Menswear Style Podcast
The Menswear Style Podcast is a leading men’s fashion and menswear podcast exploring men’s style, clothing, grooming, lifestyle and the business behind some of the world’s most exciting fashion brands. Hosted by Peter Brooker, each episode features conversations with menswear designers, fashion entrepreneurs, innovative brand founders and industry experts from across the global fashion and apparel industry. Discover the stories behind established and emerging clothing brands, from the first idea and challenges of launching a fashion start-up to building a successful international business. Guests share their experiences and insights across fashion design, sustainability, manufacturing, marketing, branding, eCommerce, retail, social media and business growth. Whether you’re interested in men’s fashion and style, discovering new menswear brands, starting your own clothing label, or learning how successful fashion businesses are built, the Menswear Style Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the modern menswear industry. New conversations with the people shaping the future of menswear, men’s style and fashion.
Menswear Style Podcast
Mark Warman, Founder of Barnfield Customs / Handmade Jackets
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In this episode of the Menswear Style Podcast, we speak with Mark Warman, founder of Barnfield Customs, the independent British outerwear brand creating limited-edition modern classics inspired by military uniform, heritage workwear and café racer culture.
Mark’s journey into clothing is anything but conventional. With a background in digital marketing and a decade spent running his own agency in Bahrain, he eventually found himself drawn away from the screen and towards making things with his hands. During the COVID period, he restored a £300 motorcycle from the ground up — an experience that rekindled his interest in craft, physical making and the idea of creating something tangible that could last.
That philosophy became the foundation for Barnfield Customs.
Rather than producing disposable seasonal fashion, Mark set out to create garments that could become generational pieces — jackets with the quality, character and durability to be passed from father to son. His first design, the Lawrence Jacket, took inspiration from his great-grandfather’s World War I uniform, T. E. Lawrence and Mark’s own interest in motorcycles and heritage clothing.
We delve into the extraordinary development process behind the jacket, from sourcing certified organic cotton gabardine and British wool to finding specialist manufacturers and overcoming the supply-chain problems that followed COVID, the Suez Canal disruption and the war in Ukraine.
Originally intending to produce 300 jackets, Mark ultimately produced just 50 after his fabric supplier announced that it was closing down. What initially felt like a disaster became an unexpected advantage, allowing him to personally oversee the production and finishing of every jacket while giving the first Barnfield Customs release an even greater sense of exclusivity.
One of the most distinctive elements of the Lawrence Jacket is its lining: a hand-drawn map of Great Britain containing 118 individual illustrations created by artist Thomas Moore of Last Maps. Because the artwork is positioned differently on every garment, no two jackets are exactly alike.
The conversation also explores Mark’s belief that there is something deeply satisfying about creating physical objects — a reaction to a career where weeks of digital work can disappear from view almost immediately. We discuss craftsmanship, legacy, the value of learning new skills and why making something tangible can provide a very different sense of achievement.
Mark also gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the next chapter of Barnfield Customs, including the development of a new peacoat inspired by military and workwear design. The garment combines traditional references with more refined construction, including articulated sleeves, shoulder pads and a substantial Melton wool build designed to provide warmth without turning the coat into “armour”.
We also discuss the realities of building a small clothing brand, from knowing what to outsource and what to learn yourself, to the importance of communicating the development process online. Mark documents the entire journey through Instagram, giving customers an unusually transparent look at how each garment evolves from initial idea to finished product.
A fascinating conversation about heritage menswear, craftsmanship, digital marketing, motorcycles, sustainability, entrepreneurship and the increasingly rare art of making something built to last.
Welcome back to another episode of the Men's Wear Style Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Brooker. Today on the show, I'm speaking to Mark Warman. I'm actually looking at him now on the screen. He's modelling his military jackets on Facebook, which he does. He talks about the journey of the jackets that he makes. They craft limited edition jackets, modern classics inspired by heritage workwear, military uniform, and cafe eraser culture. Interesting chat this, Mark. Very tuned into the digital marketing side of the brand. And to tell you more about the story of Barnfield Customs is the founder, Mark Warman. How we're doing today, Mark. Very well, Pete. Thanks.
