The Interview: NICCE Founder Mitchel Galvin-Farnol reflects on a decade in the business

Mitchel Galvin-Farnol founded NICCE in 2013 after becoming inspired by East London's diverse culture and its ever-growing music scene. The result? A decade-long spree of creating minimalist streetwear designs.

Earlier this year, Apparel Brands, the licence owner of Seafolly, Ed Hardy and more, acquired NICCE. This enabled the company to license its products across wholesale and e-commerce.

As the brand embarks on this new scaling journey, it also celebrates its 10th anniversary. TheIndustry.fashion caught up with Galvin-Farnol to discuss how the fashion landscape has shifted since he founded the brand, the lead-up to the company's recent sale to Apparel Brands and the Founder's future plans within the realm of the fashion industry.

Mitchel Galvin-Farnol, Founder of NICCE

Can you tell us about your background, what was your introduction to the fashion industry? What led to the founding of NICCE, for example, did you notice a gap in the market?

Back in 2013, a group of us were out in Ibiza for the Summer and spending a lot of time with creatives, designers, artists and DJs. I believed there was an exciting space to play in, uniting two different fields such as music and fashion to create something new. At the time we used the phrase “Niiiiiice” and with a quick play around, found a brand name that stuck!

Whilst we were out in Ibiza and on our return home to East London, we were able to get the NICCE name out there by printing on stock t-shirts and handing them out at club nights and music events. The momentum came from our roots and passion for music, but the product and brand name were what everyone was after. Once we saw the momentum, we didn’t want to stop!

How has the fashion landscape changed since you launched NICCE in 2013?

We started in 2013 and leveraged word of mouth, events and connections within the industry to establish ourselves. Over the last 10 years, the acceleration of social and digital platforms has had one of, if not the biggest, impact on how we bring fashion and streetwear to market. But, on reflection, all the tactics we employed at the start are still as relevant today.

If you could describe Nicce’s aesthetic in three words, what would they be?

Streetwear, neighbourhood, no-fuss.

NICCE has always been about local connections, keeping an ear to the ground and curating seasonal collections that introduce trend newness alongside our classic fits. The brand evolves with our audience, but these codes keep us grounded and bring to life across our product offering and brand communication. What I love about NICCE is its ability to design and market apparel and accessories that appeal to so many.

What made you expand into third-party stockists, such as House of Fraser and Footasylum?

We were listening to our audience, looking to get closer to where and how they like to shop. As a London brand, the UK opportunity through wholesale partners unlocks the consumer at scale. By working with the likes of JD Sports, Footasylum, ASOS and Foot Locker, we’ve been able to rapidly increase brand availability whilst maintaining our own D2C offering through our website. Each of our partners has a clear vision for NICCE and it’s been insightful working together to build out the brand for each of their shoppers.

 How did you adapt the business when scaling?

You have to change your mindset. We went from a group of mates to building a solid network of experts and bringing key partners to the board. In the early days, scale meant onboarding distribution and fulfilling consumer demand – we needed a high-performing back-end to achieve the business opportunities. We’ve always been a brand that gives things a go and is willing to jump in – you need that mentality when scaling. Over the years, it allowed us to grow our team and invest more back into the brand.

Earlier this year, NICCE was sold to Apparel Brands. Why did you decide to sell?

Yes, NICCE is now on the next part of its journey under the leadership of Apparel Brands Ltd. They are well-equipped to accelerate NICCE into the future. This comes after a 12-month process where we challenged ourselves to articulate what would make the biggest difference to NICCE and find the right model to enable these goals.

I started NICCE in my early 20s and, naturally, my interests and passions have changed over that time. It was important to me to be able to free up time to explore creative projects and start new business ventures. It’s been a huge part of my life and a tough decision but enabled both myself and the brand to advance.

 How involved are you still with the brand and its direction?

As part of the sale process, we collectively agreed on where we see the opportunities for NICCE and how to best position the brand. It's key for me to lean into the new leadership and empower Apparel Brands Ltd to drive decision-making in this new chapter.

NICCE was born within the streetwear space and continues to maintain a strong consumer foothold. It was fantastic to support the brand marking 10 years on the scene over the last couple of months, working with the next generation of talent and communities to celebrate the moment and look ahead to the future.

What are your plans for the future?

I've dedicated my time to addressing a common challenge, one that I have personally faced – not being bothered to resell. This was largely due to factors like laziness, the time-consuming nature of the process, and simply forgetting what items I possessed. During this past year, I've been hard at work developing a solution to eliminate these obstacles and make it incredibly user-friendly for individuals to begin their reselling journey. I aim to cater to both casual resellers and those who have never considered listing items for resale at all. This has led to my new platform Unlimitid.

Unlimitid automatically tracks all users' online purchases by utilising AI to scrape their email receipts. We then store these purchases on our users' Unlimitid profiles and subsequently, enable users to list their items on other marketplaces (through API integrations) with just a couple of clicks. This makes the listing process from deciding what item to list to successfully uploading it much faster and therefore, makes people like myself much more likely to resell.

Unlimitid will be launching in Q2 of 2024.