FOCUSPaynter 
French-style chore jackets
It may be the ultimate slow fashion brand – small batches of obsessively assembled French-style chore jackets made to order – but sales at London-based Paynter Jackets are anything but.

Launched three times a year, each set of 300-500 handmade pieces of the classic workwear has only ever taken between 86 seconds and 35 minutes to sell out. Completely.

For its latest batch, Paynter upped production to 750 and in five colours (‘just to make sure it’s not such a race,’ explains Okell, a Central Saint Martins graduate who honed her marketing skills at Nike, Caravan Coffee Roasters, and Anyways Creative, the agency within the It’s Nice That group). ‘It’s funny,’ she adds. ‘We planned to do things slowly, making small batches, led by demand, with no waste, but we never planned it to sell out so fast every time. That part of the business was decided by our customers.’

A decision no doubt spurred on by those customers rooted in an emotional connection as well as a physical one to the jacket that arrives six to eight weeks after ordering. Put simply, Okell says, when 175 billion items of clothing are made yearly with 50 billion heading straight to landfill and a similar amount after not selling, ‘the last thing we wanted was to make more stuff people didn’t need or value.’
The company stems, in part, from Thomas’ appetite – while working at Hiut Denim in Cardigan – for collecting ‘beautiful’ scraps from under the cutting table and transforming them into items such as jackets. He would also buy pieces from all over the world to ‘take them apart and learn how they were constructed so I could make my own,’ says Thomas.  

It’s the details that lure you in. How the couple scoured for sustainable sources: from the reverse bull denim – fabric they labelled ‘Hard as Nails, Soft AF’ – to the French moleskin and latest Batch 4 of Italian corduroy from Duca Visconti (released September 5th – sold out in two minutes). The next batch goes on sale at 9am on November 7th. The excitement in vintage riffs, such as the way a hang loop is sewn or how a hem is created; considered care labels proclaiming ‘Take Care of your Jacket’ while the reverse says ‘Take Care of Yourself’, as well as collaborations with illustrators including the American Chris DeLorenzo, Canada’s Hiller Goodspeed, Bristol-based Carl Godfrey for Paynter’s 3.5 Batch of NH-YES jackets, and for photographer Andrew Paynter, after whom the company is named.

‘When you make something, you go down the rabbit hole of what’s involved, from the people to the materials, the techniques used and the history behind the style,’ enthuses Okell, adding they spent nine months testing, tweaking and re-sampling at the start. ‘The more you learn the more you can do to make your product that bit better.’
paynterjacket.com
WORDS LUCY HYSLOP