Brandspiration: Hiut Denim

Hiut Denim is a brand from David and Claire Hieatt, they also founded The Do Lectures.

For me, along with excellent product, brands need two things: a genuine story and a purpose. The former is hard to come by, often forced into place, a narrative crafted from pretty thin air. It needs to exist and so it does. The latter, well we know that word has been outperformed to death, or at least into ambivalence. Hiut Denim has both a story and purpose, but properly.

Let’s start with the story.

This takes place in Cardigan, a small town in west Wales. Population of roughly 4,000 people. Previously, 400 of them used to make jeans. That was the town’s industry (not cardigans, jeans). They made 35,000 pairs a week, for three decades. Then one day the factory closed. At this point, David and Claire say they saw “all that skill and knowhow remained” but that these people had no way “of showing the world what they could do”.

They started The Hiut Denim Company to bring manufacturing back home. To re-use all that skill on their doorstep, and to breathe new life into their hometown. Today, their team makes some of the most coveted, high-quality jeans in the world. It makes sense, some of these master-makers had been perfecting their craft for three decades, they are now back doing what they do best. A happy ending and new beginning.

As for purpose, well there’s plenty of this too. Hiut Denim makes one thing and makes it as well as possible.

From sourcing the best denim to offering free repairs and encouraging people to not wash their jeans unless they really have to. Quality product is about something that lasts, always feels good, and of course respects the planet’s valuable resources. And it is only jeans Hiut Denim makes – it does one thing, focuses only on one thing, and on doing that one thing as well as possible. It also doesn’t want to grow unless it has to, it just wants to be great.

I think Hiut Denim is a testament to the idea of designing a company with the only intention that should matter – making something great. It isn't pining for B-Corp status and barely promotes itself beyond word of mouth, it is just a company that decided to bring an industry back to its hometown, and to be the best in the world doing what it does. Here, this means making something highly wearable, highly crafted, using the best materials, and promoting the idea of sustainability within clothing as far as it possibly can.

It’s a brand with a good story, and instead of screaming about purpose, it ignores the b***s***. It gets on with the mission at hand.