The Grey NATO – 168 – Designing The Clothes Of The Future With Steve Tidball Of Vollebak¶
Published on Thu, 04 Nov 2021 05:42:50 -0400
Synopsis¶
This episode featured an interview with Steve Tidball, co-founder of the adventure clothing company Vollebak. Steve discussed the origins of the brand, which stemmed from his and his twin brother Nick's experiences with extreme endurance races and a desire to create clothing that could withstand those adventures. He explained their philosophy of over-engineering products instead of de-speccing them, and highlighted innovative items like the Planet Earth shirt designed with input from a military advisor, as well as upcoming products like the 100-year clothing line and a watch made from recycled e-waste materials. Steve emphasized Vollebak's aim to merge clothing and technology for the future while drawing some inspiration from traditional materials like wool. The conversation also covered the brothers' professional backgrounds in advertising before starting Vollebak.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 168 and, you know, we thank you for listening. Jason, how you doing? |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I'm doing great. Yeah, I'm excited for this episode. |
| James Stacey | It's a fun one. We have a really awesome chat with one of the two kind of founders and minds behind this incredible British clothing company, Volbuck. I learned so much. We just finished the call as we'd like to do. We record it as a segment and then we do the before and after. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I hope people like it. Steve was a lot of fun. I was telling you, it sounds like even while he's talking, he's got a smile on his face. Just sounds like he's got a real vigor for life. |
| James Stacey | And a legit adventure, which is always fun. Yeah. Yeah, had some great stories. So look forward to that in just a few minutes time. But before then, you know, last week was a Q&A, so we didn't get any chit chat and that sort of stuff in. How's the weather your way, Jason? Weather's cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's blue sky, crisp. Yeah, it's November, but it still feels a bit October-ish. It's really nice. We got out for a hike on Sunday and it was decidedly cooler than than we've been having. I mean, we've been on the bike and that's still tolerable even with the breeze you're creating. But, but even hiking was, was a bit, uh, a bit chilly. It was kind of a wake up call, but you know, Hey, we're, we're in November, so that's fine. Yeah. The big news on my end is I got a, uh, I got a Mac book air. I finally upgraded my machine. So I had my old air. Uh, I looked at the, about this Mac and it was an eight year old Mac book air, a 13 inch, my old one. And it was just starting to run a little slow. I kept kind of bumping up against the storage. And so I just thought, you know, eight years is a good run time to, uh, time to get the next one. And I noticed all the new pros are out, whatever. But when I was comparing specs and kind of looking at what I need, I just basically just got a newer version of what I had. Um, but this one has the, the M one chip, a five 12 gigabyte hard drive, and it's still the 13 inch, uh, display. But, uh, |
| James Stacey | I nerd out a lot harder on stuff like computers than you do. Like, I think, I think you see them quite wisely in many ways as more of a tool, not something necessarily to get super excited about. Yeah. In, in a previous life when I sold computers for a living or, or was just deeper into it, I used to follow all of it. Yeah. Mac, PC, you know, Intel, AMD, I've like had a handle on all of it, but these days I really only follow whatever's happening with the top spec MacBooks. Oh yeah. Cause that's what I buy every few years. Yeah, I'm thrilled. I mean, that's a huge jump for you to move to the M1 platform, even if you were moving it from a two-year-old MacBook Air. It's a big jump in performance. But to be going from one that's that old, I'm happy for you, dude. That's exciting. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And like you said, I mean, to me, these are tools. And I think it's funny because We, um, made our first visit to one of the malls here and in about two years and it felt very strange, but, uh, I needed some new pants. And so we went to Eddie Bauer and, and, uh, I bought a couple of pairs of pants and then we were, we were out walking past the Apple store and I've been talking for, for weeks about, or actually months about getting a new Mac book. I just kind of felt like it was time. And I thought, well, I'll just pop in here and take a look. So I did and walked out with this new one. And it was almost like it was such a mundane feeling purchase. I had researched it. I talked to you about it and I just thought, You know, rather than order it and have it delivered, I'm right here. I might as well just walk out with it. So I did got home. The transition took about two hours for it to transfer the files and everything works exactly the way the old one is. It was a little bit of a letdown. I was expecting, you know, fireworks and um, whatever, but here we are recording and everything plugged in fine. My, my one disappointment with this is that, you know, compared to the old one, they took away the SD card slot, the thunderbolt port, three of the USB slots. I mean, it's, It almost feels like they took stuff away. I had to buy this USB hub to plug into it to get HDMI to plug in and a bunch of USBs, but you know, so be it. That's great. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I mean, we're, we're not a, a computer based podcast. Well, I mean, we're with the podcast is absolutely based in computers, but we don't typically talk about computers, I guess, in my point, but As someone who's owned... I'm on my fifth MacBook Pro, like the big 15-inch, as long as I've been working in this space. And then even before that, through university, I liked that product. They really, a few years ago, they made a conscious decision to remove a lot of features, and specifically remove I.O., ports and such. So I remember when I made this jump, and the one I'm on now is a fairly loaded out 2019. 32 gigs of RAM, and it's got the goods. The hard drive is way too small, but I didn't actually get to spec this one my own way. But the ports was a huge thing for me. Yeah. Because it's one thing to not have all the USB-A ports and the rest of it. Like I get going to USB-C and then no longer needing an HDMI port because they can share those duties. Yeah. Like I have both of my external monitors that I use while we're recording connected just over USB-C, so that works fine. But man, I can't tell you how much I miss an SD card slot in the computer. I know. I know. As a working photographer. Yeah. To always need one of three or four dongles. I have one on my desk. I have one next to my bed. I have one in each bag just to connect an SD card. It's brutal. Yeah. And then just last week or the week before they announced the brand new 16 inch MacBook Pros, which have the new M1 Macs or the M1 Pro processors. And that's definitely on my radar. for as soon as I have either the need for a write-off or the excuse or whatever. Yeah. And those ones they've brought back some ports. So you have an HDMI port and you have an SD card reader. So I'd be, I'd be pretty exciting to see that come back. But the, it makes sense to not have all the ports on the air because it is this, the goal is to make it as small as possible. But like I've owned so many of these big 15 inch, I have yet to own a 16 inch, which I think they started in 2020 or maybe even just later in 19 that I got this one. but I've never thought like, oh, I need this to be, you know, a quarter of an inch thinner, but I would also give things up. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of miss when you could swap the battery, when you could open it up and install your own Ram. Like I use, you know, two, two Mac books ago, I actually had one that still had a disc drive, like a, a DVD drive. Oh yeah. Right. And I remember the modern community had realized that DVDs were going away and you didn't even need them to install the OS anymore. So you could actually remove that, and a company called OWC, Other World Computing, they made a little replacement bracket that filled the space and allowed you to install a second hard drive. Oh, wow. Okay. Which if you go back five, six, seven years, that meant that I could... The 5400 RPM spinning platter normal style drive could become a backup drive, and I could actually buy an SSD. They were very new and expensive at the time, but you could buy an SSD and install it, and the computer tripled in speed. Huh. That's cool. I remember the first time I saw like a, you know, a 12 or 13 second boot up. And now that's a joke. Now, now these things boot in five seconds, three seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you're not even sure that you actually turned it off. They boot so quickly. Like I was saying, when, when you first mentioned you were getting it and then how it's, yeah, it's not all that exciting, but it is nice to have it. For me, it's still exciting. I love this stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I think a lot of people listening probably have the same feeling or there's probably split between kind of my take on it and yours because You know, I just posted an Instagram story of it and I got a lot of responses like, Oh, cool. You got a new Mac book or whatever. And it's like, yeah, yeah, that's great. And you know what? I, I'm not poopooing it. I think a phone and a, and a laptop though, fairly mundane for me are vital gear. And if I get a good eight years out of this one, like I did my last one, it's going to be fantastic. And I have no reason to doubt that it will. So yeah, I'm excited. Fingers crossed for sure. Yeah. What about you? You were at the, uh, at the cottage this weekend, huh? |
| James Stacey | Yeah, went up to the cottage this weekend, didn't really do that much. I needed a break and a change of scenery from home. What was it like up there? Chilly? Oh, fine. Yeah, it was a little on the rainy side, a little bit chillier, but it's not that cold in Canada yet. We're still in the 5 to 10 Celsius range, which when you think about where we'll be in February, this is quite balmy. And that's fine. But yeah, we went up and just kind of hung out, read some books and kickback and we only have so many more days up there before it is too cold to keep that place warm in its current specs. |
| Jason Heaton | I can't remember, do you drain the water out of the pipes or is there plumbing there or do you not have plumbing? |
