E41: The Heaton Brothers: From Horwich to Hollywood

Brothers, best friends and business partners, The Heaton Brothers share more than just their parents. George and Mike Heaton are the founders of the world-renowned streetwear brand, Represent. The 26 and 28 year old initially started Represent in their ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm stood outside the shop in Manchester with my friend. I'm 24 or 25 years old, about two years ago. And this kid, apparently my age, pulls up in front of me in this big, black Rolls Royce. There I am scratching my head. Who the fuck is this guy? Dressed incredibly well, young, good looking. Apparently lives in the same city as me, but I've never met him before. And my friend turns to me and says, oh, they're the Represent brothers. They run that clothing line. And this was the first time I had ever heard about George and Mike Heaton. The brothers behind the world renowned clothing brand Represent. A streetwear brand born and bred in Greater Manchester. And listen, this isn't just any old streetwear brand.

• 0:54Steven Bartlett?

  This is a streetwear brand worn by the likes of Two Chainz, the Kardashians, Justin Bieber. Asked if he could wear their brand and asked them to send him stuff. But the brand hasn't always been globally renowned. The now 26 and 28 year old entrepreneur brothers initially started Represent in their dad's back garden. And once they'd outgrown their dad's back garden, they moved into the house. And once they'd made enough money selling Represent out of the house, they got their own place. They're now five years into running this business and their annual turnover has increased from 1.8 million in 2014 to nearly 10 million in 2018. The brand is now stocked in over 160 outlets around the country. Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, you name it.

• 1:39Steven Bartlett?

  And this brand is different. And here's the context, we live in a world where everybody is making clothing lines. It's seen as the low hanging fruit to being an entrepreneur. You just get a T-shirt and stick a logo on it, start an Instagram page, launch a Shopify store and start selling. That's the world we live in. It's like the first business that everybody defaults to. But when I look at Represent, when you look at the Instagram, when you look at what the brand stands for, they are just different. And I'm not saying this to kiss ass. I've thought this for the longest time. So I had to invite them on this podcast and find out what's driving that unique inspiration. And when I heard that they were two brothers, that added another layer to my curiosity. What's it like running a business with your brother?

• 2:25Steven Bartlett?

  Who does what? Do you argue? How do you overcome the hard times? In this week's episode, we discuss the early days, how they started out in their dad's back garden, how their family took it, their friends, relationships, pros and cons, mental health and everything in between. So without further ado, this is the Diary of a CEO and I'm Stephen Butler. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 3:02Steven Bartlett?

  Mike and George, it's a real pleasure to have you here. I am as someone that's remarkably uninspiringly dressed usually. I just tend to wear black because it's safer. I've really looked up to you guys as role models in a fashion sense because you've always, it's felt like from me, looking from afar, that you've always had a very unique style. And once I discovered Represent as a brand, I was super, super inspired to meet you because it's clearly got a very unique sort of perspective on fashion. And so it's a real pleasure to meet you today and to have you here. You're two entrepreneurs from the city that I started my business in as well. So there's tons of things there that I want to ask about Manchester and being business owners, et cetera. But first, I guess the question is, how did Represent all start for you?

• 3:46Steven Bartlett?

  I'd love to, I heard a story about a garage in your dad's garden, so.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so back in 2012, I was just finishing college, which was a BTEC graphic design course, which I'd done because Mike had done that and it looked cool. And the last project was actually to create something graphic based that you could sell. And at the time, we was working for our dad on the weekends and helping him sell minibuses. And that was what we didn't want to do, we wanted to sell our art. So this was a big push for me to actually start something that could create our futures. So I took down a list of names that I liked and representing was one of them. And I thought, that's kind of cool. It's kind of like about us, how we're going to display the clothes. And then I just took the ink off and it became Represent.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And we screen printed that onto 25 t-shirts, which cost £150 at a time. And it went, it went from there, yeah.

• 4:41Steven Bartlett?

  And so where did, where did the business start? Where was your sort of first office per se?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  So my dad had, well, actually it was in my bedroom. I still have the stickers on my wardrobe cabinets saying small, medium, large Excel. To this day, which is pretty cool, but that's where I started in my bedroom whilst I was going to university every day. I was packaging orders at six A M. Taking them to the post office, going to university, coming home, trying to design something, going to sleep, doing it all again, same day, repetitively. Um, eventually we got enough stock to move into a shed that my dad had in back garden. Um, lovely shed. It's actually made of bricks, got windows in it, which is great, yeah.

• 5:19Steven Bartlett?

  Bloody mention.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  So, no, so, so that was our first office. So we didn't have any outgoings because we didn't have employees and my dad let us use that. And eventually that got swamped with clothes and then the garage got swamped with clothes. And then the kitchen and the living room and upstairs was swamped with clothes. But my mum and dad absolutely loved it because we were making money doing something that we loved, so.

• 5:42Steven Bartlett?

  And how old were you at that point?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I was nineteen.

• 5:45Steven Bartlett?

  And you must have been twenty one?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Twenty one, yeah, yeah.

• 5:48Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I was gonna wait and ask this question, but I really just wanna ask it now. What's, what's it like working with your brother? I'm sure you get asked this a lot, but Mike, maybe you can answer that.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Nice, it's good. We, we're like, um, complete opposites. So it's a bit of like a yin and a yang, um, type situation. George is more of a go get it, do it now, make it happen. And I'm more of like a perfectionist type, um, cause I'm, I'm like more the creative director in the company, um, care more about the, the product and the design and. Yeah.

• 6:21Steven Bartlett?

  From what you said there, I'm guessing George is, um, a little bit more impatient?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Very impatient. That is, I have zero patience, always have done all my life. Um, that's just how it is. Mike has the most patience, so it kinda works, cause I, I, I create things, give it to him, he'll finish it off.

• 6:39Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm interested in fashion. I just don't feel like I've got the time to invest in making myself look good. So I think this is part of the reason I just go for all black every day because it's, you know, if it stains, no one's gonna talk shit about me, et cetera, et cetera. But your clothing and the brand that you've created feels so unique compared to a lot of the stuff that I see on from sort of these like Alibaba brands that are popping up on Instagram where some guy from Love Island just writes a word on a shirt and says that the brand has meaning. What, how have you done that? And what's the sort of unique inspiration behind that?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  I think when I was growing up as kids, we were different to everyone else in school, the way we dressed and what we listened to and the way we had our hair and we just, we, we weren't in the same kind of culture of what the local communities were to us. So we had our own look all the way through school and that, that kind of created the actual, the, the identity of the brand, what we wanted to wear is what we create. We don't make anything that we won't wear ourselves. That's like, because that, our brand is our, is our personal journey. Our inspirations are what we find around us, but we play it in a way that's different to everyone else.

• 7:51Steven Bartlett?

  And do, do you think that if you launched your brand today versus when you launched it, it would have had the same success it's had because it's a slightly more saturated?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  At this age that I'm at now and with the knowledge that I've got.

• 8:05Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could recreate it, definitely. Definitely. We probably struggle for the first part because we built a core fan base over the past so many years. Which, which is always growing, but to then restart that again, it would be difficult and everything changed, the climate's changed, the social media's changed, the way you sell things has changed. So I don't know, it'd be good. I'd love, I'd love to try it again anyway.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  I think going back to that identity question, it'd still have a strong identity because we'd still be doing things that we can relate to in like the prints and the fits and stuff like that.

