When I heard news about two fellow Lancastrian brands hooking up to create a pair of trainers I knew it was the right time to get hold of one-half of them for a chat, and find out a bit more about the collaboration. In many ways TRiCKETT is a brand that fits with Buckets & Spades perfectly; they dig all the things I dig (Americana, sportwear, memorabilia), produce items for a purpose and design as if they were creating it for themselves. In their latest venture TRiCKETT have buddied up with Bolton-based footwear maestros Walsh, to produce their own pair of Made in England kicks.
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Buckets & Spades - So first off, how did the partnership with TRiCKETT and Walsh come about, is there a history between you guys?
Iain TRiCKETT - Well the whole Walsh thing came about because I am obsessed by shoes. Like not just 'oh shoes are nice', I mean it's all I think about, Mrs. Iain gets annoyed sometimes. It's just a good job I'm a hunk. It's not just trainers, or collecting Jordans / adidas, I mean, I'm obsessed with all kinds of shoes from Orthopaedic ones, to formal shoes to specific sports shoes. They just make me tick.
My grandad always used to bang on about this weird shoe brand in Bolton called Walsh who used to make Rugby boots. He mentioned them a few times when I was at school and I even convinced my Mum and Dad to buy me a pair of their fell running shoes for PE. The love affair sort of started from there. A few years before starting TRiCKETT I decided I wanted to make trainers, but in the UK and in Lancashire. So doing them with Walsh made sense. This was about 5 years ago when I was styling photoshoots with Japanese imported Walsh shoes and pleading with photographers and editors to let them in. So rather than write an email, I got in touch with Jon and the chaps at Walsh via a 'letter', hand-written, the lot and just told them how I used to get beaten up for wearing Walsh and how my Grandpa liked shoes. Luckily they didn't think I was a psychopath and about a year later the Mark 1 was born.
My grandad always used to bang on about this weird shoe brand in Bolton called Walsh who used to make Rugby boots. He mentioned them a few times when I was at school and I even convinced my Mum and Dad to buy me a pair of their fell running shoes for PE. The love affair sort of started from there. A few years before starting TRiCKETT I decided I wanted to make trainers, but in the UK and in Lancashire. So doing them with Walsh made sense. This was about 5 years ago when I was styling photoshoots with Japanese imported Walsh shoes and pleading with photographers and editors to let them in. So rather than write an email, I got in touch with Jon and the chaps at Walsh via a 'letter', hand-written, the lot and just told them how I used to get beaten up for wearing Walsh and how my Grandpa liked shoes. Luckily they didn't think I was a psychopath and about a year later the Mark 1 was born.
So the fascination has been properly ingrained since an early age then? It’s similar story for me but with collection stuff. I remember buying a bunch of WCW/WWF(E) wrestling figures when I was about 10, my Grandad said we need to buy two of each, so I could play with one and “archive” the other for a later date. We found those still-boxed figures a few weeks ago.
Tell us a bit about the design process for the trainer, and also, the inspiration behind the TRiCKETT brand.
I would definitely say it was an early start for me, I don’t think there are many photographs of me where I don’t have trainers on my feet, mostly Jordan + Nike I must confess. My mum is a big trainer fan too, so I think she liked the fact I cared about what was on my feet. I wish my haircuts were as good as my trainers! I was fairly big into WWF figures too, it has been ace to watch the artist Peter O’Toole re-collect them all.
I really wish I could tell you that is takes years of development and meetings for us to create the trainers but it really doesn’t. I started TRiCKETT so that I didn’t have to meet with separate departments and have lots of different people sign off different parts. What usually happens is I go to the lads at Walsh, tell them what I want, they make it, I choose the colours and then we have a shoe. This is usually done in a 15 minute period where we talk about football too. Sorry if I have just broken the clothing industry, but sometimes stuff doesn’t need to be that complicated.
