This idea of being integral and part of the everyday suggests pieces that are essentials, but despite that, there’s an obvious sense of refinement and elevation with your brand. Why is it important to focus on both balancing the everyday and elevated when creating product?
Perry: I live in the brand now, there’s hardly anything in my wardrobe that isn’t about:blank. We always try and create products that we want, so Jack and I wanted to start wearing denim again, so we thought let’s do some denim. Eventually, we’ll probably say “we’ve never done a suit, so let’s do a suit”. We want to have product we can wear all day every day, so naturally you get that balance with product we create, ranging from sweatpants and tees to our trousers.
Jack: It maybe comes from both of our personal styles, which is traditional in a preppy sort of way, but also has that contemporary element. For example, the pleated trouser that Perry’s wearing — it’s a very traditional pleated pant, but the fabric and the elastic waistband gives it a sort of stretchy, comfortable feeling, bringing it into the contemporary world. Those pleated trousers can be worn every day with a pair of trainers, but they can also be dressed up and worn with a pair of loafers or boots.
about:blank is centred around the tagline of “Contemporary Minimalism”. What does “Contemporary Minimalism” mean to each of you?
Jack: Things that are contemporary, by definition, are things that are happening at the same time or happening now, whereas minimalism is like living a simple life — it doesn’t necessarily mean blanks or unbranded things, which a lot of people refer to it as. It’s living a simple life with things that are carefully selected. With “Contemporary Minimalism”, we’re trying to bring those traditional pieces into the modern world and make them contemporary, creating product with an emphasis on quality, fit and longevity, which ties into that minimalistic aspect. In a literal sense, you can see it in everything we do, so there’s contemporary minimalism in the lookbooks, where we take mid-century design — which is traditionally associated with maximalism — and contrast this with the modern concrete and the metal and the wood, bringing it into the contemporary world.
Perry: When we first started out, the brand was initially really clean. We kept the branding element down as much as possible to keep it minimal. Obviously, as you grow and get a lot more exposure, customers start to want more branded product. You know, you put out a t-shirt that’s heavily branded which maybe isn’t that minimal, and then it’s your best-selling product. You think, “okay, this is obviously working”, so we need to try and offer the consumer the contemporary minimal product like the trousers, the cardigan, the knitwear, the shirting or the outerwear which just has small branding sign off. This also has to be complimented by branded, predominantly jersey-based product which isn’t necessarily minimal, but it sells and it compliments the more minimal pieces. This cardigan I’m wearing, for instance — it’s a traditional piece, loads of brands do them — but how can we do it differently in our aesthetic? This could be cropped with elongated arms, for instance.
It’s difficult in the modern fashion landscape, especially for young brands, to gain traction quickly. about:blank has proven that despite adversity — founding the brand in lockdown for instance — that quick growth is possible. What do you think has been key to this?
Perry: Jack *laughing*.
Jack: I was thinking about this, and I think it’s a combination of both our backgrounds as to why it’s been a success. When you start a brand, you need to plan and have a clear vision of what you want to be. I know a lot of brands and they don’t know where they want to get to, but we knew exactly what we wanted to be from early days. All my experience before has been in marketing and social media — having NCL Gallery and really understanding Instagram even before the influencer times we’re in now. But I always come from a cool standpoint, everything we do I want it to look sick, I want it to look aesthetic, I want it to look minimal. Perry comes at it from a more commercial view — and probably a more realistic view as well — so he’s much more organised than me. So, I’m there coming up with shoot ideas with the vision and the creative, whereas Perry is putting it into action and doing it.
Perry: I think the growth came towards the beginning of last year. I had a couple of friends who owned brands that said “you guys have already got an identity or an aesthetic, where you’ll see a lookbook and say ‘that’s about:blank’”. Brands take years to find that — at times it’s deliberate, other times they just fall into it. You never really know what path you’ll end up taking with what consumers buy your brand — you have your ideas, of course — but you never know for certain. We found that quickly which I think massively helped us.
Jack: It boils down to my marketing experience and vision and Perry’s commerciality and execution, with those four ingredients combined with relentless commitment.