| James Stacey | There's plumbing, but it's been winterized. It's usually winterized around Canadian Thanksgiving. So first or second week of October, just out of fear that we'd get one cold snap and something would freeze. So it's winterized. So basically what you're doing is, you know, operating a little bit more like a cabin. So you're bringing water in and you can pour water, of course, into the back of the toilet to make it function like a normal toilet without running water. And that's easy to do with lake water and the rest. But it was nice to be up there for 36 hours, a nice change of pace and that sort of thing. And otherwise, I'm A few episodes back, actually several episodes back at this point, I hinted that Victorinox had a watch coming out that I had seen and that watch is now out. The embargo lifted a few days ago on Monday, so November 1st. The embargo had moved around a few times. That's why I didn't bring it back up in the recordings. So that's out in my stories on Hodinkee. I think they've made a really solid kind of return to form for the brand's kind of core. Mm-hmm. I'm a huge fan, and Jason, I think you are too, of the Inox and some of the more advanced things they've made. |
| (Minimal Responses) | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | But much like with the Knives, you kind of want something that is one unit of a reliable, straightforward sports watch that doesn't cost that much money. Yeah. And so these are under $400. They're quartz-powered with a Ronda, so you can get a battery anywhere. It's a very light lift in terms of the fuss factor of the watch. But where the movement may not be that interesting, and let's face it, it's not that interesting, All the other touch points are kind of remarkable for this price point. I was pretty impressed by it. An immensely good bracelet for a $370 watch, good loom, nice case, good finishing, really simple stuff. And so that's on Hodinkee now. It's called the Victorinox Heritage line in several different versions, a few different colors, different case finishes, stuff like that. But I was impressed by it and now happy to have the story out and be able to share it. I think it's a pretty kind of TGN offering, especially if you have a friend. I think this would be like a perfect watch to get somebody into watches, but not in a way that's gonna make them like a maniac. Yeah. I think if you buy someone a Seiko, you're kind of saying like, hey, come join me on this problematic addiction. Right? Because they're gonna buy one or two mechanical Seikos and they'll run for a couple of years and maybe the rate will be weird or they'll get pushed into something else. This is that watch that you could absolutely buy um, a recent grad or, uh, any really anyone, I don't, I don't think it's gendered or, or aged in any specific way. It's just a nicely made watch that tells the time and is super inoffensive in the way that it does it. You know, I think I, I finished the story saying like, this isn't a eight course meal at some three-star restaurant. This is like a bowl of chicken soup. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. I, I, I read that and I looked at the photos and it looks great and it, and it made me instantly slightly melancholy and nostalgic for, for kind of that innocence lost of, of my early days of, of watches and how, um, kind of my first, uh, return to mechanical after my, my naive Seiko experience in high school was in passing through an airport when like a quartz Nike watch that I had was broken. And I happened into the duty free shop and there was a, uh, they called it, I can't remember what it was, but it was, it was a Victorinox. It was a mechanical watch and you could see through the back. |
| James Stacey | Probably an officer or a Maverick. |
| Jason Heaton | No, I can't remember. Those were the two lines they had for a long time. The ground force. It was called the ground force. It was a really handsome watch. See if you can find that for the show notes. Kind of looked like the heritage, um, had a smaller 24 hour scale and some numerals and, um, came on a rubber strap, but you could get a bracelet for it. But, and I just think back and I think how Victorics does occupy a different space than, than Seiko in terms of that entry level thing. And I think what it is, is it's, for better for worse. Maybe it's just, it's purely psychological, but you see that the, the Swiss shield on the, on the dial and you think, okay, I'm getting something kind of cool and quality and very functional. Um, and, and that bracelet looks great. And I just think you're right there. They're not, they're not watch nerd watches. They're, they're like solid watches for people that like, that appreciate good gear. Absolutely. Yeah. It did make me nostalgic and, and, makes me kind of almost want to pick up another Victorinox, but times have changed and now it would go into rotation with a dozen other watches. And that's not really the point of them, I think. |
| James Stacey | So, yeah. And I think in many ways that like our, the audience is listening to this, maybe this isn't there the first watch they would want from Victorinox. It's a little bit too generalist. Yeah. Yeah. And especially now that they've made somewhat smaller versions of the Inox, which you could almost certainly wear every day. And that watch will, I mean, to, to the, to the connection with, uh, Volbeck and the hundred year clothing. Yeah. And Inox is going to outlive you almost certainly. |
| (Minimal Responses) | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, they make mechanical versions of the Inox now, of course, and that sort of thing. And maybe we'll see that the heritage go the same route. In my opinion, they could give Hamilton an absolute run for their money by putting a slim automatic movement in this. Yeah, true. And then charging, you know, say $500 to $600, like the same space as the khaki mechanical, but now you'd have an automatic one. And I think then you would have a pretty stellar alternative to some of Seiko's more entry-level stuff that would give you that kind of Swiss feel. The fit and finish is excellent. I'm impressed. I think if this is a direction that they're going to continue operating in, it's kind of like... Yeah, I don't know. When I was a kid, you would pay more for something from Victorinox, whether it was a backpack or a pocket knife. You could go to Canadian Tire and buy a cheap pocket knife that would break before you even needed to resharpen it, or you could deliver all the papers and beg your parents over Christmas and combine all your gifts and your cash and get a Swiss Army knife with a couple extra features and have something that felt kind of substantial. It was a really cool piece of kit, and I think this fits in that world too. You pay a bit of a premium for it, You can obviously get Ronda powered quartz watches for less, I would say to a certain extent, who cares, but you can, but they, I think they've made something that, that, that feels like they know what they're up against in the watch market, which is, which is kind of what they need. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool piece. Yeah. Yeah, and then other than that, you know, by the time you're hearing this, I'll be on my first kind of return to the press circuit. We're recording this on a Tuesday, but tonight, you know, a few hours after we finish recording this, I'll be on a plane to Germany. You know, it's been a long time since I've, not since I've flown, I was in Vancouver just recently, but since I've left Canada's you know, well-protected borders these days and, uh, and, and ventured out into the world. But, uh, there's a big event going on with Leica, uh, at, uh, their kind of HQ in Wetzlar. Uh, so we're, uh, we're, uh, myself and a colleague from Houdinki are going to check that out for a couple of days and we'll have, uh, you know, stuff to report, I suppose on the other side of it. But, uh, that, that's kind of what's new with me. You know, it feels weird to have a trip on the horizon. Yeah. I'm flattered and excited to be somewhere, but also pretty anxious about it, if I'm honest. Yeah. I'm sure there's some people in our audience who are nodding along and others who are rolling their eyes like, who cares, get back out there, have a good time. And we'll have a good time, but it just feels really weird to be dipping back into this. It's almost two years since I've had to consider the pace of a travel schedule. Yeah. But yeah, it's a, it's a weird feeling. It's not exactly what I expected it to feel like. So we'll see if how I feel on the other side of the trip and during it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, I I'm with you there. And I think when, when we had that kind of anomalous trip to Bonaire back in August, I went into it with some trepidation and on the positive side, I actually found the kind of the airport and plane experience to be okay. I mean, we had to wear masks and, and for, for good reason and it was fine. Um, and it was well controlled, easy to keep your space, et cetera. But I think, you know, once we were there, we, we were just with ourselves. We didn't really interact with people. I think the, the side of your trip that is the, is the big unknown and how you'll do is the kind of the press event itself where you're kind of rubbing shoulders with people and laughing and talking and having a good time. That, that would be kind of the outlying sort of strange factor for me is kind of being in, in groups or in crowds and I'm not, I'm not quite back in that mode yet, but I'm sure it'll go fine. I'm sure everyone will be sensible and that sort of thing. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I wouldn't say that I'm like legitimately worried about it or think that there's actually any sort of like a risk to it. You know, you follow all the protocols, do everything you're told to do. And there's a reason that people are saying it's safe. And certainly I'm willing to trust the German government, the same I am the Canadian government with stuff like this. That's fine by me. |
| (Minimal Responses) | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | But it is, it's just, you know, it's a, it's a weird thing to be saying like, Hey, I'm going. And this is the kind of thing where like I used to, I wouldn't be saying I'd be going to Germany. If you asked me like, Hey, what's coming up in the next week? You know, if we did this two years ago, I'd say, well, I'm in Germany for a couple of days. Then I'll be in LA for three or four days. Then I'll be in New York for a week. And then from there I'll go, I'll be back in Toronto. And, and it's weird to see only kind of one piece of what used to be a buffet of travel and still be kind of concerned with how, how that's going to kind of fill me up. Right. Right. Yeah. But we'll see. I'm looking forward to it. And obviously, hey, it's Leica. I've never been to the HQ. I'm a huge fan of their products. Obviously, I live with my Q in hand. And I think they've got a little loaner program going on. So I'm hoping I can get a day or two with an SL2. Oh, man. Which would be my theoretical upgrade from a Q someday in the future when... Well, along the same lines as the MacBook when I need the write-off, I guess. a fortune. Uh, I think worth it if you're, if this is the work you do, but they're definitely not cheap. Yeah. Much like the Mac books. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Well, um, that's what I've got going on. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Speaking of upgrades, I mean, in addition to the, the Mac book, uh, I also acquired a matching watch just so that you and I can be twins. Uh, my super marine 300, the S three Oh two, uh, came last week as well. So Mac book and, and new watch. Um, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I mean, you're all of your, Your praises for the S302 were spot on and I'm just enjoying it. I got mine on the stock Bremont bracelet, although I've already tried it on a number of straps because it just works so well on so many different straps. But currently I've got it on the bracelet and I've had experience with this steel bracelet on my S2000 and it's a great bracelet. It doesn't have any micro adjust to the clasp, but it's very comfortable and it looks really handsome. But I can't help but think this kind of the warmth of some of the colors on the dial markers kind of would really sing better on leather, at least at this time of year. So I might be going back to like leather or I have yet to try it on a NATO, but I'll definitely be going that route here soon. But it's such a great watch. |