• 8:37Steven Bartlett?

  And because it comes from a really real place, it must be, it would be pretty easy to.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's no, there's no trend forecasting. There's no looking on other people's websites saying, oh, this looks cool. Let's do this, which everyone seems to be doing now and everyone's creating the same things. But when, when you're the creator of that one product, everyone knows who did it first, so.

• 8:58Steven Bartlett?

  And how, on that point. You must get knocked off all the time.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, every day. I mean, Manchester's the hub of that. This is the city of knockoffs, but.

• 9:08Steven Bartlett?

  How does it feel?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  I love it. It's like a backhanded compliment. Yeah. Yeah.

• 9:13Steven Bartlett?

  Does it piss you off a little bit?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Used to back in the day. Um, I used to retaliate to it, especially on like my Instagram stories.

• 9:20Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me what you did, because listen, let's just full disclosure. Um, on my Instagram, I get knocked off all the time, not to the same degree, because you guys are. I could not compare the shitty Twitter quotes and the videos that I make to like um, the art that you create. But I I talked on this podcast about getting knocked off one day. This guy got. Uh, two hundred and fifty thousand retweets for creating something that I made and my, how I was triggered at the start. And over time, how I've, me and my team have come to, come to sort of at peace with it now, because. It's part of the game. It's an unavoidable part of this game, but talk to me about the first time you got triggered about being knocked off.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Oh, what would be the first time?

• 9:57Steven Bartlett?

  You don't have to use names.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  There was a brand.

• 9:59Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  An- another UK brand that would literally find our factories, use our suppliers, take the same cottons. Make the same kind of clothes and then put everything down five pounds to us. But like, people aren't going to buy that. People aren't going to buy something that's a rip off of something else and slightly cheaper. If you're gonna do it, it needs to be half the price and it needs to, it still needs to be relevant to. Who you're selling it to, because the same customer is not going to go and buy yours.

• 10:27Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  If they've already seen it somewhere else at a similar price.

• 10:30Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Um, that brand never really frustrated me. If it, the only things that do frustrate me are when it's an exact copy.

• 10:39Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Where it's literally someone's bought our pair of pants, sent it to China and stitch to stitch, it's the same.

• 10:47Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, I'll shout about it on my story, but.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  As a funny thing, I felt it with laughing faces and.

• 10:55Steven Bartlett?

  Sure. There's so many young people that try and start, start brands. It's kind of, this is, question's kind of similar to the one I just asked. There's so many young people on my Instagram and in my friendship circle, that one of the first things they think of doing, because it's a product that's, I guess, is close to all of our hearts. And it's something that we all, somewhere in our, our own egos, think that we can create um and be successful at. They all try and start clothing brands, it seems. It seems like the first, one of the first businesses everybody tries to start.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like every man and his dog's got a clothing brand now.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  But like when we started, there wasn't, there wasn't that issue.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that wasn't a thing. I think it came with time. It start, it started us as like a merch thing for bands. When we, when we first launched and then you see the waves of people coming thinking they can do it and more people do it and then. Eventually, some of those brands gained attraction and then, yeah, everyone, everyone started it. Everyone asks, that's all we get DMs about every day is. Like what, what um advice can you give?

• 11:57Steven Bartlett?

  And so if I was, say I'm a, I'm, I'm twenty three and I'm like, George, Mike, I'm, I've, I, I just want one tip. Okay, and I'll give you a grand for the tip. I'm gonna give you a good thousand pounds. I just want one tip on how I can um. Succeed within the, the fashion world. Give me one tip each. I'll give you a grand each in this hypothetical question.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Make sure you're a hundred percent passionate about going down that route.

• 12:26Steven Bartlett?

  And why is that so important?

• 12:28Speaker 01

  I think you've got to live it. You've got to everything. You've got to breathe it. You've got to sleep it. You've got to dream about it at night. You've got to be thinking about it whilst you're eating in the morning. You've got to be in the gym thinking about it. It's, it's more of a, a dedicated lifestyle than it is. Just creating a brand that you can work on at night.

• 12:45Steven Bartlett?

  What about you, Mike?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Mine would just be like, stay true to your identity, especially like in this climate now. People on social media reacting to trends straight away. They're just losing that and. That'd be a good thing to have now.

• 12:56Steven Bartlett?

  And on that point, George, that you said about really living it, how much of your life does represent in running this business?

• 13:04Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 13:05Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Everything, absolutely everything, isn't it?

• 13:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. What's the biggest misconception, as I'm gonna go back to being that twenty one year old kid that just asked you that question? What's the, when I'm looking at your life on Instagram and I'm seeing, you know, you, um, you, you dress so well. You, you go to nice places sometimes, I'm sure. I'm, I'm sad that you've got a nice watch on, Mike.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 13:25Steven Bartlett?

  Really nice watch on.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  What's wrong with that?

• 13:27Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, sorry, I didn't see yours. It was on the jumper. Also a nice, like, if you're selling. And I'm seeing your life. What, what is the biggest misconception that I have as this twenty one year old kid? That's about to try and follow you down that path? What's the, what's the biggest thing that I'm not seeing?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  You're not seeing the, the, the work behind everything. Um, and how long it actually takes to produce that end result that is getting showed on Instagram. I actually now try to show everything. I take a videographer with me everywhere I go and show the process of the production. And that's six months of a collection being made to actually then putting out as a campaign and going on sale. So I do try and communicate that myself, which a lot of brand owners don't do. And because the fashion industry is so fast reacting and so quickly to move on from things that that whole thing is lost, the process is lost. Like, you can go and look at an amazing Dior jacket in a shop. You, you don't know the process of how that's been made and where the inspiration comes from.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Um, because they're already six months ahead, showing a runway show for the next collection. So I try, I try and step back and actually create a showing of what, what really goes into behind the products.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  I think, um, like, how personal it is as well is a big thing that people don't realise, like, yeah, you can create one or two products starting off, but then when it gets to like a hundred and fifty and you're designing them products with like, they have to be things that you can relate to. You can draw inspiration from, you can resonate to, like, they, they, it's, it's quite, it's quite a personal thing, I think.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Um.

• 15:03Steven Bartlett?

  People don't appreciate that as well, because that's what I say when I say it's like art.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:07Steven Bartlett?

  You know, I can imagine, because your stuff is feels so unique.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:10Steven Bartlett?

  It's not like everything else that I see, so uh it's crystal clear that there's that it's coming from a.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  It can become quite daunting, you know, when you think about it that way.

• 15:18Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm. And in terms of sacrifice, people don't really get to see that either. What what's the sacrifice been for you two building this business?

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Relationships, um.

• 15:29Steven Bartlett?

  We're gonna talk about.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Family time.

• 15:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Uh, everything gets sacrificed. I mean, we live the brand, but luckily not friendships, because I employed all my best friends starting off. That's how it became um like a family run brand really, because we would. We didn't really know what we were doing and we didn't have specific job roles for people and we'd never structured a business before. So we'd take people as we were growing and trying to, they would learn along the ways with us.

• 15:59Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  So I've always got um a strong group of, like my core team is like my best friends.

• 16:04Steven Bartlett?