SPEAKER_01Thanks very much for having me on.
SPEAKER_00And I've got to say, probably in the pantheon of all the guests that we've had on the show, Mark, your setup there with the microphone, the backdrop, the brick wall, the clothing on the com on the concertinas there. 10 out of 10, my friend. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I've got to say, I definitely try my best.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you've you've you've done it in spades. Well, Mark, please introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us all about Barnfield Customs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think there's I think there's a short and a long answer. I'll go short first. So I'm Mark Warman and I founded Barnfield Customs, officially founded it in January 2020, just before COVID hit. So my timing was was absolutely perfect. Um and then in uh May 2023, I finally launched my first jacket, uh, which was the it was called the Lawrence jacket. Um I can go into that, but basically it was inspired by uh the first inspiration was my a picture that I have of my great-grandfather in his World War I uniform. So there was that that military influence. And when I was looking online, uh, you know, just kind of I'd seen the seen seen the picture, had the inspiration there, and was looking online, and I kept coming across a picture of a guy sat on a motorbike, uh massive smile on his face, and he was chatting to somebody else, again, smiling but lent on these two wooden canes. And then it was uh, you know, I found out that that was T. Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia fame. Uh, and he stood astride or sat astride uh a bruff superior motorbike. And so I grew up in the Middle East, uh, and that's where I actually set up a digital marketing agency over there as well, and that's where I was working.
SPEAKER_00Whereabouts in the Middle East were you, Mike?
SPEAKER_01Bahrain. Um so yeah, I was born over there, and I was there, finished school until I came back for college, university, and work, but then actually moved back out there in 2007 and set up a digital marketing agency. So kind of my my background is very much based in that part of the world. Um, but when I moved back to the UK, I'm I'm in Nottingham and I've been and I was at that time I was building motorbikes with a friend of mine. So there was these real kind of synergies in that in that story. Uh so that's why it made sense for the the jacket to be called uh the Lawrence jacket. So that was launched in May 2023 and finally delivered in October 2023. Uh, and since then I've been re-evaluating and and and de-risking.
SPEAKER_00Nice. Well, we had a just a chat off mic about digital marketing and your your background in digital marketing. And I was actually quite pleased to hear you use the term digital marketing because I think when people talk about, well, let's just say content creators specifically, or influencers, or podcasters. I mean, it's all just under the umbrella of digital marketing. That's all it is. Like anyone that does writing online or e-commerce or SEO, it's it's all digital marketing. And I think it's as soon as we kind of just get a hand on that's what it's called, then I think we'll all be in a better place. But so I'm interested, yeah, yeah. But well, on that, but I'm interested that you have the the mechanical background as well as the digital marketing background. So was it like a yin-yang thing? Like after you're done sitting down at the computer, you feel like I've got to get outside and get my hands dirty.
SPEAKER_01You are, I mean uh so I ran my digital marketing agency for 10 years, set it up in 2017, uh, and then brought it to a close as an as far as an agency goes. So we were doing website design and development, email marketing, social media marketing, the kind of the really uh kind of like at the coal face side of digital marketing. Um, and I did that for for 10 years. So, but then at the end of 2017, uh my wife had actually come on and was working in the agency as well. And we just we just totally burnt out because we just it's it's so cliche, but we were kind of victims of victims of our own success in that Bahrain is a very small island. There's I think one now there's about 1.2, 1.3 million people uh on the island. But you have access to some incredible brands. So we worked with Porsche and Audi, and we were working for the government and all sorts of stuff. We we we really built up a great agency. But finding people to work for you within the agency, it's a tiny, tiny pool. And of course, having set up as I mean, initially set up as a design agency, but very quickly moved into digital marketing. There wasn't there wasn't the experience. So it's not even if I wanted to, I couldn't really poach people from other agencies. I think for most of the time we were there, there was we were one of two agencies that were there.
