Propermag - GB | Particl Company Profile

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Beyond driving vans and racing mobility scooters, April has been our busiest month of the year so far. The M62 became a close friend of ours as we spent a number of days in Liverpool planning, preparing and producing a one-take video for @fanaticsuk and @everton with the local icon @pj_smith9 Beyond that we welcomed a few pairs of @dannerboots into our humble office and onto our tired feet before heading down to London for a few days of crafts with @keeneurope x @gramicci_eu. While down there we ran over to the @newbalancerunning townhouse where we listened to Alex Yee part wisdom, sipped incredibly strong martinis and had a peak at next season’s running gear 👀… A quick run with @soar_running and we were back up to the Peaks for an outdoor @pumasportstyle unboxing and campaign shoot for @everydaymountaineering. It’s good to look back isn’t it. Think we’ll head for a beer tonight.

Certain garments are a bit more smug than others. Not entirely sure why or how, but some types of clothing feel like they’d look down their noses at others. Let us explain… Socks – not smug in the slightest. Knitwear – relatively smug. Gilets – incredibly smug – almost too smug. We really wish we could better put this phenomenon into words, but the truth is, we can’t. Some garments are just a bit more pompous than others… As you traverse along this spectrum of smugness, you’ll find types of clothing that have exatly the right amount of arrogance, and collared shirts made from techy fabric are definitely aligned there. They’re understated and casual. Smart and functional. Can be dressed up, or down. And are generally a very nice item of clothing to have in your wardrobe. These optimal smugness levels can probably be attributed to the fact that a technical shirt is just at home in the Amazon Rainforest as they are the Bricklayers Arms beer garden – they’re highly adaptable garments, suitable for every environment and every occasion. In celebration of the garment with goldilocks-appealing levels of smugness, we’ve put together a list of our seven favourite technical shirts, from our pals over at @sevenstorehq.

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Everyone else has posted these, so we may as well too… In 2004, Nike launched a campaign titled ‘Play to Win’ which involved creating vending machines that would dispense footballs.

We try and stay as up-to-date with grassroots brands as much as possible, otherwise, we’re at risk of sounding really old, or part of the establishment – and we’re not sure what’s worse. One brand that is about grassroots as they come (in the best way possible) is Mexborough-based, @fuzzclothinguk, a menswear label spearheaded almost entirely by one individual, Andrew Foster. Andrew, like us, is fanatical about clothing – particularly outerwear – so it only made sense that we caught up with him to chat about everything from his journey as a designer to his inspirations and chippy order as well as various other intriguing subjects.

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This hot weather honks of festival season. Absolutely stinks of it, to be honest. In fact, it smells exactly like ruined trainers, 9:00 am cans of Magners & mild bouts of sunstroke. If all those glorious things don’t make you feel excited, then perhaps you should skip this post… Festivals, in our view, are a transformative experience. An opportunity to put your body & mind through hell, with no guilty conscience. They’re events based purely around boosting dopamine, whatever that form takes, and should be celebrated as such. When else are you surrounded by your mates, music you’re into and acres and acres of green (gradually turning brown) space? Festivals are about self-expression, and what better way is there to do that than through the clobber you decide to wear? There are various genres of festival attire – bucket hats, tie dye tees, lads in luminous PE kits, and there’s even that lot that opt out of clothing completely. Each genre serves some kind of purpose, but in our view, a festival rigout has to be at least a little bit practical… At its core, you’re going to want there to be some element of breathability – dancing around a field, even without chemical assistance, is sweaty. Secondly, you’re going to want to be prepared for the worst – expect mud & rain, and the disgusting sludgy combination of both. Finally, you need your clothes to let other people know what you’re about – it’s the perfect opportunity to wear the non-league football top that’s been cowering in your wardrobe for far, far too long. Now, we’re not entirely sure if there’s any good festivals going on in Lincoln this year, but what we do know is there’s a good retailer to kit you out for one – @eqvvsmen. So, although it might not be here quite yet, we’ve put together a list of attire from them that is bang-on for festival season…

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Usually, it only takes one look at a brand’s current collection to tell you exactly how they want to be perceived. Grunge, skate, vintage-inspired, whatever. Some brands, though, require a little more observation – a bit of a closer look. And with NOAH, this is undoubtedly the case. Originally founded in 2002 and revived in 2015 after a thirteen-year hiatus, NOAH is rarely discussed in isolation… It’s almost impossible to talk about NOAH without mentioning another NYC heavyweight: Supreme. The tether between both brands is NOAH’s founder, Brendon Babenzien, who served as Supreme’s creative and design director from 1996 to 2004, took a short break, and then returned from 2006 to 2014. Babenzien’s career has always had a rhythm of comings and goings — but thankfully, his second chapter with NOAH is still very much in motion. Full article, in collaboration with @sevenstorehq, on the website.