  That's really interesting. Not a lot of businesses would take that.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Everyone says that's the worst decision you could make and they have done from the start, but I love it.

• 16:14Steven Bartlett?

  What what what's the dynamics like when you're working with friends? Because I can I can only imagine working with my best friend. I think I would have probably suffocated him by now. With a with a with a pillow or something, because we're because someone, and it's it's almost the same thing with working with a brother, because you are so close. There's almost, I would imagine, and again, I'm just guessing, the the professionalism barrier, which is um often demonstrated within a professional environment, probably, I'm guessing again, isn't there? So it's like, if you piss me off, you're a prick.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Steven Bartlett?

  But I wouldn't say that, you know, well.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I think you've just got to have a mutual respect um through and through, and if you're both on the same paths and you both see the same vision, then it's not, it's not too difficult.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's different different perks with it. I mean, you you do get that, but then again, you can trust that person a lot more than you could somebody else.

• 17:05Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Who you don't know.

• 17:07Steven Bartlett?

  You talk there about your team. Hiring people is isn't easy, but it's so incredibly important. What what have you learned about hiring over the years?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  That it's a really difficult process when, especially when it's not someone you know. I mean, the first five, six people that we hired were friends, so.

• 17:22Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  We know their background, we know, we know their. Their abilities and what their habits are. So when you're bringing people in, especially close to you as your core team, and you don't know their habits and you don't know what they're like, from a personal point of view, it is difficult and it's, sometimes you've got to bite the bullet on things and sometimes you've got to see how it goes, but. You understand that's why there's like a probation period and stuff like that.

• 17:48Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, because even if you interview someone.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Oh, it can all be absolutely amazing in the interview and they can bring in all this work that they've done and all this work that they've actually done for your brand and then it can come into the brand and it'd just be a completely different story.

• 18:04Steven Bartlett?

  In order to work at Represent, and I'm sure a lot of people would love to, what's the one thing that you each look for in a person that you're looking to hire?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Great mindset.

• 18:13Steven Bartlett?

  Great mindset.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, just to see if they can relate to the brand as well.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, for me, it's a work ethic mindset.

• 18:20Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Um, I adore the people that come in and they're in on time and they leave on time and they they get their work done. That's what it's all about for me.

• 18:30Steven Bartlett?

  And that's kind of like the fundamentals, isn't it really?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 18:33Steven Bartlett?

  One of our mutual friends, Adam, who runs a restaurant in Manchester, um, he invited you down to Tattoo when he had that sort of closed door night with Justin Bieber. I remember seeing you there. And um, from what I read online, Justin Bieber gave you a pretty big compliment.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we came in to Tattoo, um, the other brother Drew invited us, had to say the code word on the door. It's strange for Manchester.

• 18:55Steven Bartlett?

  Just explain that, explain, explain that, because it was very, very strange, wasn't it?

• 18:59Speaker 01

  We didn't really know what was going on. Um, and yeah, we was in there, Justin Bieber walked past James, who is our general manager and said like, I like your jacket, what is it? James ended up speaking to him about the brand, took his, I think it was his bodyguard's card. His bodyguard told us to bring some clothes tomorrow, um, to a house in Cheshire where he was staying. So we filled the boot, we filled the boot and off we went. And the rest is history. We walked for the rest of that tour and he was pictured everywhere already and he got some amazing press and did really well for our sales.

• 19:32Steven Bartlett?

  That's crazy.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so thanks, Adam and Drew.

• 19:35Steven Bartlett?

  That's crazy. I didn't get anything out of that fucking dinner, but whatever. Didn't get anybody's card. Um, and that's crazy. When you're thinking about the future of the brands and where you want to go, what is that place? Is there a place? Do you, do you think that far ahead?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  No, we don't actually think that far ahead.

• 19:51Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Um, we kind of stick with the next year because we're designing a year ahead with collections. That's where we stay.

• 19:57Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Um, I think it's good for, good for the mindset and I think thinking too far in advance when you're designing something that's further back than that can cause a bit of an issue. Um, but we've got some amazing stuff coming up, even for the rest of this year. We've got some great collaborations coming up, which is pretty cool. I'm excited for those. Mike's working on Fall Winter Twenty at the moment.

• 20:20Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, wow. How do you know what's coming in for Winter Twenty?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  We don't, we don't know what's coming.

• 20:24Steven Bartlett?

  So you're creating it, I guess.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  We just, like, like we said, we just make what we want to wear.

• 20:29Steven Bartlett?

  Debates within fashion at the moment. We've got a lot of fashion clients at, um, at Social Chain. Is this topic of sustainability? And how the, the clothes we make and wear are impacting the environment. And it feels to me as someone, again, that's a bit of a fashion outsider, that this is a very new cause for concern within the industry because I didn't hear this conversation happening when we started our business and we were working with brands back then. What's your, your take on that? And what are you doing as a brand to fall in line with, with that?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  To start off, we, we are a sustainable brand. We make everything in Britain that we can, which is a small carbon footprint.

• 21:03Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Um, everything we don't make in Britain is either in Italy or Portugal, which is again, pretty close to us. Um, the second thing is we, we're a high-end brand in terms of the value and the quality of the product. So that in itself is sustainability. If we can sell a product that's seasonless and remains in people's wardrobes for a long period of time, rather than them buying and throwing away, that's decreasing landfills.

• 21:30Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  As well as that, we're actually changing all our packaging at the moment. So all the plastics are reused, um, recycled plastics, all the cards are like recycled bamboo, things like that. And then we're doing a collaboration actually at the moment for charity, which is gonna come out at the end of this year.

• 21:47Steven Bartlett?

  Super exciting. And let me take this in a slightly different direction. Young guys, successful business, doing well. What role has money and success played in your personal lives and in your business as a motivating factor?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Or?

• 22:04Speaker 02

  From an early age.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  From an early age, when you're the kid that puts pictures of cars on your walls. And that, like, you wanna get that money to be able to get that car. And then I think you get to a stage where you're way past that and it just doesn't matter. And it's all about building a great team and enjoying the experiences that you earn and really enjoying the process. And I think the money just comes along with it.

• 22:28Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. You agree?

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Um, I agree, yeah. I think even earlier from that, it comes from just having a mum and dad with a strong work ethic. And them sort of having nicer things than other people's mum and dads and kind of instilled that in us.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was in, when I was in primary school, like, my dad would take me and drop me off in a Range Rover. And all the kids would be like, whoa, fuck, your dad's got a sick car. And that gave me a feeling inside where I was like, I wanna be like that dad. Like, that's what I wanna be. So that kind of gave us the mindset to be able to actually work every day at our, our goals and try and get to that place where we're happy with what we've got. And it is nice things.

• 23:07Steven Bartlett?

  If people say, your dad's got a Range Rover, you've, you've always had fancy things, you had an advantage, what do you say to them?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can say that, but we surpassed that belief within a couple of years of the brand. That everyone used to say that, they'd say, oh, this is the parents' brand or the dads gave them some, a few thousand pounds to start this or whatever. But when it gets to a certain level and you're in a hundred and sixty stores around the world and you've got this online business that's doing X amount, then, yeah, your dad can't really do that.

• 23:35Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you think people say things like that?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Um, I guess to make themselves feel better. I think it's a, a showing of jealousy, but. I don't know, I think it's a human nature.