SPEAKER_00So couldn't people work from home though, in that respect, or did you have to have people local to you in Burning?
SPEAKER_01We I mean we did by the time by the time I closed down the agency, we were locally a team of six, but I think I had a team of about 32 freelancers like around the world. So we would do our web design and development, or the I would design a lot of the design I would do, but the development uh was done in Ukraine. And then we had people helping out with the SEO side of things and email marketing in the Philippines, and uh and actually we worked with uh a design firm in Liverpool as well. So we had a you know, it was it was but but in terms of the day-to-day client servicing, you need you need boots on the on the ground. Um and so we just uh we we would very often we would put our employees first, but that meant that we ended up taking the brunt of the work. And we just, yeah, it just got to the point where where it wasn't sustainable anymore. And then the but the motorbiking, how does that come into it? I'm intrigued. So this was so so uh bring the agency to a close 2017, then I went into consultancy for a couple of years, but there was this real sense that like whatever whatever I did digitally, it was here today, gone tomorrow. You know, uh I always talk the example I w use is always with Porsche, like the importance of getting that content right before publishing it, because you're you're doing it on behalf of a of a brand like that. You know, it was it was incredibly important. So we would we would go through all sorts of checks and procedures to make sure that what we were putting out was right, only to two hours later, you're on to the next thing. So you might spend two weeks creating a piece of content only for it just to disappear.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that was when I brought the agency to a close and I decided that I was going to do something else. It was this kind of reaction to that of being stuck behind a computer and then wanting to work with my hands. And it was a similar sort of, you know, by the time I finished the consultancy, it was COVID. And so we were, we were stuck. The intention had been to move back to England, but we stayed in Bahrain for a little bit longer, just whilst everything settled down. And yeah, I picked up a 300-pound motorbike that had uh never been cared for, never had uh any attention given to it, and I I brought it back to life, did a full nuts and bolts restoration and and turned it from a pizza delivery bike into a lovely little cat cafe racer.
SPEAKER_00So, how did you learn that though? Is this I mean, we will get onto the brand as well at some point. Sure, yeah, no, but okay, so I mean I've got this I've got this theory that I'm I'm 45 now and I've spent about 20 odd years of my life just on construction sites, right? I've worked every demeaning job, but I've always been outside and I've always been rolling my sleeves up, and it's always been back breaking work, horrible work at the best of times, but it's always been that kind of work. But I never and I've never known anyone on any construction site that kind of suffered from any like mental anxiety, there was no nut allergies, there was none of the the modern day ailments that we seem to be plagued with today. And I'm convinced it's because when we went outside and we did something and we made something, it was palpable. You had something to show for it. I mean, I still I still know a wall in my mum's village that I actually built. I'm like one of the proudest things that I've done, right? And it's made out of ages did bricks. We had to get the bricks from another workplace because they had to have these special bricks and these stones from the Roman days, whatever, and we slept them over and you know, we and we built it. And but at no point did I go home and go, well, that was a waste of time. You know, I I didn't I didn't think like I wasted anything, and I feel like now when people just create something digitally, and and by the way, we do it all the time. I make spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentation, it's nothing that you can really take away with you and put on the shelf, you know, it's something that you do at a meeting, maybe put on a whiteboard, and then it's off again, like you say, the next day, it's it's irrelevant almost. So I'm just but getting back to my point, I feel like this the sense of uh why a lot of guys feel a little bit empty at the moment, uh, especially is because they're not actually creating something that they can be proud of or they can show off. How do you how do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I totally agree. I think it's it's something to do with something innate in humans, and it's about it's about a sense of legacy, you know, leaving something behind. That that wall will be there for what a hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand years, it could be there forever, you know. Uh, you know, until until the second end.
SPEAKER_00I better get my plaque on it, like before I croak. Exactly. Or maybe just make sure one of the foundation bricks had your name on it. Yeah, yeah. I I mean I I should have done something else other than uh like naughty graffiti, but yeah, you're right. I'll have to go back to the case.