| James Stacey | I haven't found any strap where it doesn't work. Yeah. Like I haven't found one where I put it on and I was like, no, this doesn't balance well. Like the watch is thin enough. that it takes pretty much anything pretty well. It's 20 millimeter lugs. The tolerance between the lug point and the case edge is tight, similar to a Rolex. So you might want bent bars, which depending, or I guess if you got it on a bracelet, then you wouldn't have it. But mine came with a leather strap that came with bent bars. So that's easy to move those for other strap uses. uh, you know, seeing as it's risk check and we're talking about the same watch and it's one I've talked about a lot. I don't have to go into more detail. I'm still wearing it on that mesh bracelet, that maker mesh that I bought. I can't take it off. It's, um, this may be the most I've enjoyed a bracelet on a watch in a long time. Um, it just, it suits it really well. And it's a nice weight and it seems to suit this, um, temperature range that we're dealing with right now. And then the other thing I learned, and I was delighted you should have seen the look on my face cause nobody would understand this. Um, if you were standing next to me, it would have been fun. Cause I could have, you would have known why, why I was so excited. But when I realized that I could adjust this $20 mesh bracelet without taking it off my wrist, the little, the little like fold out slide class, you can get at it without opening the watch without opening the class. You can just open the slide side of it and then turn your wrist a little bit and it expands or you can squeeze it like a cuff and it closes up and then you just thumb the little release closed. I liked it all the more. Maker, if you're listening, make a brushed one. I'll buy another. This one, like I said on a previous show, I sanded this down with a sanding block, which I think is fine for a $20 bracelet, but they should make a brushed one. It would be nice. But I'm very impressed with this. I adore the watch. I'm taking it to Germany. This will be my first kind of travel experience with it. I went to Vancouver and that's obviously a time change, but my first international travel with it, which is kind of fun. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Fun. I think this is one of the few times we've actually probably showed up for, for wrist check wearing the same watch. |
| James Stacey | So I think so. Yeah. I, here's what I'll say is I'll pick something else for next week. Uh, cause I've done, I think it's been like since I got this watch, it's been my wrist check. So my apologies for people who feel they've, they've, you know, they fully understand that the S302, uh, I'm still very much enjoying it, but we do, there are some interesting watches. that we cannot talk about today, but we will talk about in the next little while that I've had a chance to have on wrist and they are really good. Oh, nice. So that there's some stuff in the future. So it won't just be S302, but I'm glad that you've got one and that you share my appreciation for it. I think it's one of the sweet spots of their whole lineup. It's so fun to have an S series watch that's 40 millimeters. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great size. It's super easy to wear. Slides right under a cuff. I've been super happy with it. Yeah. Yeah, it's been great. But speaking of cuffs, you want to get into, uh, the main, the main topic, a little bit of a chit chat about clothing and adventure and the rest. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this was really fun. So this is a Steve Tidball from Vullabak, which is a British brand with a Dutch name. Vullabak means full gas. Um, and that's kind of how Steve and his brother, Nick lived their life. Um, as you'll find out right at the top of the interview, they were just adventuring in Scotland and, uh, got into some mischief there, some, uh, a bit of peril. Um, But yeah, really interesting backstory. And, uh, I, I got to thank Graham from Peninsula Kelp Company for turning me onto this brand and, um, DeVolibok for, for sending over some kit for both of us to try out. We both have the planet earth shirt and they're glow in the dark solar charge jacket that we've been testing out, um, ahead of this interview. And, and Steve's just a delightful guy to chat with. He's, he's not only kind of into the same stuff we are, you know, world travel and adventure and just, you know, kind of living life to the fullest and taking some chances. Um, but then of course the, the gear side of it. And I think he's got a real appreciation for, for, for good gear and not only, not just his gear, but, but just kind of how it can contribute to, to an adventurous life. So, uh, yeah, if you haven't heard of Volabak, um, you know, we'll obviously put links in the show notes to, to the brand and to some of their products, but, uh, definitely worth checking out. They're just doing things so differently. It's a really avant-garde modern adventure clothing brand. And, uh, and it was really a privilege for, uh, for Steve to come on and talk to us. |
| James Stacey | Absolutely. Let's get to it. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well, welcome, uh, Steve Tidball from Volobok. Uh, appreciate your joining us on the gray NATO. |
| Steve Tidball | Thank you very much. It's really exciting to be here. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So we, you know, just before we get started, we, we pushed the date for this chat a little bit because you and your brother, Nick, apparently were in Scotland doing some adventuring. How, how was that? What did you, what did you get up to? |
| Steve Tidball | I don't think we'd have got any insurance if we'd applied for it. Um, we were jumping off things and the things included, the things included waterfalls and helicopters. Um, but the good thing is that all times you were jumping into water rather than, you know, onto the side of a mountain or onto concrete. So, um, I think one of the things about running an adventure brand is it, you forget it's also a startup. And so we sort of started it to do more adventure and, it can end up owning you and you can almost end up doing less, which is kind of deeply ironic. And so this was kind of a reset to get back out into nature and, you know, do the things we actually love doing, which is, you know, getting fairly close to the edge of death without ever actually getting there. |
| James Stacey | Well, there's a couple of guys who have a podcast that includes things like adventuring. I could tell you sometimes the podcast gets in the way of going out and doing stuff. So yeah, I feel that for sure. You successfully jumped off of all types of things? Lots of adventure was had? |
| Steve Tidball | Oh, yes. Lots of adventure was had. The wonderful thing is, I think you have the same in America. We have Marines here, which is the kind of, you know, tough military guys. They like water. And part of our expedition was being led by a Marine who snapped his ankle halfway through. So we ended up looking after him. It was wonderful. We abseiled into a waterfall and then we decided it would be a wonderful idea to make our way back down the mountain in the waterfall. So it's a series of kind of like mini rapids and a river basically running down a mountain. But Scotland's had a lot of rain recently and it just shifted some of the boulders in the water. And so he threw himself down a 10 foot jump only to find a boulder at the bottom of it that hadn't been there for the last 10 weeks. His ankle went crunch and He went from being the guide to being the person we had to rescue. So, you know, adventure is always fun like that. Like you start off with one thing and you end up with another. So, yeah, that was it was great fun. I've actually weirdly I've never abseiled before. I've never found myself in this scenario. We went to there's a wonderful episode where Bear Grylls takes Ben Stiller out on the Isle of Skye. Ben's very funny, but cries a little bit. We retraced quite a lot of those routes. We went into an amazing volcanic cave, abseiled into that, jumped into the sea. No one made me eat worms, so that was good. That's a plus. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I know this is probably a bad association, but when you mentioned the Marine becomes the patient rather than the guide, it reminds me of I don't know if you've seen the movie Deliverance, but Burt Reynolds' character, he's kind of the, he's the, he's the guy who's guiding his two buddies in the canoe trip and then he gets injured and they have to kind of take over. It's a bit of a metaphor, I guess, for the, you know, for the whole storyline, but that's what it reminded me of. Hopefully none of the other things happened to you guys too. |
| Steve Tidball | I was going, I was going to say, yes, there's, there's no bodies that are going to be found in a couple of years time. Everyone, everyone, I believe everyone emerged alive. We had a, we had a, we had a, we had a journalist with us, so we had to sort of keep him alive. Otherwise that would have been a quite unsuccessful story. |
| James Stacey | Definitely changes the tone of the byline. |
| Steve Tidball | It does. Yes. We regret to inform you that. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, before we get too far along in this, uh, we should probably back up a little bit. I think it's actually a good segue because, uh, um, we, we need to give a few, our listeners a little bit of background on, on your company and you and Nick. And, and I think this was actually a good way to start because, Uh, Steve Tidball, you and your twin brother, Nick started Volobok, uh, how long ago and kind of maybe give us a little bit of the origin story. I think some people probably know it, but if you can kind of rewind a little bit. |