• 23:47Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm. I would agree. I have the same conversation with you, Mark, I'm on it. About, um, obviously he came from a, yeah, billionaire family and he's, he encounters the same narrative, but I think in the same respect, his, the level that he's got to, you can't.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  You can't, no, you can't go and get that from a parent. Like, I think his, his dad was in like the original Manchester rag trade.

• 24:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  He's created a company that's so, so big, it way, way surpasses that.

• 24:14Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I think you just, you deal with it and then they get over it.

• 24:19Steven Bartlett?

  And you talked a little bit about mindset there. Mental health is this massive topic at the moment. It's, there's been a bit of a, a, a rise in awareness around, um, the fact that we all have mental and physical health. And the, um, this has caused huge changes in the way we run businesses, the way we use social media, the way that they build the platforms. And it's kind of like a rising in consciousness around the topic. The topic of mental health, what role does that play in your lives as entrepreneurs, but also in the way that you sort of build the business, I guess?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  For me, it's like going back to what I said about the design and that being sort of like weighing on your conscience and how that can affect like your confidence. Because, um, you can, I like to spend like a year on a product and we can sell four online. So there's always that worry in the back of your mind, like, what if the train stops? You know, like, what if you, what if you run out of ideas and things like that? But that same sort of anxiety causes you to carry on.

• 25:19Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:20Steven Bartlett?

  And how do you, how do you deal with, you, you've had anxiety, I'm pretty sure everyone in this room's had anxiety.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:25Steven Bartlett?

  But, um, how, how have you, um, managed that when you're doing, uh, you're operating at such a high level? Where there's, there is a lot on at stake, I guess, and you're continually going through these cycles of like launches and, you know, there's like the peaks and the troughs and the thing.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:41Steven Bartlett?

  How, how do you do that?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  I think it's clearing your mind, resetting yourself every single day. We both train together in the gym at night after a hard day's work. So that's kind of like our reset zone. And once that's done, like the business is done until the morning. Um, so I think clearing your head as much as you can is great. Eating well is great.

• 26:02Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  Um, it all, I think it all works in hand in hand, your fitness, your health. Um, and your brain.

• 26:08Steven Bartlett?

  When you look back on the, the journey of represent, what's been the single hardest moment for you? Was there a particular day, something that happened, you're looking at.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  I've got, I've got a few, yeah.

• 26:20Steven Bartlett?

  Give me, give me one each, if you can.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Go on, you go first. In two thousand and thirteen, I found this factory in India and I've never sent anything abroad before. And we were just afterwards doing T-shirts and I liked the way shape clothes were shaped and high-end brands. And I wanted to make something that was just different to a T-shirt and hoodie that you could buy from stock. And, and that essentially create our identity. So I looked into how to make patterns and we found a guy that could make us these patterns and create us size sets. And it took me like six months, sent it all off to India, waiting for these samples with our fingers crossed for months on end. Eventually something came back and it just broke my heart.

• 27:01Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 27:02Speaker 01

  I was literally lying on the kitchen floor crying my eyes out. And Mike was just sat flat next to me just going, come on, it'll be all right. That, that's happened numerous times, but.

• 27:13Steven Bartlett?

  And what went wrong there?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Just everything came back wrong. You, it's, it's really hard to, to use, especially like foreign factories. And your view on something is completely different to someone else's.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  I think just being, being younger as well and people treating you a different way because of that. You know, like, um, they can promise you one fabric, but then they might come in off the back of someone else's order. Give you another fabric.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, we used, yeah, we used to get played like that by a lot, even British manufacturing. That was, that was a thing. And that really frustrated us because we have a, we have an eye for detail. And when something comes back and it isn't how the sample is, that gets me going. Yeah, used to get very angry at that kind of thing, didn't I?

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think for mine was, um, we were, uh, we were doing a runway in, um, in Milan, wasn't it? And, um, this is also like a high and a low crushing together.

• 28:10Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Cause we were stood, we were stood there like sort of watching the crowd pour in. And we were thinking like, oh, our two lads from, from Manchester created this like, cause we, we did the show by ourselves. Um, and we suddenly realised that we'd got enough steamers.

• 28:26Steven Bartlett?

  No, you're joking.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  A fashion show, which is like.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Horrendous.

• 28:33Steven Bartlett?

  So that was the creased collection or some shit.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  If that's your worst, your worst memory, I don't know, we've not had it bad.

• 28:40Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's a good, good point. If that's, that is the worst memory, then it's not, not too bad.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  It's one of, it's just the one that I can think of.

• 28:46Steven Bartlett?

  Um, you, you talked there a little bit about age playing a factor in the way that um, people treat you sometimes. Can you talk to me about that? A lot of people ask this question because a lot of people think they're too young to start businesses. They're too young to try and stuff.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  I think the most recently it's, it's not like that anymore. I think you can go anywhere at any age and be accepted for that. Same with what you wear. I remember six, seven years ago when we'd go out into Manchester, we wouldn't get in anywhere because we wouldn't wear white shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes. And the bouncers would look at us and be like, these guys have come here to rob the place because they're in all black. It's like, you definitely won't get in. This is like, this is fashion and they just couldn't accept it. So we'd, we'd go out every weekend as a group and we'd have, we'd have to like split up into ones and find girls to go in with. Just to be able to get into clubs. It's not like that anymore. I think all over the world, you can go in anywhere and wear what you want, which is great.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  But back in the day, yeah, especially with factories, we'd go meet in factories and it'd be two young twenty year olds walking into a factory that was making for, say it was making for McQueen and Balenciaga and they'd just look at us and think, is this a joke? But they soon realise that it isn't a joke and then it's great.

• 30:01Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Much easier being yourself anyway than being someone else. And I think the, the brand represent and probably even the word represent kind of personifies that in a respect.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely does.

• 30:12Steven Bartlett?

  You, um, we talked a little bit about sacrifice earlier and one of the things that you mentioned was relationships.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:17Steven Bartlett?

  Um, something I've talked about a lot in this podcast about my, my personal relationships always seeming to fall by the wayside as I've built the business because, you know, it's hard to find someone that understands what's going on up here. And even though um, you can tell someone something, the words don't always do justice. How are you feeling?

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm, I'm in the same boat as you there. I've never found someone that can accept how hard we work and that. The business, even though you can tell them it isn't your number one priority, and I know you've told people that before. It is your number one priority and it is your life and you wouldn't give it up for anything. So that that kind of breaks that kind of thing up. Mike, on the other hand, is fine, found it pretty good.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  You just have to meet someone that does understand that first point. Um, my girlfriend's American, um, and

• 31:01Steven Bartlett?

  Far away, nice.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't really see her, um, too often, but again, that that has its perks with being so hands on on the business all the time and.

• 31:12Steven Bartlett?

  So we've got two different perspectives here. So tell me how how you've made that work in terms of compromise and and communication, cause I, when things get really tough, one of the first things that goes is I I'll shut down a little bit in communication. So how have you made that work?

• 31:28Speaker 02

  I mean, I kind of do the same. I kind of shut down. Whenever I have like something big coming up, I'll I'll retreat and not sort of say much and

• 31:37Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  She'll be asking like, oh, how are you doing? Like, you can tell something's up or whatever.