SPEAKER_01But I think I I you know, I I think you're absolutely right. And I think that was building that motorbike saw me through COVID. Yeah, you know, like I I I everyone had their own experience with COVID, and I think I was incredibly fortunate to have in many ways it was incredibly disruptive because we also left home, we left Bahrain part way through it to move back to the UK and came back into kind of like the aftermath of COVID. So rents were insane, house prices were like everything had just gone crazy. Um, and so it it it was incredibly disruptive, but the actual day-to-day of that kind of 2020, I saw it through with building that bike and it kept me sane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I always I looked at COVID in two ways. You could either put on 20 pounds and come out with it as a 40 a day habit, or you could write a book or pick up a new skill, maybe learn a language. I and you know, you're kind of either one or two things. You either go off the rails, binge watch everything contelly, yeah, or you come out of it with a skill set and and you push yourself on and you progress. But that's that's yeah, I think select people kind of meet a fork in the road with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I I think it also depends on a lot of it depended on your living situation. You know, I can't imagine what it would have been like in a one-bedroom flat. It was horrible. Right, okay, yeah, no, and and and I just can't, I think you you would have had to be uh very present and and and and you know and have a vision, uh have an aspirational vision for the future to be able to make something of that situation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was getting out of that flat. That was my vision. Yeah, I sorted that straight out as soon as I saw a place on a ground floor flat with a a bit of garden space. I'm like, I'm having that. Yeah. Let's get I want to talk about the brand. Uh so speaking about that though, and everything you just told me, it feels like the brand has been spawned perhaps from the iconography of your youth, where you've put mental things on your mood board maybe years earlier. Yeah. And now when it comes to the new project, you've got like a nice canvas to draw upon. But perhaps the jacket itself, the the Lawrence jacket, how are we going about making it? Are you then having to develop a new skill set? You said it took three years. Are you are you are you now pattern cutting or are you farming that out? Tell me about that.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm very much farming that out. Uh yeah, I I uh I know where my skill set lies and I I know where it doesn't. Um and and so uh so initially the first check that I ever got from the first website I designed, the that went straight onto a bespoke suit because there were uh tailors on every corner in Bahrain, you know, it's still got a traditional kind of souk. So I was able to go into the tailors, and and that was you know, I the the the joy that I got out of that was incredible. And I think because I was really young when I set up my agency, and so I wanted to reduce as many barriers as I could. So looking good, giving me myself the confidence that I could could kind of work in this world where people were 20 years my senior, um uh that came from from that that purchase. Um and so when I set up, uh I mean Barnfield was a initially I'd been looking at developing an athleture wear brand um that used sustainable fabrics, that used merino wools and that side of things. But I quickly moved away from that when it I I realized again, you buy a t-shirt, your t-shirt's gonna last you if you wear it properly, it is gonna last you a year, maybe two, and then you're gonna move on. So it was wanting to create something that had longevity. And I talk about I want my jackets to be able to be passed down to father to son. You know, I want it to be considered like a generational investment. Um, and so I started the the process in Bahrain by going to local tailors and kind of going, this is the idea, this is my sketch. But I had this sense that, you know, it's the it's so naive. But like I had this sense that, yeah, I just go down to the tailor and I'll get these jackets made. It'll be great. It'll be fine. That's all I need to do.
SPEAKER_00Whip these up for me in half an hour, I'll be back.
SPEAKER_01See you later. Uh and so yeah, obviously I learned uh very quickly that there was a lot more to it uh than than knowing how a good suit feels. And so uh and even the fact that it's you know it's not a suit jacket, it's it's it's it's inspired by military uniform, but the kind of dress uniform, there's so many different parts to it. So I had to learn, I had to learn everything basically. Um, you know, it doesn't just come from you might have a design sense and and and a sense of taste, but creating something that's gonna work commercially is is a completely different cattle of fish.