| Steve Tidball | Of course. So in terms of the business, we launched that about five years ago. So like if you wanted to buy some of our clothes, which I'll talk more about in a minute, then you could do that from about five years ago, but probably the idea started over 10 years ago. And, um, my brother and I were doing, a couple of extreme things at the time. We were racing ultramarathons and we'd, um, we were very fortunate to pick up a kind of gig, um, racing around the world for a brand and a magazine. And they'd been looking for a team of kind of quote, normal guys to take on the world's most extreme races and being extremely naive and, you know, 30 years old and not having any kids. We said, yeah, we'll do that. And we were packed off to the, uh, Namibian desert to run across that, uh, off to the Alps to race the ultra trail de Mont Blanc, which I think is probably the hardest foot race in the world, um, and to run across the Amazon. And, you know, we'd, we'd been competitive runners as kids. And we did this really naive piece of maths where we said, well, my 10 K time is X. And therefore, if I have to run 80 miles, I'll just times that a couple of times. And that's how long it will take me to run 80 miles. And suddenly all of that fell apart. in the desert and in the Amazon and over the Alps. And the reality is who I thought I was was not who I was. And everything changed. My risk tolerance changed. My ability to assess risk changed. My love of adventure changed. All for the better, I should add, by the way. I'd basically never done really, really extreme things. And suddenly I was. And off the back of that, there was a fairly epiphany moment. where I thought, wow, I mean, this is what I want my life to be. I wonder what thing I could invent that would allow me to do this full time. And then, of course, the irony is I invented a business that has meant for a couple of years I've done less sport. So, you know, eventually I'll get back to it. I mean, I do. I do do sport like I train probably two hours a day running or cycling or, you know, cool stuff. but not like, not some of these crazy adventures because they take, I'm sure, you know, they take a lot of organization and a lot of risks. So that was 10 years ago. We did these really extreme races. And at the end of that, I decided, well, I really, really love adventure, but my body doesn't really seem built for running for 48 or 72 hours in the way that some military guys, they could just go, right. Dean Canazes or name any of these guys. And they seem to be able to just run for days and days on end. Um, my body breaks down fairly quickly. I'm quite good up to about 24 hours. And then I just kind of break. So my teammates call me a race horse. Cause it's like, I'm quite good. If you need something for a few days, it's not me. Um, so Volaback really emerged out of those races where I think the fundamental, there was no light bulb moment. This is the reality, right? It was, it was coming up with Volaback. It was messy as a race itself. Right. Lots of stuff happens. Maybe something cool comes out at the end of it. You've got a good story to tell your mates, but there was no clean light bulb moment where I suddenly went, wow, we're going to start making clothes from the future. Like that didn't happen. But what did happen is a series of moments in those races that did connect with clothing that did make us start to ask questions that we didn't think had been answered very well. So before the Namibian race, having never raced 24 hours, let alone 24 hours through a desert, My brother and I were in a tent all night, completely unable to sleep, listening to frogs having sex about 100 meters away from us, which sounds like a man holding a small bag of marbles and shaking them. So this is all we were listening to all night. We're like, wouldn't it be great if there was a piece of clothing that could like help you sleep? And not technology, because technology doesn't work in the desert. Everything melts. It's like 130 degrees and you can't even wear sunglasses because they melt your eyeballs if you get the wrong ones. And so we thought, wouldn't it be great if like clothing could help you relax? That was kind of like an idea we had. And then another one when, um, my brother and our COO now Darren was racing the UTMB over the Alps, which is like going up and going up and down Everest twice in 48 hours. And, um, like the mist came in as it, as it's going in the Alps and visibility went down and they, I think they had the idea, wouldn't it be great if your clothes lit up, you know, If your head torch fails, wouldn't it be nice if your clothes lit up? And then after the Amazon race, which I wasn't allowed to do because I got very close to dying in Namibia and I'm still unable to really deal with extreme heat to this day. In that Amazon race, all the competitors burnt their clothes in a huge pile at the end of the race because they were covered in, you know, ants and feces and wasps and all sorts of stuff that is in the Amazon. And I just remember thinking, wow, you know, these are people who probably care deeply about the environment. who are burning a pile of clothes. This seems pretty crazy. And over the last five years, as well as inventing lots of other different types of clothing, we have gone on to invent, you know, a hoodie that helps you relax and sleep. We've invented a jacket that helps light you up at night. And we've invented clothes that you can just bury in the ground and they'll disintegrate into nature. So there were definitely elements of the adventure that we brought into our clothing. It's a very long winded way of saying, I really like adventure. And now we make some clothes that help them. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, so did you have, um, I'm curious about, you know, your and Nick's background because you know, you both got into extreme ultra running and these, these long distance races and you both ran competitively before that, but it's kind of unusual, even I suppose with, with twins for you both to take on such extreme endeavors, um, together. And then I'm also wondering what your, what your day job was and kind of how you made that switch from, from doing that and adventuring on the side to like taking that big professional leap to launching a company. Yeah. |
| Steve Tidball | So I probably have to answer the second one to answer the first one. So, um, we do everything together and have done since we were 21. So we, before running Bollaback, my brother and I worked in advertising as creatives. Now I really hate, I really hate the word creative because it's so silly. It suggests you sit there with a, with a marker pen drawing crazy faces and Hey, I'm creative. What it really means is brands come to you with a, you know, something that they like to polish or, you know, appear better than they actually are. And it's your job for that to happen. Now, we were lucky enough at the end of our careers to be working on some very, very cool things. We worked on, you know, some of the top Adidas assets. So like name really famous Adidas superstars. We looked after them and sort of made sure they were as famous as they should be. And we did the same thing for Airbnb. And so at the start of advertising, you basically have to sell butter. or cars or pretty, pretty boring things. And by the end you get to work on really cool stuff. So, um, we've been working together since we were 21. We had a bit of a, a rethink on our lives at about 27 or 28, where, you know, we've been fired from every job we ever had. Cause basically as soon as it went sunny, we'd leave work and go and do sport. And apparently that doesn't go down very well when someone's paying you a salary. And at that time, we also, suddenly came up with this idea that, you know, were we actually living at 100%? And it sounds a very sort of cliché Tim Ferriss thing to say, but we realised that actually we're just not trying hard enough. And at that point, we had this idea of like, you know, what if we could completely reinvent our lives around sport? And we thought, well, let's build a sports brand. We don't have any experience. This is at sort of 27, 28. And this attempt actually was aborted at the time. Because we were then offered the opportunity to come in and create a direct part of Adidas. I was part of an ad agency, not within the company. And we just sort of walked around saying, all we're interested in is sport. We kind of said that enough to enough smart people, but God's kind of aligned. And that's all we were asked to work on. And suddenly all we're working on is sports briefs. And we're like, oh, wow, we kind of told people this, and then it became true. I wonder if we could do this for the brand. And then we did that. And then we sort of, you know, told this magazine that we should be their team. And so what we got quite good at is, I suppose, from the advertising background, I guess, is walking into rooms and telling people things and then believing us. But the reality with doing that is that fails when you get out into the desert. You can't tell the desert you're going to win the race. The desert will crush you. And it will send a scorpion to fight you. And it will crack you. So I suppose we've always done lots of things together. We'd been working together for 15 years at the point we launched the brand, and we'd been racing together for five years. And we're just super competitive. I mean, we grew up fighting like cats and dogs. And so the racing and the business is just, ultimately, it's an extension of us fighting. We're seeing who could win the race and who could design the best piece of clothing. It's still a competition. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So, so Megan, you're, you're the marketing person at Volobok who kind of put us in touch, um, said that, uh, Nick is kind of more of the scientist product developer type, and you're kind of more of the public facing, you do more of the podcast interviews and things like that. Um, I was, my next question was going to be, how do you split up the duties if you're both kind of doing so much stuff together, or is it an entirely 50, 50 collaborative effort on both sides of things, the marketing and the kind of product development? |
| Steve Tidball | Because it's me doing the podcast, I'm going to say that the brand is 99% me and 1% him. And really, I just carry him every day. So what we do genuinely, we do genuinely split it in quite an instinctive way. He designs. So he's really responsible for the creative output, you know, making sure the clothes do what we say they're going to do, and making them look really beautiful. And then, unfortunately, I'm left with all the other stuff. which is all the kind of day-to-day operations. It's a brilliant enterprise. It's no different, really, from an adventure. We have a thing when we work with us or teammates. I remember from the desert, our mate who's a former military that we raced with, and he said, look, one person's on the map, and they might get it wrong or they might get it right, but you can't offer any criticism. One person's on the map. So we kind of operate with that principle. which is he looks after his stuff, I look after my stuff, but there's no recriminations if one of us gets something wrong, which you're going to in a startup, because even the biggest businesses in the world get stuff all the wrong stuff wrong all the time. And they've got lots of people, lots of money. So it's magnified. |
