? Can we have Steve McQueen windsheam wipers on our new BMW, whatever it is? And uh he said that at one point rat poison, like the company that like makes rat poison got hold of their estate and say, We've got a great idea for a collaboration. And he said, That's that's the time when I just gave up answering emails to these people and gave it to someone else, and someone else can just look at like the and profile, you know, which ones are the good ones, which ones are the jokey ones. So that's the place you want to be at, Everan. You want to be at when rat poison companies get hold of you and go, We've got a great idea for a collaboration. You know that you've arrived.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, maybe one day, but yeah, at the moment, like I said, we're keeping it real, and we like it, it's it's brands that kind of adhere to our audience and adhere in our culture as well. So, as I said, TFL was obviously a big part of that, and then Reebok was the next one, obviously, being two British brands that kind of really made sense for us as well. Will well, them going to school. Um, I mean that they they were huge back in the 80s and 90s, and yeah, they're kind of making a comeback now with ABG under their management, collaborating with a bunch of different luxury brands, and it was great to be part of that as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

I've got an idea, but it's only just come to mind, so I might edit it out if it falls flat. Okay, ready? Let's hear it, man. Well, I mean, if you think about the great British brands, you have James Bond. I mean, I've got my James Bond poster up behind me. And when it comes to footwear in James Bond, you're always gonna have something that is spy attached to it, maybe a little tracker in the heel, something that you can slide out and foot in, like a like in Goldfinger when he does that with the shoe. Is there anything like that that you can line up or implement in the design features?

SPEAKER_00 25:47

We've we've done it already, and we we just launched it yesterday, actually. So if you go on mallet.com, you'll see our formals range, and you'll see the clip at the you'll see it the clip at the back of all of our shoes. And yeah, that that can potentially be that in the future. The technology is not there yet, but the look definitely is. So um, yeah, we've got we've actually just launched a whole new range of those. So we've got a Chelsea boot there, we've got a loaf, Penny Loafer, um, got monk shoe as well. So that's a that's a new kind of area for us, and it kind of just plays back to what our DNA is, which is basically looking at the um the market, looking at our audience and think, right, what can we offer to our audience? Because we've got such a loyal audience as a brand. We've got people that buy, you know, when you look at our average, it's always returning customers, it's always people that have bought five, six, seven, ten pairs, you know. So we're always looking about right, what can we offer them? So we're bringing out a new clothing range, and also a part of that was formals. So we saw a big demand for formals because similarly, we didn't think there was a uh uh accessible luxury formal out there. We kind of thought it was uh an industry that was a little bit dull, not really a lot of innovation happening. So yeah, we've come in with our formals range and we launched it yesterday, and the sales have been we almost had a record day. It was it was great.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Nice. I'm looking at it now on Instagram as so do you see where the you see where the clips are?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

So that that can be where your uh where your tracking devices or your uh yeah comes out of.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

I like it, yeah. Uh, people can go to mallet underscore London on Instagram and and check these out for themselves and the website mallet.com. We'll leave links in the show notes. Everyone, great talking to you. Thanks for having me, man.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

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