SPEAKER_00So how do you know or do you know that when you get into this, it is a commercial uh option and not maybe a passion project that you want to get off or get out of your chest, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01I think I always wanted it, I think it it needed to be a commercial venture for me because uh the amount of time that's required to to to put into it. Um and I think that it's not just it's not just the time, I think it's uh knowing that you're creating something, because yes, there's the jackets that I talk about wanting to create some sort of sense of legacy with the generational jackets, making them to that quality that they're gonna last, but it's the brand as well. It's it's everything is brought together. And I think that's what drew me towards clothing in the first place was that I could bring each of those skills together, whether it was the design, whether it's the digital marketing, whether it uh you know, and it all comes together with uh with this with these products.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, it's good. I mean, you've got skill sets that you can lean on already, uh and that that kind of dovetails into what you're doing on the physical side with making uh making the changes, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean there's you can you can either pay and you can outsource these things, or you can pay uh you can pay in money and outsource it, or you can pay in time and do it yourself. Uh and that's so I'm very you know it's great that I that I have these skill sets that I've been able to develop the website to do the social media, do the email marketing, set up all those funnels, all that sort of stuff so that everything's being communicated, right? But it's cost me in time and it's cost me an opportunity. But it does mean that I know every part of the business. Yeah. So it's it's pros and cons.
SPEAKER_00How many jackets uh did you make in the first run, or is it like a continuation you make say a limited run and then you produce more?
SPEAKER_01The intention, what I'd said, like in just picking a figure out of the air, I was like, I'm going to do 300 jackets. It's still a limited number, but I'm gonna do 300. Then by the time I actually got through to the the launching the jacket, I got in touch with each of the suppliers because there are so many different component parts to that jacket. Whether it was a the the it was an or it was a got certified organic cotton gabadine, three uh 350 gsm. Gabadine was the outer, then the it was quilted, and the quilting was done with uh wool from British Farms and then from a place in Shepley. But then I had to have that quilted, and that was quilted separately onto uh again, like an organic cotton that was that had a full printed artwork piece on it that I can talk through as well. Um you know, the buttons were there were so many different component parts to bring that together. So just before I launched, I got in touch with each of my suppliers just to make sure that we were okay and they were ready to to take my order. And when I got in touch about the Gabadine, they were like, no, we we've stopped production. In fact, we're closing down because the cost of organic of uh raw cotton has gone up so much that our clients we can't we can't fulfill, we can't keep the business open, basically. Was this because of COVID? Yeah, I think it was I think it was well, I think it was COVID. There was also the whole problem with the Suez Canal um getting blocked up, and then there was um the Ukraine, the the Ukraine-Russia conflict as well. It all it all came together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, perfect compost for torpedoing a business, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I think so, you know, some companies were able to deal with it and such some weren't. And the guys doing the gabadine, they just they they closed up shop, but they were like, look, we've got this role of 100 meters and we can sell we can sell you that. So that meant that I could do 50 jackets. Okay. Uh and so at the time, I I was absolutely gutted. And I was like, I've I've I've said that I'm gonna do 300. Like, because I if I say I'm gonna do something, I'll do it, you know. And I think that it's important to build that trust and authenticity in in a person, but in a brand as well, that you, you know, you live by your promises.
SPEAKER_00Um, any pre-sold already?
SPEAKER_01No, no, I hadn't. I just I'd just been building up kind of signs signals of interest, people signing up to a wait list. Right. Um and then so then this came through, and I was as I said, I was absolutely gutted, but in hindsight, I'm so glad. Because I could have never ever overseen 300, you know, to the you know, to to the individual level that I did, you know, they're all being packaged individually. They were all I was going and overseeing the production. And to to oversee 300 would have I would have absolutely melted.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it gives it that bit more exclusivity as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, uh talking about the exclusivity was I was talking about the the artwork on the Instagram.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, tell me, tell me about that.