| James Stacey | Is the thinking there just to avoid like a too many cooks in the kitchen, nothing actually getting done sort of scenario? |
| Steve Tidball | Correct. Because ultimately, he could run the business and I could do the design. but it's much better if we just split the responsibilities. So back, back when we were in advertising, it ultimately, uh, how this works, even in today's modern world is someone broadly writes the words and someone broadly says what it's going to look like and does the pictures. And so we, we still split that responsibility. So he's in control of what things look like. And so I still, you know, every product page, I still write that, you know, I still say like, this is what this shirt is going to do and why, or this is what this jacket is going to do and why. And, um, There's just lots of, there's lots of other stuff that stops you going outside. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | So I, I mean, I think we should probably talk a little bit about the clothing itself. I mean, uh, Megan sent both James and me the, uh, uh, your planet earth shirt and, and then the solar charge jacket to try out. And I'm, I'm wearing the shirt now. And I think when, when it first arrived, you know, I opened it up and I thought, okay, this, this, this looks like kind of a, a very nice kind of bush shirt, you know, I've, uh, few others that I have of the similar style with the sleeves that roll up and button and the multiple kind of bellows, flat pockets and things. But I think what then happens is having worn it a few times, I've started to notice these little details. And every time I put it on, I notice another detail, you know, the loops inside the pocket, the, um, the way that the buttons are held on the reinforced stitch and the welds and things like this. How would you, for instance, with the shirt, um, How would you, as a, as a former advertising guy and someone who's, you know, marketing your brand, how would you, what's kind of your pitch on, on let's say the planet earth shirt for, for one, like what is your goal? What's the differentiator with this and all of your products? |
| Steve Tidball | Well, the planet earth shirt has a really unique backstory. Um, which was, um, we're good friends with a guy, I can't claim he's an athlete because I think he represents kind of the youth like it is now. A guy called Aldo Kane who's UK, former military, very, very professional guy. You probably, you may well know Aldo. |
| Jason Heaton | He's a, he's a Bremont ambassador as well. We're both wearing Bremont watches at the moment actually. |
| Steve Tidball | So you know who Aldo is. Aldo's a mate. And a few years ago we went to bury some treasure, which was quite good fun. And we've been friends ever since then. And at the time we said to him, what's the one piece of kit you need anywhere in the world? Because we're kind of fascinated with what the military does, not because I like killing people, but because the military has to go and survive in really extreme environments at any point. And so we said, what's the one piece of kit you'd need? And he said, well, it would be a shirt. And we said, well, that's interesting. You know, tell us every detail you would want on a shirt. And for the next month, basically Aldo went through, I want this, I want this, I want this, I want this. And basically specced out everything he could possibly need. And the reality is, this is not how stuff in the military is done, because ultimately has to be ordered for, you know, tens of thousands of people. Lots of product, most products go through a thing. I think watches are probably different, but most clothes go through a process towards the end of production called de-speccing, which is where the brand or whoever it is building that thing, take details out because they're expensive. The Planet Earth shirt was the opposite. We built everything to order and said, Aldo, what do you need now? What do you need now? What do you need now? We kept adding things. And it was our job to make sure that the shirt still made sense, which it did at the end. So all of those little details come from that original design brief. Now that's a fairly unique way we designed that particular shirt. But I think that's the reason it works. So I have so many people who were customers who've now become friends, who've come to the brand through the Planeta shirt. There's a brilliant Brazilian, well, actually, no, he's American, but he lives out in the Amazon, a guy called Paul Rosalie, an explorer and conservationist. And he wrote us this amazing email, and he just apparently had this one shirt, I didn't know the guy at the time, and he had this one shirt, and he wrote us this email about how he'd been trampled by an elephant. It had saved his life while he was on a jungle vine. And it was like Tarzan writing you an email. I don't wear shirts, but I wore the planet earth shirt. And so what I try to do is when we talk about what we, one of our pieces of clothing, I try to write it neatly for somebody so they can understand it. Like it's a shirt planet earth shirt, because it's a shirt you could take anywhere on earth. That's the idea. But then what happens over time, and especially with what happens with our customer service, is like lots of customers will write to us and say, I used it for this, it worked for that, or it failed here, or have you thought about this. And then we tend to feed that back into design. So it's quite a unique story. I can't take any credit from it. I have to credit Aldo. He was the person who asked for all the details on it, and then we built it. And then the reality is that makes it makes an expensive shirt. But if you guys like watches, then you're probably not afraid of the price. |
| James Stacey | The thing that I would say about the shirt is like it's a When it came in, Jason and I have had some experience with other higher-end clothing, everything from the top brands that are in the normal sphere to even some other specialized clothing brands. When Jason first sent me a link to your website, within the context, I looked at your brand through the lens of another brand that I like called Outlier, a Brooklyn-based brand that works with some shoulder fabrics. It's like you guys took a similar general concept, like we're going to make really high-end clothes that are meant for very kind of specific uses, but are also very just generally high quality and can be used in a lot of ways. And then you took it a step further. And I think what you just listed with the shirt in that you, instead of removing features to hit a certain price point or a margin point, you kind of kept attaching features. It's a really interesting product because when you put it on, you're like, oh, it's a shirt. And then about 20 minutes later, you go to actually interact with it. And you realize, Oh no, it's not like any other shirt I've ever had on. This thing is, uh, it's got plans for how my day's going to go that I haven't figured out quite yet. |
| Steve Tidball | I see headlines that I am. Yeah. And I think, I think that's a really interesting point because when you, when you get a product that's brilliant, whether it's a piece of clothing or a car or a watch, the really wonderful things are beautiful. And when you start finding hidden details and things, and you find a hidden detail a day later, a week later, or a year later, it's just delightful. That's the reality. Like, it's really nice. I read a quote the other day, and it was some bar I was in, and it said, you know, the most important things in life aren't things. And, you know, I absolutely agree with that. They're memories, they're people, they're events. But at the same time, things are really cool. And things can help you do stuff. And you know, when you are, you know, jumping out of helicopters, like things can be really useful, like helmets and shoes. So the soles of your feet don't split. And it really matters. And I think one of the, one of the funny things that the journalist actually we were with when we were in Scotland, he asked us because we went on, you know, on the itinerary, it just said walk. But the walk was, you know, a little more hardcore than a walk. They ended up with a climb down a waterfall at the end. And it was quite, it was, it was interesting. It definitely got interesting. Um, and on that walk, we had. Two of Europe's top mountaineers guiding us. And he said, well, why we're, we're, we're off for a walk. And the point was, well, if it goes to up in the Scottish mountains, you'll die. Like that's just the reality. Like these are really, really hardcore places. There's a reason the SAS, which is like our version of SEAL team six. There's a reason they go train in sky. It's because if the weather wants to kill you, it will. And what was really nice about that walk is it was kind of over-engineered. You probably don't need two of Europe's top mountaineers making sure you're okay on a walk, but it's nice to have them. |
| James Stacey | Overkill is very reassuring. |
| Steve Tidball | Yeah. And you know, if stuff does go, you know, it's like the watches that go down to, you know, the center of the earth. It's like, you're never going to get there, but brilliant. I'm all about that. So I think the details don't matter until they matter. That's the reality. And that's what adventure teaches you. And that's what the military teaches you. If you're just, you know, bombing around New York or London, yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, our Land Rovers here are called Chelsea tractors because no one needs them. But if you're going to drive off road, it makes a difference. For sure. And I think that's the thing where the gear kicks in. Like it can work in a city. It's totally cool. It's going to see you through. You'll look, you know, nice. But when you actually take it out into the field, that's when you see if it works or not. And that's when you really, really want those details to kick in. And I think that that's probably what the adventures taught us, which is the details don't matter until they do. And then you really care. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I think, um, also I think sometimes, and I often apply this, this, uh, hypothesis with, uh, with like dive watches, um, half of the equation to me is also inspiration. And I think if you have something that looks, you know, fit for purpose and, and adventurous just sitting on the table, or when you put it on and look in the mirror, it's sometimes, inspires you to actually go out and do something, maybe push your limits a little bit more because you, you feel like, okay, I need to kind of, I need to be worthy of this shirt or this watch or this pair of boots or something. I don't want to just, you know, go to the cafe with, with my thousand meter dive watch on. I need to go jump in a Lake and swim across it or something. And, uh, I kind of get that feeling with a lot of your clothing. |