• 31:41Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Um, how how I deal with, I don't know, I just.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  I think she accepts you for who you are and what you're doing and understands that you're on this journey. And things are hard to find someone like that.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, she can see like the the end goal.

• 31:57Steven Bartlett?

  And George, what problems do you have with uh

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 31:59Steven Bartlett?

  On the, talk to me about this, I wanna know, cause um, we're probably

• 32:03Speaker 01

  I've had relationships before. Back back in the day, like when Instagram first started, there was this girl who was like the face of Instagram and I I fucking fancied her so much and I even put her on my Instagram as a as a nineteen year old kid thinking like

• 32:16Steven Bartlett?

  Are you joking?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is like when when

• 32:18Steven Bartlett?

  Playing the cool man.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  No, no, no, not not trying, not trying to get her attention. Then I met her in a club a few years ago and it, yeah.

• 32:25Steven Bartlett?

  Break you out.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Something happened and, yeah, it it was one of those.

• 32:30Steven Bartlett?

  Have you had a relationship?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in I was in a relationship with that girl for a year. Um, apart from that, not really. But yeah, I I don't wanna go in a relationship after that for a while. I prefer, I like I like being on my own. I like being, uh, not lonely, but I like I like, yeah, I just like my own space and I like, I don't having, not having to communicate with people outside of work. Cause I don't really have the energy after it.

• 32:58Steven Bartlett?

  Conversely, Mike, as someone that's in a relationship, what what is the upside of being in a relationship when you're an entrepreneur, running a sort of high intensity business?

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Um, just having someone to uh talk to after.

• 33:11Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  You know, like after you finish work, think, bounce ideas off, um.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's she's involved with the business and.

• 33:18Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, is she?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's like, she's really cool. She's she's in fashion herself, so it works for Mike.

• 33:24Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  She's a stylist.

• 33:26Steven Bartlett?

  And is there some value in the fact that she's not fully in the business?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, I assume it'd be a lot harder if I if she was coming to work with me and we were working in the same environment, going home in the same environment, it'd be a lot more intense.

• 33:42Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Um, I feel like, yeah, some people might look at what I have as like a burden, but I don't know, for me, it's it's it's kind of working pretty well, as it is right now. Yeah.

• 33:54Steven Bartlett?

  Because it also allows you to get your, so I've got to be honest with you, George here, I've just kind of got into a relationship.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Really?

• 34:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, so you're on your own.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  I've been on your podcast thinking, shit, I've got this guy, yeah.

• 34:05Steven Bartlett?

  It's only like, it's only like three months or something, but um she lives in France, so I don't see her much. Um but when I do speak to her, because she's not involved in my world in as such, it does feel like a bit of a a time to completely step outside of the the bubble for a second. And as I've got older, I think that's I've I've placed a greater value on that. And as but she does run a business, she's starting a business, so she can still relate.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You have something in common.

• 34:32Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Even she'll understand your stresses and what you actually go through.

• 34:37Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, George, who do you think is gonna take you off the market? Talk to me about what this person's gonna have to.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  I don't know, I always go for the same look. That's my problem. They all look the same. Um.

• 34:50Steven Bartlett?

  What do they look like, Mike? Tell me.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  They look like what you would find in a club in Los Angeles.

• 34:56Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Come on, man.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  No, like, yeah, dark hair, tanned. Yeah, that's it, really. I'm not I'm not too picky. It's just that I don't. And maybe it's me, maybe it's me that's not good at um holding things together.

• 35:11Steven Bartlett?

  What makes you say that?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Again, it all just relates back to being so focused on the brand that I don't want to lose. I felt like when I was in a relationship, I lost a bit of motivation and I kind of lost my way with how the collections were going. And once I came out of that and realised what had actually happened, that's kind of, it's not scared me, but it's kind of made me realise like I'm at the forefront of this. And if I do something that isn't a hundred percent for it, it can have its toll on the company as well.

• 35:46Steven Bartlett?

  Using that word scared again, are you not scared that you'll be, like, this is one of my fears. Probably still is, 55 years old, seven French bulldogs.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm 26. I've got, I've got a lot, a lot of time ahead of me. I've got friends that are in the mid 30s that are still single, still doing what they're doing and still trying to build businesses. So I don't, I don't even think about it.

• 36:09Steven Bartlett?

  Do you want to get married someday?

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Um.

• 36:13Steven Bartlett?

  And have a family?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Ask me again in like seven years.

• 36:18Steven Bartlett?

  What about you, Mike?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, ask me again later on.

• 36:22Steven Bartlett?

  Your girlfriend might be listening. You've got to be careful what you say.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  She'll understand. Sorry, Alexa.

• 36:28Steven Bartlett?

  And what's, um, what's the, what's next for Represent as a brand? You talked about, you know, collaborations next year and stuff, but when we're thinking about the future of the brand.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:36Steven Bartlett?

  What's the, the long-term roadmap?

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Um, just, just expansion in all areas. Um, we're opening up in China over the next few months. And it's just good to go to other places and realise how things are sold and different ways of actually communicating to your customer. And I just like learning as we're going on. Like, everything is a big learning process and we're at 5% of where we could be at. So it's not like the, the brands, in my, in my eyes, the brands are never going to stop growing as long as we're, we're enjoying it. Um.

• 37:12Steven Bartlett?

  Where where does this end though for you guys? So you you the brand becomes a global brand, you're making incredible stuff, you're making billions. Uh what did is there an end point?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Do you know what? We we've been approached by investors and approached by people that that wanna sell the brand. A few times and it kinda like knocks you a bit and think makes you think like shit is is am I having like, am I gonna go through an exit? What do you do after that? But we've got our heads screwed on and we love the brand and I I honestly couldn't see myself doing anything else.

• 37:42Steven Bartlett?

  I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a tough question here. One of the big fashion houses shows up. They say we're gonna we're gonna give you astronomical amount of money for the brand, or what George is scratching his head. Uh gonna give you an astronomical amount of money for the brand. Um when you said then that it kinda knocks you a bit. Can totally relate to that feeling. I remember the day that someone made an offer for social chain and it was a it was a. A big figure and I remember going home that night was actually not not that nice and sitting in my room and. Do you know what I did? I I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I went on right move and looked at houses and dog.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:17Steven Bartlett?

  Uh cuz I was trying to figure out what this money would do for me.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Done it. We've done it. We've been through it. We've been through it for a long time. Um. I think spending time realizing what you actually enjoy. And realizing that it is your work that you enjoy and it's not actually the money. Then you'll step back from that and think, I don't need to get rid of this. I don't need to move on from this. Like, this is where my happiness is.

• 38:42Steven Bartlett?

  They come in this fashion house, astronomical amount of money they offer.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  How much are you talking?

• 38:46Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, you'd have to decide what what astronomical means because I'm sure you know the numbers better than I do, but. Um and the one sort of caveat they say is that you can no longer work in fashion. As part of the the buyout um arrangement for the next ten years. What'd you say? Astronomical amount of life-changing money, but you have to stay away from fashion.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Ten years is a long time.

• 39:08Steven Bartlett?

  Um. It's a lot of money, George.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  I think it'd be hard, much harder for. I'd rather go back, yeah, I'd rather go back to them and say, why don't you give us this amount? And we still.

• 39:18Steven Bartlett?