SPEAKER_01Quilting. So there's this guy, uh Thomas More, who runs a company called Last Maps out of York, uh, and he does incredible artwork, and it's it's all points, you know. So so if you have a look at the the Barnfield Customs logo, there's a red kite in the middle of that, and that's hand-drawn, and it's just it's it's millions of little dots that he has hand done to to create that, to create the shading and all of that. So early on in the in the process of developing the Lawrence, I found his artwork through another friend, and it just sp I was thinking, how can I integrate it? I I you know I'm so drawn to his work, I want to be able to integrate it into what I'm doing somehow. And we to between between the two of us, we developed this idea of having a roadmap of Great Britain, and then within that, having uh illustrations that kind of uh identified some parts of of Great Britain, and and whether it was wildlife or whether it was the white cliffs of Dover or whatever it was, and so there's 118 different illustrations on top of this roadmap, and they're all hand-drawn. But the artwork was two and a half meters tall by one and a half meters wide. So, of course, none of the jackets are two and a half meters long. So it was it was a repeatable, it was a repeating pattern, but the way it was cut, it meant that no two jackets were exactly the same. Interesting.
SPEAKER_00So someone's gonna have Big Ben and someone's gonna have I don't know, lower stuff pier.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, uh the Sutton Who kind of mask, uh, and then you've got that there's a there's actually there's a beautiful one that he did that, and some of the illustrations tied in. So he's got someone fly fishing, and as they're fly fishing, you know, the the the actual line is whipping back, and as it whips over from that comes off like a swallow and then a spitfire, and then a swallow, and then so you you know, you've got loads of different things going on there. And I wanted it to be this thing that you open up the jacket and you're you you you're delighted every time you see it because you're seeing something new every time.
SPEAKER_00Sounds cool. I mean, I would my ambition would be to get all 50 people together that have bought the jacket and yeah, have them do a flat layer and have the map out so they'll be wearing their jackets and it'll be like a jigsaw piece coming together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you could do it, but but it you've got You've got jackets went over to Australia, over to America.
SPEAKER_00I'm not saying it would be easy, but it's not it's not undoable. But if it's if it's worth doing it, it's it's never gonna be easy. Um so Mark, we've I've we're running out of time on the zoom. Sorry, I've got I've got talking too much about my wall back in my mum's village. I feel like no, but that's fine.
SPEAKER_01We can always we can always stop start if necessary.
SPEAKER_00Well, maybe talk about the the brand and maybe the next project that we got on the go and where would you go in 2025, please?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so so obviously I said I launched the the the Lawrence in 2023, uh, and then I delivered that in October uh 23. So 24, but it was all from start to finish, that jacket was all undertaken by one person in terms of the the pattern making, the pattern cutting, the grading, the stitching, everything. There was a lady uh called Agnes uh in Leicester, and she I mean she's talk about Jack of all trades, master of none, but she was a master of each of these parts. You know, she was incredible. But by the end of doing 50 jackets, she had carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrists, right? So that wasn't good for her, and it wasn't good for me because you know I knew I knew that was pretty shaky foundations to to build the brand on. So 2024 was in it this year has entirely been kind of setting up that that uh business. So other things I'm working with specific people for pattern making. There's a factory that uh that's making the jackets up in in Bolton. Um, so it it was it was kind of de-risking and and setting things up. But I did, I have been developing uh a peacoat that I'm that I'm working on at the moment. And again, it's it's it's with the Lawrence, the thing that started me off with that was the the collar having this kind of stand-up collar and this military look that and then everything kind of came from that. And with the peacoat, it was the the I was looking at cuff designs in uh there's a book I've got called uh vintage menswear. Um, and just looking at all of those and just being inspired by that and looking at cuff designs, and it all kind of started stemmed from this military-style cuff and and went on from that. So it's again, it's the same sort of deal in that it's you've got this jacket that's that's kind of workwear in its uh roots, but I'm you know, it's it's got shoulder pads, it's got beautiful kind of felt and canvas sleeve head roll, articulated sleeves, and you know, it's kind of elevated into being more dress wear than it is than it is workwear.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_01And have we delivered that, or is that something that's no sample three, sample three is underway and how many samples?
SPEAKER_00How many samples?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sample three. So yeah, the Lawrence was seven samples to get me there. So this one is three, so things are moving in the right direction. Um uh so well I hope it's three. So that that should be with me before before Christmas. I'm expecting that 17th, 18th of December.
