The dynamic dads of HebTroCo who brought Yorkshire’s ‘Trouser Town’ back to life
HebTroCo was set up by friends and “dads in their early 50s” Brant Richards and Ed Oxley (pictured above) in 2015 and conceived in their local pub in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire. Once referred to as ‘Trouser Town’, it used to be a place where 20,000 pairs of trousers were produced a month.
Sharing a vision to bring it back to life, and make products the old way, they set themselves a mission to create 176 pairs of trousers in a local factory – the only one that happened to still be going - made from 100% natural fabrics, and sell them.
They had no money, but they raised £17k from a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, saying to people that if they gave them £95 they’d make them the best pair of trousers they’d ever had.
The whole batch sold out within five hours, so both of them quit their jobs and concentrated on building a brand. They launched their website in January 2016, and seven years later they now make everything from jeans, jackets, shirts and sweatshirts to belts, boots, pocket knives and mechanical pencils, and the business is now worth £2 million. They recently shipped their 25,000th pair of trousers. Not bad for an idea over a pint.
GVNR Moleskin and Arrow Wood Pocket T-Shirt
Brant Richards said: “’Born in the pub in 2015’ is our strapline. From two dickheads in a shed, we’re now more like a team of 10. We actually met in the local pub after a mountain bike ride - we were both previously in that industry in different guises but needed to find something else to do.”
Making the leap from bikes to trousers is not an everyday occurrence, but somehow an idea came about that felt like it had something in it. Everyone in the pub wore trousers in one form or another, and even one of the local ales in the pub was called Trouser Town.
Ed Oxley commented: “I cannot stress enough how little we knew about textile manufacturing before we started this. Literally the first pair of trousers we designed, which were moleskin jeans, we did it with a marker pen – drawing what we wanted on an existing pair of trousers.
“Traditionally Hebden Bridge was called Trouser Town and between the Industrial Revolution and the 1950s it was a massive garment manufacturing town, particularly producing moleskin and corduroy trousers. We didn’t want to start with denim, we wanted to do things a bit differently and connect with the story and the tradition of the town. Back in 2015, before Brexit and everything else, making locally felt like a good thing to do and a bit quirky. Now it’s known to be a good thing to do.”
The Flannel Shirt
It was during the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that the duo said they found people got a lot more used to shopping online and looking into the story of the things they were buying, while thinking more about where products were being made, quality and longevity. They built a community around that, with Instagram and Facebook playing a “crucial” role in spreading the word and helping to launch new products.
HebTroCo was really just a working title for Hebden Bridge Trouser Company, that happens to have stuck. “We tried to think of a clever name, but we couldn’t,” said Richards. “HebTroCo was just an abbreviation. It’s a terrible name, but at least people now seem to be able to pronounce it. I guess Tesco and Asda worked out in the long run!
“If you ask us what our USP is, the three things that customers often report back that they like about us are that we make quality products locally, we have a good story and it’s done with humour.”
The Titanium Shirt
Oxley added: “From our point of view, we just roll through making stuff that we want and hope we can sell it to other people. It seems to be working. Trousers are actually only represent about a quarter of what we sell now. It’s finding factories that make really good stuff in Britain, and working with them to make something that’s exclusive to us – and finding people who want to buy it. We’re doing that, and people are coming back for more.”
Originally the duo decided they were only going to make products for below the waist, so following trousers came belts and boots. But they did a T-shirt and a jacket, and the offer quickly grew with every new factory they discovered.
“Early on we grew the range a bit too quickly,” said Richards. “And cashflow became a bit tricky. We did a really expensive field jacket in a lovely Yorkshire woven wool, and then found that we were screwed when we had to pay for it! So, we paired it back a bit and built the business more gradually.
“In November 2019 we did our first pair of selvedge denim jeans, and it was a key point because they really took off – sales went mental. We were getting the jeans made in Blackburn, so pretty local to us. However, our supplier couldn’t keep up with the demand, so we ended up meeting with Candiani, a mill in Italy, to supply our denim – and that’s what we use now. Depending on the denim, the jeans retail between £135 - £225.
Regenagri Jeans
“We try to keep everything as local as possible, but some materials you just can’t get here in the right quality and quantity, so we have to go to Europe for some materials. It means we’ve got more traceability, we know the quality – and we know we can get hold of it. We never go to the Far East.”
Currently on the HebTroCo website is a jacket based on an SAS zip-up ‘smock’ jacket for £366.66, called the 303 Ripstop Jacket and described as a “practical weather beating jacket that serves well on the hill and for tactical trips to the pub – in all conditions”. It’s that quirk that people are seeming to love. They know they are getting something that is the real deal, but described in a way that makes them smile.
Oxley commented: “The manufacturer of that jacket makes for the military. They do custom orders for the Special Forces. It’s a British woven cloth in 50% organic cotton and 50% recycled Polyester, and the jacket has lots of pockets as you’d expect. It’s waterproof and as tactical in town as it is on the battlefield. We live on the Pennines and we go out and about a lot, but we don’t get wet when we wear that jacket. It’s a really good seller, and we keep that in the range now.”
303 Ripstop Jacket
Introducing new products all the time is key to HebTroCo’s success, and the more “left field” can sometimes be the best. A prime example is the ‘Action Blanket’ – a blanket with a hole in it for the head which a lot of people likened to a poncho. During the 2020 lockdowns, when people weren’t going out, they sold in thousands – and for a not too shabby £95 a pop too. It’s that kind of savvy thinking that keeps the pre-orders at HebTroCo coming in.
Richards commented: “The way we work means we’re very adaptable, and we can be quick and direct to market. Our biggest day, in terms of sales, is when we get our latest newsletter out. A lot of our social media content is around getting people to sign up to our newsletter. Instagram and Facebook are obviously the biggest social platforms for us, and both work in their own way. You get a lot of arseholes on Facebook! But, it actually probably converts better than Instagram does, though Instagram is cooler.
“We’ve actually made a bit of a name for ourselves turning on the trolls when they come for us – we serve it back up, and our audience loves that.”
The Ripstop Smock Baltic Black
Speaking on the success the company is seeing, Oxley added: “Financial success is brilliant, but what we’re most proud of is how HebTroCo has remained true to what we wanted it to be; quality clothes made in Britain, made to last and made sustainably.
“Everything we produce is made like it used to be and people will be finding it in the vintage shops of the future.”