TRiCKETT genuinely started because I couldn’t find a shop that I felt represented my interests and what I wanted with accessories and clothing. Most of the brands that I was looking at / buying from had, “We wanted to create the perfect white shirt” or “We really like brogues” - a bit too much of the whole looking like a GQ model. It also had a lot to do with the fact that my missus wanted a shop where she could buy me something from every Christmas / Birthday as I am impossible to buy for. I would like to think that our love for sport comes through in every product that we design or stock. Sport culture is a huge influence on our design as we have worked with / for some fairly important brands and have a reasonable knowledge of how to put a performance garment together. Although I do realise that most people wear our stuff to look cool in, but I promise you can go for a job in our gear. US sport is quite important to us as it just broke things up a bit when I went to visit my Aunt Rita, otherwise I would have just sat eating melon and looking at furniture shops, wishing I was in Toys R Us. My Dad is a big American football fan and he used to get me newspapers and magazines about it, and I would just read them and take things in. I was always far more into basketball and baseball. Basketball for Jordan and baseball for the history. There are a lot of teams in the major leagues that are older than our football teams. So this would always influence me and what I think was cool.
Oh I should qualify the "we" a bit too, I have a right hand lady called Fern, she does all the donkey work and I get to drink tea and colour things in. Don’t tell her I said that or else she may ask for a raise! I also have my Dad who pops in from time to time, and packs things up and generally tells us to improve the quality of tape that we use.
We share a love for Americana, sportswear, collecting and also being fellow North West-ers (England) so it does seem we have quite a bit in common. I remember bugging my mum to buy me a pair of Nike Air Max 95; I always feel guilty about it now as I know we hardly had any money spare. They were knackered in two weeks.
What has the reaction been like to TRiCKETT? I guess it’s quite niche when you think about it, a British brand doing American inspired gear, but still managing to make it feel British. Do some people thing you’re mad going on about Baseball all the time?
Well if you were going to bug your Mum I am glad it was for a pair of Air Max 95s. Neon green. Ooooh wee!
I think with the internet being as it is, people wanting to find something that is theirs that they can interact with; I would say that the reaction has been pretty great. We are overwhelmed by the amount of people who want to talk to us, buy things from us, send us things and just have a general chit chat. That is what I loved about small street wear brands back in the day, you used to be able to speak to the guys that were designing it and have a good conversation. Going forward I really hope that we can keep this part of the brand alive. I am always up for a chat and Fern even more so. I just feel that it adds to the brand a bit. We are British and that is something that we are very proud of, but we do like American sport and I wouldn’t say that we go on about it too much… Maybe we do. But some of the stories are just very exciting and the players of all three of the big sports are just removed from what we know in this country. I know that American sports aren’t perfect but it is just a bit of an escape from how terrible football is becoming in this country. However, that is a whole different conversation....
As long as people smile and enjoy themselves when talking to us, buying a product from us or finding a chewing gum in their socks (packed up, not like a chewed one that’d be awful) then I feel that we have done our job. I am not in this game to be a millionaire or hang out with other ‘cool’ people, I just want to have time to make people happy and get what's in my head out to other people.
I think we come from a similar place, you with TRiCKETT and me with what I’ve tried to do with Buckets & Spades - Just share the stuff we love, without trying to make too much noise, but to reach the people who share a similar enthusiasm and passion. And I guess that’s what this us, just two people chatting about stuff they like, let’s hope some of our readers dig it too.
It’s been great to have a natter Iain, I appreciate your time and hopefully Buckets & Spades can work on something with TRiCKETT in the future. The Walsh x TRiCKETT MK III trainer is set to be released October 2014.
Thanks for visiting,
Mat
I really wish I could tell you that is takes years of development and meetings for us to create the trainers but it really doesn’t. I started TRiCKETT so that I didn’t have to meet with separate departments and have lots of different people sign off different parts. What usually happens is I go to the lads at Walsh, tell them what I want, they make it, I choose the colours and then we have a shoe. This is usually done in a 15 minute period where we talk about football too. Sorry if I have just broken the clothing industry, but sometimes stuff doesn’t need to be that complicated.