  We're the right.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Creative director, yeah.

• 39:20Steven Bartlett?

  You said you think it'd be harder for him.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz like he he's just gotta be doing something all the time. Yeah, I can't sit still. Can't sit still. So you'd have to weigh up whether or not.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  You'll learn to sit still.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, how you could occupy your time and whether or not that was worth that figure.

• 39:37Steven Bartlett?

  So what what what are the brands that you look at and you think um you you really admire what they've they're doing well? Whether it's the big, big brands from the big fashion houses or smaller brands? Could you just give me like one each that you're?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:49Steven Bartlett?

  You really respect to mine.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  My favourite designer is Hayder Ackerman. Um he's a French guy who has just the cottons that he uses and the way the product drapes. And this is actually one of his hoodies here.

• 40:02Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just I resonate with it amazingly and it fits my body well. And we use it as an inspiration for ourselves for the quality and the attention to detail.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, mine would be um Rick Owens.

• 40:15Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Wearing his jeans.

• 40:17Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I've got Rick Owens clothes.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Just because like he's never strayed away from that that that Gothic sort of look that he has like it's just.

• 40:27Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  And and also like his identities.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's crazy. And what you what what do your your parents think of of this and the business you've started? And what did they think when you first started as well? Because mine my mum didn't speak to me for two years.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they did speak to her, they just couldn't understand it. My dad can't really use the internet, so he didn't understand that I was shipping clothes to America. Like, he didn't, he couldn't get his head around it, even though I'd show him everything that's happened. And he'd be on like Google Maps looking at the address going like.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Bloody hell, they live here.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right. Um so, yeah, at first they didn't get it. And then when it started doing really well and we moved out of the house and we had this big warehouse and all our offices and grew all this staff, they just they they accepted it and they love it. They they love it. I mean, I hear stories that they've told people about me. Like, when I'll be in a restaurant and a guy will come over and be like, yeah, it's your dad, this guy, he's told me all about you. And he's like, what's he told you?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  I think it's just because he's from like a motor trader background, he's just so different. And like, even when we got the warehouse, he he pulled up and he was like, Jesus, you're never gonna fill this place.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:41Steven Bartlett?

  And they've always supported you?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, always, yeah. Uh, I'm a little sister as well, she's been great.

• 41:47Steven Bartlett?

  What's the, what's been most rewarding for both of you about achieving the success that you've had?

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Re- rewarding, um, a young, in in our early twenties, it was like cars and watches and chains and things like. That was what we'd look at on Instagram and I I've always been obsessed with Rolls Royce, like I'm an actual Rolls Royce fanatic. I tell you everything about every car and the leathers and stuff and that's kind of like been in my family. Like my granddad was obsessed with Rolls Royce, my dad was, they they used to like do wedding cars with Rolls Royces. I don't know why, but the first time I saw a Rolls Royce on the road, I was like, whoa, dad, what is that? And he told me and since then I was like, I need to get one of those. So like getting one of those when I was twenty two, I think, was like a massive.

• 42:35Steven Bartlett?

  Blimey.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Like an amazing thing for me and I loved it and everyone was like, why the fuck are you driving that? You you're twenty two, you're not sixty and be like, give it a few years, everyone will be driving these. And then they brought out the Rafe and all the younger people behind them and all the rappers and so. That that was, that was a motivator for me back in the day, not anymore.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  I think it's like making, just making people proud, making making your mum and dad proud and stuff like that, isn't it really? That's what it kind of like.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we we always felt like we had something to prove because my dad had his own business. I mean, he was selling minibuses and he was always teaching us like, don't don't get many staff, don't increase your overheads. He has like three staff um in a garage and.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Everyone thought that we'd just end up doing that because we'd go and work from on Saturdays and go go and work from on Wednesday nights and I'd I'd be cleaning the buses with a a power washer and I'd be drawing on the side of the bus because that was creative and I could that was that was the only thing I could find that was fun in it. So I guess that's it. That's what gave us the drive to be able to push ourselves and prove people wrong.

• 43:43Steven Bartlett?

  Is there is there a lot of creativity within your family? Because the the way that I guess this is a question for for for both of you, but Mike, you're the the creative director.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:52Steven Bartlett?

  Of the brand per se. Where does your creative vision and you probably, you know, this is a really easy question to ask, but not necessarily a a easy question to understand because we're all just born the way we are. But do you understand where your creative vision has come from?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think it might have come from um my grandma. Um she actually altered the first pair of jeans that we did and we've kept the same fit since after that.

• 44:17Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Um. Yeah, she she was a seamstress by trade.

• 44:20Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the only bit of creativity in our in our family tree.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  So maybe it come from that, maybe. I I used to just follow Mike, whatever Mike did in school, however Mike dressed and whatever Mike chose for classes, I'd just do the same. Two years later down the line because I thought it was so cool.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like constantly getting in trouble at primary school for like doodling and like parents evening for me was just such a nightmare. Like I remember what this one time my mum actually she came home crying um because this teacher, I won't say her name, had said to her that, you know, it's it's so unfortunate for you because there's no money in art and she was just.

• 45:00Steven Bartlett?

  Say that teacher's name. I'm joking, I'm joking.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  I might do.

• 45:06Steven Bartlett?

  That's crazy. No money in art.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  And I I knew when I was different from um in the first year of primary school, they they made you draw a portrait of yourself.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  And. They had a tea towel, so.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Sign your name and put it on a tea towel.

• 45:19Steven Bartlett?

  I remember.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  So like the whole year was on the tea towel and like everybody and this is like after the first year, like everyone's, you know, like you couldn't even distinguish like limbs on some of them and then mine had like a fucking belt and a tie.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I love men, yeah. Unbelievable.

• 45:36Steven Bartlett?

  That's crazy. So how was school for both of you? Well, how was the experience generally? I know you I can tell you you weren't.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:42Steven Bartlett?

  Very good in school.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I had a big brother in there, so.

• 45:45Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  It was it was good for me because I had that that like a protection.

• 45:49Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Um, no one liked us because we had long hair and skinny jeans and we wear different shoes to everyone else. We'd been coming in in skate shoes where everyone else had like the rock boots on and.

• 46:00Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Baggy black trousers and we'd have skinny black jeans trying to get away with it in class. Um.

• 46:06Steven Bartlett?

  Were you wearing those because he was wearing them?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, we we we had like Sony Walkmans and we'd listen to American rock music, do you know what I mean? Like in Bolton, no one else, no one else really did that. Um, and then we were like on the internet at night looking at. Whatever, American stuff that wanting to go to Los Angeles and. Just that whole culture really like inspired us, I guess, to be different, yeah.

• 46:30Steven Bartlett?

  And in school, in terms of grades and qualifications, did you do?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  We were both not very literate.

• 46:35Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Not great in like your your general studies, but obviously we excelled in graphic design and art.

• 46:43Steven Bartlett?

  And did you did you buy into that narrative that because your grades weren't great? Like your, you know, your teacher said that, you know, there's no money in art. Did you buy into these narratives that because your grades weren't great or you were doing art? That that would mean you weren't going to be.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, especially when I was in school, you know, if you didn't get good GCSEs, that was like. Yeah, back in the day, yeah, yeah.

• 47:04Steven Bartlett?

  And would you send your kids to school knowing?