SPEAKER_00Um when I think of pea coats, Mark, I think of like my mind always goes to films and costume design on films. I typically think of the Sand Peebles with uh Steve McQueen and Skyform the the Billy Reed coat that Daniel Craig has. Do you have any of those kind of images in your mind when you're trying to like what are the machinations of what you're thinking going out on the page to execution?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I don't I don't really look at other brands particularly because I think you know there's the whole kind of comparison is the thief of all joy, uh, and it's very easy to look at somebody else's journey when they're 10 years down the line and and and start to question your own. I think the visions that I have are you know that kind of as I said, like this military dress uniform, you know, it's it's it's it's sharp and it's strong and it's it's masculine. Um and yeah, I mean, of course, James Bond comes to mind, and of course, Steve McQueen or or Robert Redford. Um, you know, yeah, in fact, but I do have uh and I talk about this. There's a there's a video I did on Instagram kind of talking about the history of the peacoat, and there's a picture I've got of my dad uh walking along in Bournemouth and he's wearing a a peacoat. And I actually I think but when I was about 20, 21, I ended up taking that off him. So there's this again, it's that that's where this idea of the generational jackets uh comes from because I've lived it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's nice. You took it off him when he didn't need it, right? You didn't just take it off him just because you liked it and he's now freezing somewhere. Well, no, he bought a Lawrence jacket, so he's fine. Ah, all right, okay. So you sort it out. That's good news. That's good news.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, but what I'm uh but but then also, so it has to be, it's it's not just how it looks, it is it is functional as well. So uh what I'm doing with the with the peacoat, and and this is the thing that's actually been a struggle to figure out is that I've lined the front and side panels with the same, it's a Haynesworth uh melton wool, and so it's it's lined with the same melton as it is as the outer, at least on the front and side panels, to give you that warmth. Because obviously the more air pockets you can create, the the warmer it's gonna be. And it's this kind of you're buying it off off a website, so until you get it in your hands, you don't know what it's gonna feel like. So it's it's it's it's it's kind of reassuringly heavy by doing that. Uh in this in the first sample, I'd done the back as well, but it just turned into like armor. It was it was it was it was too heavy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I imagine one of the bigger difficulties with doing peacoats is to kind of give it that felt fitted look without it looking without it looking too tight and conversely not making it look like a sack that doesn't have any shape at all. Um but it's yeah, I guess when people buy online, there's an element of trust that you have to try and give them and that reassurance.
SPEAKER_01And that's yeah, and that's that's again, that's why I do all the videos on Instagram. I think that the last seven reels on Instagram are me going through where I'm at with the second sample at the moment, just so people, the more you can see, uh, you know, the the better decision you can make. And follow the journey. So where where can people follow you on Instagram, Mark? So Instagram is Barnfield Customs. Uh website is BarnfieldCustoms.com. Uh in fact, everything is Barnfield Customs. But Instagram's where I kind of put my effort in terms of social.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, people can head over there. We'll leave links in the show notes. Real quick though, you got a podcast also of your own. I do. Thread Equity.
SPEAKER_01Thread Equity, a play on sweat equity, but uh but keeping it clothing uh related. Uh yeah, that's with James Shaw, uh, who used to run album clothing, and he's over in Portugal. And we yeah, we discuss our two uh two brands and our two businesses and really kind of just as a journal, but also so other people can follow along on that journey.
SPEAKER_00And here's me thinking you got that microphone and set up just for this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Just for this.
SPEAKER_00No, that's how much of a narcissist I am. I'm like, wow, I must be I must be hitting the peaks if everyone's mad getting a microphone today. I I hit the summit there for a minute and then went down the other side of the mountain. Sorry. Um, Mark, it was great talking to you. Best of luck with the brand. I think the journey. Thank you very much. It's been fantastic. I look forward to joining your journey on Instagram as well. So but in the meantime, Barnfield Customs, and uh yeah, hope to see you soon.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Thanks, Pete.
SPEAKER_00You'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.
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