WORDS
Mark Mackenzie
In honour of its recent relaunch, Thomas Pink has played something of a blinder. Specifically, the addition to its ranks of Harry Kirton, star of Peaky Blinders and the face the company hopes will launch a thousand shirts; for Helen of Troy read Harry of Brum. Thomas Pink’s new campaign face perfectly captures the sense of renewal for a brand once the newest kids on a very old block. Founded in 1984, to say Thomas Pink’s arrival was a breath of fresh air is putting it mildly. When Thomas Pink announced itself in the heart of Britain’s tailoring establishment, the industry had been too comfortably settled in its members’ club Chesterfields for a good hundred years. Thomas Pink’s stroke of genius was to take the staples of an inherently conservative trade – the clubbable stripes, checks and contrast collars – give them a sense of humour and an injection of (often violent) colour. Much like any self-respecting Shelby, in fact.
The Shelbys are by nature disruptors, albeit in more volatile markets (Prohibition-era liquor, the opium trade); they dress of their class, that is formally, but they do so with insouciant flair. Which makes Harry Kirton a particularly apposite choice to articulate Thomas Pink’s new direction. For the art of disruption marked Thomas Pink out from the very beginning, a boldly original counterpoint to the fusty denizens of Savile Row. Having made a big splash in London, the company rolled out to become a global phenomenon. Over the subsequent decade, Thomas Pink stores became a given in every major financial centre, from New York to New Delhi.
For what also distinguished Thomas Pink was the exceptional quality, dare we say value, of its products; unfused collars, split yokes, intricate French seams, as well as signature features such as a cutaway collar, triangular gusset and 1920s-style hems. In short, the kind of swanky construction that previously demanded SW1 prices.
So compelling was the overall proposition that the company eventually caught the eye of a luxury-goods behemoth, who upscaled the business until a dalliance with high-fashion led to their parting.
The latest incarnation of Thomas Pink is rather different. For one thing, it has been reimagined as an online emporium, a digital-first iteration of what was once exclusively a bricks-and-mortar empire; back in the days when a fast internet download speed was a little over 100 bytes per second. This new sartorial realm delivers an ever-evolving collection of shirts, tailoring, knitwear and accessories. It also provides style advice, as well as stories and guides, all designed to help you dress, and well, for every occasion.
Key to the revival, perhaps, is the arrival of new owners who are themselves former Thomas Pink loyalists (and presumably now current ones), and who see themselves as custodians of the brand’s founding values. Don’t let a good thing die, as Elvis Presley was (suspiciously) minded to remind us.
Which is precisely why the new regime quickly set about restoring the company to its original status: that of light-hearted disruptors who take their products very seriously, if not themselves. And which is precisely why, when a new Thomas Pink flagship store opens later this year, it will do so on Jermyn Street. In the 1980s and ’90s, the company’s striking designs were carried into battle beneath the greed-is-good standard, the kind of venal, upward mobility personified by Oliver Stone’s Gordon Gekko. That, of course, was the age of the yuppie, but the new-look Thomas Pink is more in keeping with our enlightened times. (The Cheeky Fox, for example, the brand’s original muse, has had a contemporary redesign.)
The changing nature of work has been as seismic as it has recent, a fact reflected in a new kind of Thomas Pink customer. Where once its shirts were tailored for the dress codes of bankers and brokers, these days an expanded design aesthetic is governed more by a shared sensibility. To paraphrase the company’s own marketing blurb, Thomas Pink shirts are ‘designed for architects, developed for programmers and orchestrated for musicians’. You get the point.
The work-from-home revolution has blurred the distinctions between formal and informal spaces. ‘What constitutes a business wardrobe has changed dramatically in the past few years,’ says Dean Gomilsek-Cole, Thomas Pink’s creative director. As a man who earned his Bengal stripes at Turnbull & Asser, among others, he’s something of a gamekeeper-turned-poacher. ‘People wear our shirts because they want to express personality and character,’ Gomilsek-Cole adds, ‘not because they want to fit some outdated definition of style. So, we have to adapt accordingly.’ Which helps explain why Thomas Pink’s rapidly evolving range now includes casual wear, linens and soft shapes, as well as utility shirts and overshirts; there’s also a notable emphasis on styling formal shirts in a less stuffy way. You’ll also find denim, while the company has a womenswear collection landing in the autumn.
These changes of emphasis extend to sustainability and see extensive use of archive fabrics; that is, premium stock already produced, and with a low-carbon footprint. Thomas Pink also works with the best luxury textile mills in Europe, a roster that includes Albini in Italy and Alumo of Switzerland. Both mills place significant emphasis on natural dyes and removing environmentally harmful chemicals from the production process; both, too, have invested heavily in new technology to conserve energy and minimise waste.
What has remained of the old Thomas Pink is the exceptional construction of its shirts, the “engineering” that first burnished the brand’s reputation. And which has enabled those in marketing to retain the catchy tagline: “Every shirt we make is Pink, even the blue ones.” Central to this philosophy is durability; right down to the cottons, selected precisely because they improve with age.
So, the Thomas Pink shirt you buy not to wear to the office (so 2019), is conceived as the same shirt you might wear to do the gardening in years to come; or to launch a chain of street-food stalls, or a billion-dollar tech start-up. Or even, for that matter, an international acting career. Quite how the Pink-Kirton relationship develops will be worth watching; in a recent interview with Thomas Pink, the 24-year-old Brummie explained that in his own style choice she appreciates craftsmanship, and that his wardrobe has a distinctly ‘vintage vibe’. Wonder where he got that from?
To read about Harry Kirton’s collaboration with Thomas Pink, visit thomaspink.com