Ladies & gentlemen, it’s official. Sandals season is back, and anyone who knows anything about anything has got @keen on their feet. KEEN’s sandals, are undisputed. Perhaps we’re slightly biased because of our long-standing relationship with the Portland-based brand, but the combination of hardwearing materials, quirky styling and high wearability levels render KEEN’s open-toe options a firm favourite in the Proper office during the warmer months. No, it doesn’t smell. Another reason that KEEN is so great is their choice in collaborations, or perhaps their choice of collaborators, and this time around, it’s online community turned outdoor clothing brand, @hikingpatrol. For those of you that’re clued up, you’ll know this isn’t KEEN & Hiking Patrol’s first rodeo – the duo linked up back in 2023 to produce a lovely suede version of the Jasper Rocks. This time though, they’ve opted for a more open-top arrangement, placing their combined efforts on to the canvas of the KEEN Hyperport – the slightly younger, slightly more into expensive coffee counterpart to KEEN’s first-ever sandal, the Newport. Whereas 2023’s Jasper Rocks was subtle, this new Hyperport certainly isn’t. The drastic change from muted grey to bright pink and luminous green is almost as if KEEN & Hiking Patrol have stumbled off the trail and ingested some kind of psychoactive vegetation. We’re big into it. The luminescent colourways have been consumed by a dark brown gum cage, it sounds like it shouldn’t work – dark brown and bright pink – but it somehow definitely does. If you’re after a pair of sandals to properly, properly, turn heads this summer, then look no further than this. They’re mad. In the best kind of way.

Proper Picks for May is here, and would you believe it? It’s on time 🤌 Full article on the website.

Hemp and the outdoors - one grows wild and free, the other’s where we should probably all be instead of staring at screens. @goodlids knows this. Their latest Southern Hemisphere Autumn/Winter campaign leans right into that overlap, bringing together clobber and coastline with the kind of unfussy charm that doesn’t scream “campaign” but a return to form. Shot on a barnacled stretch of Aotearoa coastline that looks more Middle Earth than Middle England, the whole thing feels like a love letter to fresh air, a good time, and gear that holds its own without shouting about it. It’s littered with that kind of Kiwi casualness where the beach, the mountains and the nearest pint are all just a short walk apart. The standout? The Scroggin Shorts: trail-ready, pub-friendly, and cut just above the knee. Built from Goodlids’ signature hemp/recycled nylon blend, they’re lightweight but tough. The sort of thing you can hike in, nap in, or wear for three days straight without anyone noticing. Backing them up: heavyweight rugby shirts in colours that look like they’ve spent a summer on a washing line, big relaxed overshirts, and caps made for catching rays without roasting the planet. More than just the gear though, the campaign’s about that quieter kind of misadventure - the one with mates, loose plans, and just enough wrong turns to make it land on the good side of memorable. No preachy performance talk, no big glossy statement. Just good gear, in the right places, on the right sort of people. Now six years deep, Goodlids are still carving their own weird little path through the outdoor space - proudly Antipodean, fond of hemp, and better than most at making functional stuff feel fun again. Available now at @goodlids.

Walking to get lunch at work today

Following the back of his @pumasportstyle collaboration last year, @skepta has now worked with the brand to produce a low version of the Skope, and dare we say, it might be even better than the mid.

There’s nowhere quite like the British countryside. Rolling hills. Lush streams. Unintelligible farmers. Homebrew cider that’ll turn you blind. Yep, the British countryside is a truly, truly wonderful place. A special place. One brand that shares our profound appreciation for Britain’s beautiful backyard is @feragb, a company whose tagline is ‘A Love Letter To The British Outdoors,‘ and after you take a look at the gear, you can see that the Fera aren’t just in love with Britain’s countryside, they’ve fallen head over heels for it and landed firmly in a pile of the West Country’s finest smelling cow shit. Fera aren’t just admiring Britain’s countryside from afar, though, you can tell they live and breathe it – collared jackets, delectable shirting, heritage labels, hardwearing canvas and a very healthy helping of corduroy. It’s sort of like they’ve distilled all the best bits of Barbour, Filson & Carhartt, brewed them and created a moonshine so strong it’d make even the hardiest of yeomans wince. (In a good way) To find out more about one of the most refreshing outdoor brands we’ve seen in a while, we caught up with founders, Sid & Dec, and chatted about everything from conker tournaments to flyfishing… Full interview on propermag.com

Merrell 1TRL has just offered an exclusive peek behind the scenes at the Merrell archive, and it’s mega. A gang of footwear nerds at the brand’s HQ have raided the vault, fired up the scanners and made themselves busy to produce scrapbook-style images of all the most important Merrell silhouettes in the last fifty years. There’s stuff detailed in here that we had no clue about, like the Flashdance – a pair of climbing shoes that look straight out of Back to the Future, if Marty McFly traded the half-pipe for Half Dome. The old catalogues, sketches, and never-publicly-seen-before design elements have allowed Merrell 1TRL to proudly show the references that have inspired their SS25 collection. It’s sort of like gaining access to the hard drive of the world’s biggest Merrell superfan. Something that we’ve daydreamed about many, many times.