| Steve Tidball | I agree. It can, I didn't, we didn't grow up with very much money, but we did run a lot and I was only allowed a certain, number of new running shoes, uh, you know, yeah, whenever it was. And I remember I finally persuaded my mom and dad to buy me a pair of Nike Pegasus. I'm like, they were the most expensive shoes in the shop. I'm 42 now. So it's like, I want to say that I was probably 13 and that I, I slept with those shoes for a month before I dared to put them on. I can still tell you the smell of the rubber, the way it felt as you ran your thumb across it, every detail about that thing. And I swear when I put them on for the first time, I've never, ever run faster. I obviously did curse as I ran through muddy puddles. I was like, no, I will never sleep with these shoes again. It does have an impact. There is an interaction between you and things that's very real. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I'm wondering also who your, who your customers are. I mean, we, we, you talk about not de-spec-ing things and, and kind of building things up to what are, you know, indisputable, indisputably expensive pieces of clothing, but also very capable. So I'm guessing these aren't products that the everyday kind of dirt bag climber who duct tapes his jacket together or weekend adventure is necessarily buying. Um, but yet the stuff is built to be used and, and is, is kind of the goal of, of the product to be sustainability. So if someone who is kind of an average adventure and who doesn't want to buy multiple products over the years, just wants to buy one good shirt or one good jacket that'll last 10 years. Um, is that who you're aiming for or are most of your customers kind of well-heeled weekend warriors that, that just kind of want to say, I'm wearing a Volabuck. |
| Steve Tidball | Sorry to be so blunt. I'm just curious. You can be as blunt as you like. So it's interesting because obviously like the dirt bag you described, that is me. Like if you go through my wardrobe, there's a, there's an incredible split. On the one half of it, the stuff I've just never thrown away. And I've had it since I was 14 or 20 years old. I have all the stuff that I raced across the deserts and like, I have all of that, but it's trashed. There are holes all over it. My wife tries to throw it away every year when she springs clean, but like, I'll never let go of it. And then the other side of my wardrobe is fallback. And the interesting thing is we make clothes that are expensive currently. because we make with the best materials and the best techniques in the world. So the price is just a reality of how much it costs to make these things. However, we never set out to build a luxury brand. I'm not a huge fan of luxury. I don't do anything else luxury. I'm not sort of like swatting around in fancy hotels and you know, only eating. I'm going to try and name a really expensive food now, you know, gold covered steak. Yeah, that's not my world. You know, I'll eat pasta every night for a year. I love a gold steak though. I would happily live in a tent. There is a tension there of having built things that are expensive, but what we always talk about with people is they're expensive at the moment because we're not at scale. The way I try to think about it is Tesla haven't set out with a specific goal in mind to be a certain price point to aspire to get a certain audience. They've built a car What they could i meant put it at the budget that they need to in order to build a sustainable business with the same as we scale we expect to be able to drop prices it's just what we make limited runs while we make for a small audience the stuff is necessarily expensive now how the audience actually split down is really fascinating so. The only way of really talking about the audience is it's people who want to buy a bit of the future. That's the reality. You can't say, oh, well, it's only doctors, or it's only lawyers, or it's only bankers, or it's only climbers. We have people who don't have much money, and we have people who are billionaires. That's the reality. But they all tend to be aligned around wanting something futuristic and wanting something they can go and do something hardcore with. Now, for the specific kind of like dirtbag audience you talk about, which is literally how I grew up and how I still live, we do really fun stuff. So we have 100-year gifts. like it's a we've got a hoodie, sweatpants, sweatshirt. And the very simple premise is, it's designed to last 100 years. Why? Because it's crazy waterproof, it's fireproof, it does all sorts of things that normal clothing can't. We currently have a whole bunch of people paying for 100 year clothing on 100 year payment terms. So the hoodie, so they pay us 1% a year for 100 years. And all they have to do to win those payment terms is convince us that they'd be alive for 100 years. And so we have like 30 or 40 people now paying The hoodie's like $495 and they send us $4.95 a year for the next 100 years. And now every year we kick off like a new batch of these people. So I think we're on like batch three now. That's fantastic. And every year we run the same competitions. So like there's plenty of opportunity. Like we do lots of silly stuff like this. There's plenty of opportunity for people to get hold of our clothing without giving us, you know, their whole bank balance. Because like I was that person. So then it's just a question of imagination. Can you convince us you're really going to be alive in a century's time? And people take all sorts of different routes to do that. |
| James Stacey | Sure. I'm curious, you know, with the kind of audience covered, from your standpoint, you know, being able to look back on the entirety of the brand and all of the product and these, what I have to assume is some pretty intense development. Like, obviously, we heard a bit about what went into the Planet Earth shirt with Baldo and that kind of thing. My guess is that's with almost anything. You could sit here and have almost no interest in clothing and still be very entertained by the copy for any one of the articles of clothing that are on your website. I learned something and I'm blown away by the use of copper in a piece of clothing and this sort of thing. But I'm curious, in your mind, if everyone listening could have their hands on one thing from your catalog, what kind of best encapsulates everything that Vullabak is up to? Oh, wow. |
| Steve Tidball | That is an impossibly hard question. Maybe it's the planet earth shirt. I don't know. So what best encapsulates him? So you're absolutely right. Everything has its own unique story. And the way we do it is, you know, when you get sort of like circus performers on stage and you get those men or women who have to spin plates on the long poles and they have to keep all the plates spinning. We like doing a hundred of them at a time. And they're basically when it's ready, it's ready. And some of these things take two years, some take five years, some things we started working on when the brand was born. And they're already coming out this year. So like some of this stuff takes a monumental amount of time. Engineering wise, I still love the planet. It's really, really beautiful. However, what I'm really into at the moment is stuff where I just don't feel it on me at all. I broke my back when I was 18 and I was told I'd never do sport again. And so one of the things that happened is I've, I've never been able to wear trousers since then or pants because they just get in my way. They hold my waist in a weird way. They stop my legs moving properly. So I have this kind of what I, I don't know what you call it in the U S but like in the UK we call it a track suit and it's like, it's like sweat pants and a hoodie. It's like, what's the outfit you'd watch Netflix. Yeah, for sure. And I'm okay. So I'm really into those. that work in an incredibly high performance way. So I would probably do, I would probably do an outfit and the outfit would be a hundred year sweatpants and a hundred year sweatshirt. Because the thing is you could go to a bar in those and no one would blink. You could go to work in them and no one would blink, but you could also walk through fire and you can walk through a waterfall and you won't set on fire and you won't get wet. And that's the kind of, that's the kind of stuff I'm really, really interested in where Um, I've got kids, so obviously I watch like Pixar's Incredibles and you see these kind of like superheroes with their fantastical costumes. I kind of really into that. I really into this idea that the, the, the true superhero uniforms of tomorrow won't actually look like it. You won't know that anyone's in it. And I think that's where the technology is ultimately going. So one piece planet earth is probably it. Um, but like, if you're just looking to be really comfortable, The 100-year sweatshirt and 100-year sweatpants are crazy because they're just normal clothes that suddenly do crazy things. |
| James Stacey | We'll put both in the show notes, of course, but definitely check out the sweatshirt and the sweatpants because, Steve, you're not wrong. They look crazy comfortable and then you scroll down and there's pictures of people trying to light these on fire and pour water on them and all these things. That is a sneaky way to encapsulate tech and sort of innovation into a package that everybody knows and understands already. Nothing is more familiar than sweatpants or sweatshirt in terms of like in most people's kind of experience with clothing. And I think it's fascinating. That's a cool pick for sure. |
| Steve Tidball | I think when we started, I think we made a mistake. And we thought that everything futuristic had to look crazy futuristic. But almost sneaking the technology and is almost just as interesting. Whereas you say it looks like normal clothing, but suddenly it has these special capabilities. That's quite exciting as well. Um, we're launching our clothes for Mars next week, which are kind of crazy, but they look like normal clothes until you see what they do. And then it's like, huh, this is totally crazy. But again, like if you saw someone riding a motorbike in it and walking through town and that you wouldn't think anything, but then you're going to be okay. as a, as a worker on Mars, if you're wearing this stuff, then it gets kind of interesting. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I'm curious, you know, you talk about kind of normal looking clothes and, and I went, um, hiking this past weekend and, uh, I was wearing some kind of higher tech hiking pants, but then I had on like this heavy wool sweater, like an old school. It was made in Scotland, came from, uh, Campbell's of Bowley, this, this, you know, traditional tweed maker in, in Scotland and there was this big woolly sweater and I was like, it was perfect. I mean, the weather was, was cool enough that this sweater was perfect for it. And, and I feel like we're seeing kind of a resurgence of interest in kind of traditional fabrics and construction, but done in a more modern way. So, you know, maybe not leather boots so much anymore, but you know, wool and waxed canvas and, and things like that, that worked, you know, you, you, you don't have to be like a Ernest Shackleton reenactment, you know, cosplay kind of guy, you know, to, to appreciate this stuff. Some, some of the old tech still works, but I feel like when you get into the, you know, certain sports like ultra running, it is all about super lightweight. It has to be very versatile because it has to do so much, but it can't weigh anything. I'm wondering, you know, where, you know, do you, are you always pushing the boundaries of material science or is there still some merit to kind of older technologies and materials? |