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I think school is more about the. Personal gains rather than the the more academic gains and like. How to deal with people and making friends and. Realizing what you actually enjoy. I don't think it's about what you learn in class. You can learn more outside of the classroom than you can in the side of the classroom.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  I guess, yeah, it's a networking tool, isn't it, really, as a child?

• 47:35Steven Bartlett?

  When you were, when you were younger, was there a, you, you talked a little bit about that moment with the tea towel when you drew yourself as like a, you know, with all the, the belt and stuff. Was there a moment where you, you started to, to think to yourselves, do you know, I think I'm a little bit different from everybody else around us? I, I see you nodding, Mike.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I probably after that moment of looking at that tea towel, I was like, yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  I can draw, no one else can.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, um.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  I think it's the way we looked, the way we looked, yeah.

• 48:03Steven Bartlett?

  And, and in terms of your mindset, was there a point where you thought, you know what, like, we're, we're, because people always say, are you born an entrepreneur? Or do you become an entrepreneur, whatever?

• 48:13Speaker 01

  My mum used to sit on the end of my bed every single night and say, you're gonna be something, you're gonna, you're gonna make something of yourself. I can just see it in you. And I think that was just because I was um so full on with everything and I don't like to lose and I make sure I do, I see everything through. Um, so I always had that in me and I always, because Mike kind of like brought me up through school and um through college and I did what he did, that I wanted to make something then that we could both rely on and that, yeah, that we could just prove people wrong, wasn't it?

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, like the idea of sort of doing art on like something else, like a canvas or whatever, just only sort of seemed possible if you were dead, you know, like making money on that sort of side of it, so.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was all about making money as a young, as, as a teenager and in school because that's what our dad taught us to do. Um, you know, I know it's like a classic tale of selling sweets at school, but my dad bought me a moped when I was sixteen. So I could go to the shop at lunch and get people's lunches for them because no one was allowed out of school. Um, because it was quite a secluded area called Rivington and you weren't allowed out on your lunch break and I thought if I get this motorbike, I can go out at lunch and I can buy people food and charge them more. So I'd be going out to the local pasty shop, filling this little bucket up on the back of this old Peugeot moped, whipping it out in the car park and selling it like, it's making like fifty quid a day.

• 49:37Steven Bartlett?

  Brilliant.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Which is absolutely amazing when you're like that age and, yeah, then I got sent home.

• 49:43Steven Bartlett?

  What are you, um, what are you scared of, both of you? What scares you?

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Um.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  For me.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Contracts.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:55Steven Bartlett?

  Which means contract.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  I don't like, I don't like reading, don't, don't like reading long things and.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah. So that kind of scares me, um. If I ever signed something that wasn't the right thing to do.

• 50:11Steven Bartlett?

  But what like really scares you? If you think about the future and what, what could happen or, you know, what the things that, you know, they say keeps you up at night is the expression, but what, what really scares you?

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Maybe losing it all, but then we could just start it again. So it doesn't. I don't actually know what scares you.

• 50:30Steven Bartlett?

  What about you, mate?

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Sort of running out of ideas, maybe, um.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Or it's coming to like a mind block.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, or like, like losing a passion for, for what you do.

• 50:41Steven Bartlett?

  Do you hit a creative?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Wait, what scares you?

• 50:44Steven Bartlett?

  Um, that's a good question. I think the only thing that I'm a little bit concerned about is that I might have the. I, I think this is a constant thing, is that I might be out of balance in some way. So I might be caring too much about business and not enough about my niece. And my mum and dad, and then they're gonna die someday and then I'm gonna be like, fuck, I had this all wrong.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  We've been through that.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um. Yeah, that, that's definitely scary. We had that with our grandad, didn't we? Um, but.

• 51:13Steven Bartlett?

  Cause you're like, you're, you have the same, the way you talked about your obsession with this. Um, it's very similar to, to how I've always felt.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:21Steven Bartlett?

  And I got to a point where I started to question that and it'll be, I'm not gonna name names here, but. I've got a very successful friend that works in fashion and we had a conversation about, um, and he's, he's much older than all of us. But he started around the age we started and he came to me and said, do you know what? I, I realised this year that I've only been successful in one of nine things. I've been super successful in my business. But everything else that mattered, my relationships, my family, my this, my that, my weight, my health. I've just disregarded in the pursuit of this business and now I'm, you know, X age.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Steven Bartlett?

  And he said to me, I've been waking up miserable every day for the last couple of years. And so that has made me sort of focus on making sure my priorities are.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, bal- balance is a massive thing. And I think your fitness and your health and what you eat is that that can affect everything. So I think if you've got that in check and you make sure you make that hour for the gym and you make sure the food you're eating is good. I think that that can massively impact just the way you are with people.

• 52:24Steven Bartlett?

  You talked about like a creator's block, like a creative block then. Is that something you've ever encountered?

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, and you get so frustrated with it and good comes out of that as well.

• 52:35Steven Bartlett?

  How do you overcome that? And when you say good comes out of that, what do you mean?

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, like when you sat there and, you know, like you.

• 52:44Speaker 02

  You you sort of have like a a word to yourself, like, is that good enough? Um, and you get frustrated with it and then that makes you learn how to make that one thing better. And then you learn little things from that and just that just keeps going, yeah.

• 52:59Steven Bartlett?

  And when you have that moment where you can't seem to to come up with a new idea or a new creative concept or whatever, which a lot of people have in all areas of, you know, the creative disciplines, what do you, is there something that you do? Is there like a?

• 53:11Speaker 02

  No, it just happens.

• 53:12Steven Bartlett?

  So you just leave it and?

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it just um.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. Sometimes I I I'll push you on to something else.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Oh, we'll completely start it again and see if we can get around it that way. When it went in terms of an actual design, isn't it?

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  It's good because we we feed each other, so. Uh, your Mike has a a great way of completing something and perfecting something, but that start of it. You struggle with, don't you?

• 53:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Struggle with having that idea. And making it this thing. So if I can feed him the idea, he can make the thing. It works. We both know it's right.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like presenting options as well and and having somebody else like George look at it and say, no, let's just do that one. So obviously that one and I'll present three. Because for me, when I'm designing something.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  You can't see the difference.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  There's so many options of what to do.

• 54:04Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  It's like.

• 54:07Steven Bartlett?

  Your perfectionism seems to bother you.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Um, like to the mill, to, to the millimeter on a print width from the neck collar. Oh, it's, he'll spend too long on that, but that's what it is.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Sometimes it's good to have him to just sort of like pull you out of it and be like, right, move on to something else.

• 54:25Steven Bartlett?

  Is that a bit of a, sounds like a bit of a gift and a curse.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

• 54:30Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Probably the biggest one for me.

• 54:33Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:34Steven Bartlett?

  But you, you almost have to appreciate that. Clearly you wouldn't be here if you didn't have that gift and curse at the same time.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's sort of, it's just time consuming for you especially.

• 54:44Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's, that's the issue with it. And it's hard putting them, them jobs on to other people because no one can do something like you can in your own mind.

• 54:55Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  So like, delegating that to someone else has always been a, a hard task.