TRiCKETT genuinely started because I couldn’t find a shop that I felt represented my interests and what I wanted with accessories and clothing. Most of the brands that I was looking at / buying from had, “We wanted to create the perfect white shirt” or “We really like brogues” - a bit too much of the whole looking like a GQ model. It also had a lot to do with the fact that my missus wanted a shop where she could buy me something from every Christmas / Birthday as I am impossible to buy for. I would like to think that our love for sport comes through in every product that we design or stock. Sport culture is a huge influence on our design as we have worked with / for some fairly important brands and have a reasonable knowledge of how to put a performance garment together. Although I do realise that most people wear our stuff to look cool in, but I promise you can go for a job in our gear. US sport is quite important to us as it just broke things up a bit when I went to visit my Aunt Rita, otherwise I would have just sat eating melon and looking at furniture shops, wishing I was in Toys R Us. My Dad is a big American football fan and he used to get me newspapers and magazines about it, and I would just read them and take things in. I was always far more into basketball and baseball. Basketball for Jordan and baseball for the history. There are a lot of teams in the major leagues that are older than our football teams. So this would always influence me and what I think was cool.
Oh I should qualify the "we" a bit too, I have a right hand lady called Fern, she does all the donkey work and I get to drink tea and colour things in. Don’t tell her I said that or else she may ask for a raise! I also have my Dad who pops in from time to time, and packs things up and generally tells us to improve the quality of tape that we use.
We share a love for Americana, sportswear, collecting and also being fellow North West-ers (England) so it does seem we have quite a bit in common. I remember bugging my mum to buy me a pair of Nike Air Max 95; I always feel guilty about it now as I know we hardly had any money spare. They were knackered in two weeks.
What has the reaction been like to TRiCKETT? I guess it’s quite niche when you think about it, a British brand doing American inspired gear, but still managing to make it feel British. Do some people thing you’re mad going on about Baseball all the time?
Well if you were going to bug your Mum I am glad it was for a pair of Air Max 95s. Neon green. Ooooh wee!
I think with the internet being as it is, people wanting to find something that is theirs that they can interact with; I would say that the reaction has been pretty great. We are overwhelmed by the amount of people who want to talk to us, buy things from us, send us things and just have a general chit chat. That is what I loved about small street wear brands back in the day, you used to be able to speak to the guys that were designing it and have a good conversation. Going forward I really hope that we can keep this part of the brand alive. I am always up for a chat and Fern even more so. I just feel that it adds to the brand a bit. We are British and that is something that we are very proud of, but we do like American sport and I wouldn’t say that we go on about it too much… Maybe we do. But some of the stories are just very exciting and the players of all three of the big sports are just removed from what we know in this country. I know that American sports aren’t perfect but it is just a bit of an escape from how terrible football is becoming in this country. However, that is a whole different conversation....
As long as people smile and enjoy themselves when talking to us, buying a product from us or finding a chewing gum in their socks (packed up, not like a chewed one that’d be awful) then I feel that we have done our job. I am not in this game to be a millionaire or hang out with other ‘cool’ people, I just want to have time to make people happy and get what's in my head out to other people.
I think we come from a similar place, you with TRiCKETT and me with what I’ve tried to do with Buckets & Spades - Just share the stuff we love, without trying to make too much noise, but to reach the people who share a similar enthusiasm and passion. And I guess that’s what this us, just two people chatting about stuff they like, let’s hope some of our readers dig it too.
It’s been great to have a natter Iain, I appreciate your time and hopefully Buckets & Spades can work on something with TRiCKETT in the future. The Walsh x TRiCKETT MK III trainer is set to be released October 2014.
Thanks for visiting,
Mat
Not huge on trainers, but those are really really nice.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Michael. I'm not huge on trainers, but holy cow! What a beauty!
ReplyDeleteThose sneakers are SO great.
ReplyDelete