| Steve Tidball | Oh, well, I think, I think, So the instant answer is there's huge merit and we're working there too. Because the reality is sometimes to invent the future, you have to look at the past. And so one of the things we are really conscious of doing is going back and looking at, okay, what's already been invented. And the reason to do that is I'll use Tesla again. I do like, I do like Tesla. I don't own one. If you look at their brand, But they weren't the first to invent electric cars. Back in the 1920s in New York, I think electric cars made up 50% of all cars. And they invented in the 1890s. It's just only Elon who's actually fully commercialized it, like 100 years later. And so he realized it is not the most modern of technology. It was just the correct application of it. So I'm not going to pretend our wheel jump is the same as a Tesla. It's not. So one of the things we do is we go back and look at some of this older stuff. So, yeah, we made a whole load of beautiful wool sweaters and wool hoodies, but we're just very careful with what we use. So in this instance, we found one flock of sheep, the only flock of black merino in the world. Black merino has incredibly special qualities and had been raised by this one farmer in New Zealand. And we bought all the black merino and made these nomad hoodies and nomad sweaters. And the idea was, you know, nomads made of wool because It sees you can, you can, as, as you found when you're walking, it's perfect. Like it's thermo regulates, it's, um, drinks water. It gets rid of it. It keeps you cool because sheep are really clever and their wool's really good. And then we, because we ran out of all the black Marino, cause we used it all. We then had to resource something else. And this time we've just launched one that's made from alpacas. Uh, one flap at one flock of alpacas from the, um, the Andes. that are like super high altitude alpacas, their wool's just incredible. So I am very, very up for going into what you would consider old technology because if you look at it the same way, you look at new materials, well, this material has been being evolved for the last 2 million years. So it's going to beat the stuff you get in a lab. That's just the reality because it has to do some incredibly clever stuff in nature. To pretend that labs can beat evolution is a really dumb idea. So you have to look at wool and look at what it's for. Ultramarathons. Yeah, that's a different story. Having run them. You just want, you, you just don't want anything to weigh anything. So we just launched a system that called race for zero, which I think is the world's lightest running system. Shorts, t-shirt, lightweight jacket, and lightweight puffer, but yeah, ultra running and wool. No, I can't see that. Although. We'll have a look. Now you said it, it could be just mind of the chafing, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| Steve Tidball | Yeah. I think, I think it could hurt. |
| Jason Heaton | I'm curious, you know, looking at your website, um, there's a glaring gap and that is women's clothing. Uh, I'm not seeing women's apparel. Is that in the future or why haven't you offered that? |
| Steve Tidball | It's in the future. So it is simply a cause and effect of how we started, which we were two guys with not very much money. So we design clothes for ourselves. It's in the works. I am very conscious that given we make clothes from the future and there are women in the future, that this is a gap we need to fill. So it's just simply a symptom of where we have been. And then it would have come earlier, but then we've had the dual delights of COVID and Brexit, which have occupied, this is just the reality. Like, like in any adventure stuff hits you, you have plans and then reality hits you. So in the works there's no kind of, you know, special exclusion zone around women. And I have plenty of emails every day asking for it. Um, so yes, it's just a, it's just a, an agent stage of the business versus some kind of weird stance. |
| Jason Heaton | Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. Um, you know, we're kind of getting close to the end of our time here, but I wanted to also just briefly touch on since our podcast kind of overlaps heavily with kind of the luxury watch space. You mentioned you're, you're not a real consumer of a lot of luxury products and it doesn't sound like maybe you're a big watch guy, but you guys are working on something called the garbage watch that looks like it's coming soon. Can you talk a little bit about that? I know that's more of a Nick's pet project, but maybe you can speak a little bit about that. |
| Steve Tidball | Oh, I'm still allowed to talk about his projects. Actually, the main thing we do is the very simple premise of the brand is that clothes over the next hundred years are going to be radically different to clothes over the last hundred years. Because clothing and technology is essentially going to merge. That's the reality. Even if I'm wiped off the face of the planet tomorrow, jumping off the wrong helicopter, clothes and technology are going to merge, whether it's us or whether it's somebody else. And as they do, we have to look at a huge number of things to sort of tackle what the next hundred years is going to look like. And one of those is obviously sustainability. Like that's just an absolute no brainer. And we kind of have three key ways of attacking that at the moment, which is clothes that outlive you. Clothes that are made by nature and disappear back into nature. And finally, clothes that are dug up out of waste streams. And so we have a garbage sweater and we've got some more garbage stuff coming next year, which is literally made out of trash. When we were doing that as part of the research, this is the reality, we're kind of magpies and love Wikipedia and chat to all sorts of very clever friends. As you dug into, you know, what is the world's garbage actually made out of? You come across these astounding figures of just how much stuff is in garbage that other people are paying billions to dig up out of the earth, specifically very, very precious metals, gold and silver and cobalt and nickel and all the stuff that's being dug up out of the earth in order to make watches. And it just struck us that this is profoundly ironic. I read a thing in the Guardian last night. And I think it said that, so, you know, if you, if you gather together all the world's gold, you can't even build the statue of Liberty. It's an incredibly finite amount of stuff. And 7% of all gold is in e-waste. So you've basically got the statue of Liberty's foot of gold hiding in garbage dumps all around the world. I feel like this is just crazy. You've got to be able to make something out of this. And so, Because we don't have any vested interests or kind of, you know, billionaire watchmakers as investors, we're free to just make whatever we want. In the same way, Canada Goose can't come out and say, we think using fur is cruel or feathers, because they do. And we, so we have no, we have no opinions on watches because we've got no vested interest. All we saw was this crazy amounts of very expensive things in garbage. And those expensive things that have been thrown away in computers or watches or TVs or microwaves, couldn't you use them to make another piece of technology? And that was the premise we had. And we're currently in production and prototyping, trying to create a watch in a way that's never been made before. And we've possibly come up with a new type of watch, although we're not certain yet, because we're only halfway through development. Um, but we've, we've gone back into, you know, how our time piece is actually created. Could there be a third way and could using garbage be the key to finding that third way? So that's where we're at. Um, it's improbably exciting, but like anything, you know, I go back to the analogy earlier of, you know, spinning a thousand plates. What happens is because you're spinning a thousand, you learn something in one project. And just as you think you're making headway on the watch, you go, ah, we've learned this new thing. And we could make the watch even better, but it's going to delay it by three months. And so what happens is you, because we do this project of over-spec-ing rather than de-spec-ing, you delay your own stuff. But at the end, I believe you'll come up with something better. That's what happened to the watch about six months ago, where we found out a detail where we're like, wow, this could make it something completely normal. I've never seen before. We have to do that versus just race it out. So we're looking, we're still looking at next year. But yeah, I mean, just the process of sourcing this stuff is incredible, like where you go to, and we've crowdsourced a lot of it, you know, we've emailed our database on who can help them. Like you get emails pouring in from people who, you know, design watches, people at huge tech companies, people who run like waste management plants, and then you try and pin all this information together. It's been a fascinating process. |
| James Stacey | That's wild. I can't wait to see how it comes together. Please, you know, keep us in mind when when it's time to tell the world the full story. I think that'd be fun. |
| Steve Tidball | Oh, we will do. And I'll bring my brother on as well. Tell you what he does. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Well, Steve, this was a, this was a really enlightening, just a fun chat. It sounds like you've got a lot going on. It sounds like we've got a lot of overlap of interests. It's just been, it's been great. And we really appreciate the opportunity to, to not only chat with you, but also to try out a couple of your products and certainly put them to good use over the next hundred years. |
| Steve Tidball | You've just got to stay alive for the next century. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, right, right. I should just take up gardening and just kind of be a very slow moving existence. |
| Steve Tidball | I think you have to move to that special hill in Japan. I think that's the idea. |
| Jason Heaton | Fantastic. Well, we appreciate your time and all the best and thanks again for joining us. |