• 55:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. You've been through a lot together. I'll ask you individually, what does Mike mean to you, George?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Um, everything. I could literally couldn't do this without him.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  I wouldn't do this without him, actually. Yeah. If Mike disappeared or popped his clogs one day, I'd, I, yeah, I wouldn't be able to run it.

• 55:21Steven Bartlett?

  And vice versa, Mike?

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, this, not to be, not to give an easy answer, but I'd say the exact same, yeah. Um, there's no way that, that we could do what we do without each other.

• 55:33Steven Bartlett?

  Amazing. So the last question that I always ask when people are on this podcast, you'll know, I can tell you something. You're probably the only people that ever might be prepared for this question. Um, we can have a dinner party, um, at, um, at, we're gonna do it at, we'll do it at your house. Um, um, you've probably.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  I don't cook, by the way.

• 55:51Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, oh god. Do, do either of you cook?

• 55:53Speaker 02

  You don't really cook, do you?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Not, I've not got into that yet.

• 55:57Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Just because of the time.

• 55:58Steven Bartlett?

  Busy, yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  We can order something now.

• 56:00Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, okay, we'll, we'll Uber Eats or deliver or something. Um, hashtag ad. Um, um, there's, there's a table, there's how many seats? Let's, we're gonna have to add another chair.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Seven.

• 56:11Steven Bartlett?

  You're gonna have to have seven, yeah. Seven, you know, you know, you know what's coming. I might change it.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  I've listened to too much of your stuff.

• 56:18Steven Bartlett?

  Seven seats then. Um, there's four spare seats. Are you gonna pick two people each, dead or alive, that get to sit at this, the table? Tell me who they are and why.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Go on, I'll do, we'll do two each.

• 56:28Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Um, Liam and Noel, so they can sort it out.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Because I think if they sorted that out, that'd be the biggest thing in music.

• 56:37Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, is it always just a big like personal influence?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, huge massively, yeah. Um, two brothers from Manchester.

• 56:44Steven Bartlett?

  Kind of like you guys.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, made it made it out of nowhere and really rocked the world. So it's kind of good for us because it's like an inspiration to not do that.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  But like their style and the way they were and their attitude and everything's so good.

• 57:00Steven Bartlett?

  Have they ever worn your stuff?

• 57:01Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 57:02Steven Bartlett?

  Would you want them to?

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd love, yeah.

• 57:05Steven Bartlett?

  That'd be cool, wouldn't it?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Liam Liam's sons are actually really big models.

• 57:09Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Um, which is cool and it'll look like them. We want to use them in a few campaigns. Um, but.

• 57:16Steven Bartlett?

  If you need anyone else for campaigns, just let me know. I'm available. I've tried to buy your stuff so many times. It's always sold out.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  I've got staff to book you in.

• 57:22Steven Bartlett?

  So I genuinely, I don't, I'm not saying this to bullshit on the podcast. I've been on your website loads of times. And every time I try and buy something, everyone's already beat me to it because I'm maybe a little bit slower to it. But, um, yeah, yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  I've brought you loads of things anyway.

• 57:35Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, you have?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  I know, yeah.

• 57:36Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, amazing. I didn't know that.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  My two people for the dinner table, Winston Churchill.

• 57:42Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, wow. Why?

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Amazing leader, um, brought this country, brought this country up in a time of despair.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I absolutely loved the last film that they did about him. Don't know how true a hundred percent of it was, but just like that scene where everyone's on the tram going into work and they're reading the newspaper about and like actually under in in his bunker is an absolute nightmare and they got no chance of winning, but everyone's reading his quotes that are saying that we're going to do this. And I just loved that, like loves that drive that he had. And he smoked a lot of cigars. I'd probably have a cigar with him. I think Liam would like him as well, wouldn't he? Probably, yeah.

• 58:23Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, I reckon so.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  And then someone fashion oriented, probably Alexander McQueen.

• 58:28Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, wow.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  British designer, absolutely amazing. Went through a lot.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've got to speak to him.

• 58:35Steven Bartlett?

  I watched his um documentary, his documentary recently called McQueen.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, McQueen and I.

• 58:40Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it really moved me in a tremendous, tremendous way because he was um someone that was an unexpected face in that industry, to say the least.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 58:51Steven Bartlett?

  And it kind of, I guess it gives hope for every young designer in this land anyway that anyone can make it. Um what would, what would these seven guests be eating? Starter, main and dessert. Yeah, there you go. Didn't know that was coming, did you?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  No. Shock me.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  And it's at our house.

• 59:08Steven Bartlett?

  Your house.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Um starter. I don't really get starters.

• 59:15Steven Bartlett?

  Mike, you're gonna have to do the starter.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Just a bag of crisps.

• 59:20Steven Bartlett?

  Crisps in a bowl.

• 59:23Steven Bartlett?

  Some crisps and a pint.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, started off with a drink.

• 59:27Steven Bartlett?

  What's your favourite food for the main? We need a main course.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Um have you ever had boa in L A? Been to L A a few times.

• 59:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Steakhouse on Sunset. That's probably both of our favourite restaurants. Yeah, the fillet steak.

• 59:41Steven Bartlett?

  Amazing.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Dessert.

• 59:44Steven Bartlett?

  Dessert.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  Don't eat dessert.

• 59:47Steven Bartlett?

  Do you not eat desserts?

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Nah, we never get to that.

• 59:48Steven Bartlett?

  You don't eat desserts?

• 59:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:50Steven Bartlett?

  You're sacrificing too much, lads.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  What, what would it be though? Um when I was a kid, I used to love um going to them like fake Italian restaurants and having like profiteroles.

• 59:59Steven Bartlett?

  I think even it's like sherbet or something.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  What do you think it's from?

• 1:00:12Steven Bartlett?

  Um anyway, it's been, it's been an absolute pleasure to meet you, to talk to you and to understand you better. Um the, as you say, there's, there's tremendous mystery surrounding the brand, I think, anyway. And um it is, it is fascinating to get a, a, a closer look at what's, what's made this brand so special. Because when I say this, um I mean it, like the brand does feel really special. And typically, when that's the case, you can, there's, it feels special because it's coming from a really true, real place.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Steven Bartlett?

  And that's like super, super clear to me and evident once I've met you and anyone that is thinking about. Getting into the world that you're in, from meeting you, I think the advice I'd give them is, you know, as you said, if it isn't true to your heart, if it isn't what you

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Steven Bartlett?

  believe, and it doesn't come from your pure inspirations, then unfortunately, they're gonna have their arse whipped by people like you that are so driven by a crystal clear, unique, inherent innate set of sort of inspired values. And that's what Represent is all about. It's why I saw the brand and wanted to buy it immediately because it felt special.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's what it's all about.

• 1:01:18Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Making that consumer feel a way.

• 1:01:20Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Um, personally.

• 1:01:22Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. And that's, and that's a testament to you both. So thank you for

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:01:27Steven Bartlett?

  Thanks for having us. Been amazing to chat to you. And where can everyone find you? I know tapping in Represent's the easiest thing to do these days, but in terms of your Instagrams.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  In the UK.

• 1:01:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  You can find us in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.

• 1:01:37Steven Bartlett?

  Cool.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  In terms of social media, yeah, I'm George Heaton, and that's. Mike underscore Represent.

• 1:01:42Steven Bartlett?

  I'm sure you're gonna get loads of messages, so.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:01:44Steven Bartlett?

  Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.