| Steve Tidball | Thank you ever so much for having me on, guys. |
| James Stacey | So that was our chat with Steve Tidball of Vullabakar. Steve, thank you so much for coming on. I think this was fascinating. Yeah. I like this because I don't think you have to feel like your intention is to be necessarily a client or an owner of any of their clothing to appreciate what they're up against. Yeah. And what they're trying to do. It's just so innovative. Right. And whether it's something that lasts forever or something that you bury in the ground and walk away from when you're done with it. I love that they're kind of finding what has been kind of the constraints of clothing for a long time. and designing ways out of it, whether it's visibility with a jacket that can glow in the dark or finding... They talk about developing this perfect bush shirt. And the thing where it pivots in my mind is sometimes when the clothing company is really avant-garde, so are the designs. So much so that maybe guys like you and I, Jason, wouldn't wear it. Right. I'd feel a little bit conspicuous. I'm not going to call out a specific brand, but Let's say even just really brightly colored clothes, like if I buy a nice shell from Arterix for $600 or $700, there's a good chance that it's like bright orange. Right, right. Like if I'm going skiing or snowboarding or out hiking or whatever, that's fine, the color's great. But if I just want to go to the grocery store, it kind of feels a little bit like a Met Gala scenario, like I'm in the wrong, I'm looking kind of wild. And I think they go that way with tech clothes too. Or sometimes if it's not too flashy, then it's kind of too tactical or too like modern space ninja. And the Volbeck stuff doesn't seem to fall down any of those pitfalls. It's all just like clothing. It's fairly subtle. I mean, glow-in-the-dark shirts aside, you can decide how subtle that jacket is. But yeah, I'm really, really impressed by the brand. And it was a treat to have Steve on. I think it was a fascinating chat. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think so too. And I think it was clothing aside and their company aside, I think it's inspirational to talk to somebody who has, uh, you know, taken professional risks and kind of appreciates, um, what it means to, you know, live your dream. And, and, you know, he really stressed at the beginning that, that, you know, he and his brother were looking for a way to make sports their life and to make a living doing the stuff that they loved and took their own skills and background and interests. And, uh, and turned it into this brand. And it'll be really exciting to see where they're, where they're headed. I mean, I think just judging by the two products that they've sent, you know, we talked a lot about the, the shirts, which, which are great, but then I've worn the, the solar charge jacket a couple of times. And, and aside from the glow in the dark feature, I mean, it's just a great lightweight, uh, rain shell with crazy light, really minimalist features. You know, there's no like Velcro at the cuffs and whatever. And it's, it's just, it's not loud and crispy when you wear it. It has this one minimalist pocket on the side where you can, you know, slip a couple of bucks or a phone or whatever. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, uh, you know, it's just stuff that works and lasts and then it has this like innovative twist to it. So yeah, really, really smart, really fun, fun brand to follow. And, uh, you know, even just check out their website. I mean, the photography on the website is just, just amazing. |
| James Stacey | Even if you have no intention of buying a $500 glow in the dark jacket and I get it. it would be a tough sell if I hadn't experienced it as well. I think, I think it's super rad and its value to certain types of activities is very high, of course, but I definitely suggest just checking out the website. So it's a V O L L E B A K.com. Easy enough. If you don't want to remember that it's all in the show notes. So that, that'll be great. And I'm excited to hear about the watch sometime in the future as well. That sounds exciting. Yeah. What do you say? Some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. Um, mine came from a listener, Jerome, who sent us, uh, this YouTube video, uh, to the granado at gmail.com. And we appreciate that Jerome and everybody that sends over stuff that they think we would like. Uh, we do, we, we love all the, all the links and the interesting stuff. Um, this one is, uh, about a 15 or 17 minute video on YouTube called link SAR, the last great unclimbed mountain. And, uh, you know, Uh, it's about, um, it's, it's kind of an adventure, short documentary about a small group of, of climbers who seek out this, uh, what was known as the last unclimbed great peak in the Karakoram range in Pakistan called Linksar. And, you know, what Jerome mentioned in his email to us, I couldn't agree more. It's this sort of intergenerational aspect of it. You know, the, the team of climbers, uh, incorporates some, some younger guys and then some guys more more in my generation or along my age. And I think, you know, given our intergenerational hosting of TGN, I think it was particularly relevant as well. But I just think it's, it's kind of cool to see, um, you know, this, this small team of guys and what they were able to accomplish and their actual, you know, not, not to be a spoiler here, but it says right in the notes for the, for the video, um, they did succeed in, in summiting links are, and they actually won a prestigious mountaineering award, uh, called the POA door, um, amazing for, for, for doing it as, as a feat of Alpinism. And, uh, it's just great, you know, and I think, you know, these days after seeing a film like, like Meru, um, or, you know, the Dawn wall or free solo, um, the Alpinist, you know, some of these movies, um, it's, we're kind of in this golden age of, of really great, mountaineering and climbing documentaries and movies. And I think, you know, it's wonderful to see. And I think, you know, as, as cameras get lighter and higher quality, you know, the footage is, is just jaw dropping and it's just amazing what, what can be filmed nowadays. And so Jerome, thanks so much for sending this over. And, uh, and if you're, if this sounds of interest to you, give it a click in the show notes. |
| James Stacey | That sounds great. I, uh, I'm going to be sitting in a, in an airport for a little while this afternoon. So I'll certainly check that out. That's awesome. Thanks very much, Jerome. And a good pick, Jason. Mine this week is arguably a shameless plug for my brother's company, Upcycled Woodworking. He's ramping up this stuff and it's a great time of year to have these as gifts. So I thought it was a nice time to bring it up. I know we've mentioned it at least once on the show in the past, but he's got more stock and kind of expanded some of the offerings. So it's, It's all, uh, handmade, uh, using recycled woods. So, uh, the original was kind of charcuterie and cutting boards, both beautiful work really well, easy to care for coasters from reclaimed wood, uh, recycled wood, all, all nice to have coasters, make an easy gift, easy to ship. They do guitar wall mounts. So if you want to hang your guitar on the wall, uh, which I think is a really nice look and, uh, these things look kind of cool in the, in the kind of suit guitars as well. They also do magnetic knife blocks. I've got one of these. And it's super handy. It also means that your knives aren't in that kind of germ infested cutting block thing, uh, which I like quite a bit. Uh, just, just knowing that that's not necessarily where they are. And then they also do things like custom signs. So if there's something you wanted to, wanted to get kind of burned into a sign, uh, you can, uh, you can reach out to them. So, uh, you know, it's not common that we do, you know, kind of a simple plug for a company, but this is my brother's company. My younger brother, Mac, uh, started this company a couple of years ago as sort of a side hustle and he's been enjoying it and I'm proud of proud of where he's gotten with it. So I thought it'd be worth mentioning as we're starting to approach, you know, the gift giving season and, uh, and all that kind of stuff. So I'm sure we'll do more episodes in the next few weeks about, you know, what we think could make for great gifts. We always do. Uh, but this is a certainly high on the list. If you need a cutting board or coaster, something else made from wood, you should check out, uh, upcycled woodworking.ca. And I do know that a handful of, uh, the audience has already checked out his stuff and has written me about, uh, liking it and enjoying it. So that's good. And I also made, um, uh, Bitly. So if it's a little bit easier, we'll put this in the show notes, of course, but it's bit.ly slash U P C Y C L D upcycled with no E. Um, it's a, it's, it's nice stuff and, and I think it's worth taking a look at. |
| Jason Heaton | It is nice. I'm, I'm particularly drawn to these modern slash floating shelves. There's like a triangular shelf that you could hang underneath. That's really cool. And the planters as well. So yeah, very cool. And I assume he ships, uh, internationally, at least across the border here, I would think. |
| James Stacey | I think certainly to the States, he ships some stuff, but my, my guess would be that it'd be something where he just work with you. This isn't like a huge company. You're supporting a one man sort of endeavor. Yeah. If that sounds up your alley, uh, give him a ring, see, see what he can do and where he can ship. I'm sure he can sort that kind of stuff out, uh, over time. But, uh, yeah, I thought it was a nice time of year to recommend it. You know, maybe you're spending a little bit more time inside. Uh, maybe you're eating more off of a charcuterie board. I'm a big charcuterie fan. The stuff looks great. It's, uh, it's kind of distinctive. And I like that it comes from kind of recycled woods. You know, he works in the construction industry. Uh, and a lot of this is, uh, you know, reclaim stuff, stuff from Renos and, and, and such. So it's, uh, it's all different. You're not going to see two pieces the same. And, uh, the, the pieces that I've got here, I've been impressed with certainly enough to talk about it on the show. It's good stuff. Awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Good one. As always, thanks so much for listening. You can subscribe to the show notes via notes.thegrenado.com or check the feed for more details and links. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey and follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGraynado at gmail.com and keep sending in those voice memos. We had a good crop for last week's Q&A and they're piling up again for November. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music Throughout a Siesta by JazzArr via the Free Music Archive. |
| James Stacey | And we leave you with this quote from the English writer John Ruskin, who said, quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort. |