The Outdoor Gibbon
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The Outdoor Gibbon
11. Harkila's Evolution: From Swedish Roots to Modern Hunting Innovation
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The hunting apparel landscape has transformed dramatically since the days when a wax jacket was your only option for staying dry in the field. In this eye-opening conversation with Simon from Outfit International (the UK distributors for Harkila), we journey from the origins of a hunting brand born from necessity in the Swedish wilderness to the cutting-edge technical gear available today.
Did you know Harkila began in 1976 when the Lennertson family—breeders of champion Swedish elk hounds—couldn't find clothing suitable for hunting in temperatures that regularly plummeted to minus 25°C? From these humble beginnings in a small Swedish village, we trace how a family's passion for hunting in extreme conditions sparked innovations that would eventually revolutionize field sports clothing worldwide.
Simon pulls back the curtain on the meticulous two-to-three-year product development cycle that ensures every jacket, pair of trousers, and boot works flawlessly in real-world hunting scenarios. We tackle the elephant in the room—past boot quality issues—and learn how manufacturing relocation to Italy and design improvements like triple-stitched rands have transformed their footwear reputation.
The conversation explores fascinating cultural differences between UK and European hunting traditions, explaining how Harkila has adapted its Scandinavian rifle-hunting DNA to embrace British driven shooting with authentic wool tweed from northern mills while maintaining technical performance. Looking forward, Simon shares exciting developments including heated gloves coming this winter and the return of the popular Move jacket.
Whether you're a seasoned stalker, driven game enthusiast, or someone curious about the technology behind modern outdoor clothing, this episode offers valuable insights into how hunting apparel continues to evolve. Subscribe now to ensure you don't miss future episodes, and join our community of discerning outdoor enthusiasts who demand the best from their gear.
Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Kingdom Podcast, episode 11. Thank you for still listening. It's taken a bit of time to get this one recorded. Well, actually, just to put the start and the finish on it, we actually recorded the podcast back at the beginning of November but, as everybody knows, time flies and November just kind of came and went. We're well on into the dough season.
Speaker 2:There's lots of other things have been happening. Obviously. You've seen, if you follow my social media feed, that we went off and had a fantastic opportunity for a wild boar just up in in Venetia. I will try and record that down as a podcast so that people can actually hear about the, the pigs that are about. A lot of people didn't realize that these things are roaming around the, the countryside up there, so that should hopefully be a good one in the near future. Anyway, let's get on and listen to the interview we had with simon Outfit International, which are basically the Harkila distributors in the UK, talking about product and other exciting things that they've got in the pipeline. Good afternoon everybody. We are here today with simon from outfit international. Basically it's the face of harkila, uh, in the uk. Uh, so, um, a bit of sort of hand over to simon and he can give us a bit of an introduction about who he is, how Outfit International and how Kiela started and where we are today with it.
Speaker 3:Okay, good afternoon or morning, depending on when you're listening to this. Everybody. My name's Simon. I'm one of the two directors of Outfit International in the UK. I've been an agent to start with and now I'm a director of the company in the UK that we formed in 2020 after Brexit. Basically, you had to form a UK company to get any sense out of Brexit and to make it work, and so we've. Effectively, when our retailers are buying from us, we are a british company, we charge british fat and this sort of thing, and that's made it, you know, much smoother. Uh, other companies who didn't go down that route and didn't have a british infrastructure as we do here, um, have found it a bit of a nightmare.
Speaker 2:I guess they've got to grips with it now, but certainly in the early days it was very difficult I was going to say that must have been a bit of chaos actually, with obviously brexit and all the rest of it, and I did wonder how that that explains the why outfit international exists and and that's why you can charge english prices yeah, I mean charge english prices um or your prices, are it? It's, it's all pounds and things like that, when you order from the website and it's being dispatched, obviously, from you guys.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes, it's being dispatched from. There's only one warehouse and that's in Copenhagen. Everything comes from Copenhagen. There's no stock here. If this was a video call, you could see. I'm in a showroom here. I'm in the office end, but I've got a showroom at the other um, and I sell our wares to retail shops, and the buyers tend to come here from some distance away actually, which is really good because everything is here and they can see everything under one roof.
Speaker 3:Um, some of it's in sample form, so it's maybe not quite perfect, but most of the buyers are used to that. It's sometimes an impression of what they're getting, not what they actually are getting. Um, so samples are never as good as the production. Uh, because production is done at full production speed and they're making the same thing over and over and over again, and so the um, the quality is better, the attention to detail is better. It's just that much tighter than the samples are virtually all one-offs. Effectively, it costs a fortune as well if you actually costed it, because they're all individuals, um and uh, that's uh, it's a terribly expensive way of making garments no, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm assuming, because there's, there's a few, there's another manufacturer in the uk that does that and sort of turns up at the show with a load of samples and things like that and then you order and your product comes. But obviously, yeah, that that's kind of what you've got there at the end of the day, something you wouldn't want to take out in the field because potentially it's uh, it's not going to be the the most ultimate waterproof item absolutely definitely.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, sometimes they don't have membranes in and things like that in the samples when they should have, because you don't need it. You're looking at a, at a basic design. They they trust if we say it's going to have cortex in, it does have cortex in by the time it comes to them. This is probably. They're ordering a nearly a year in advance in some cases. So, um, you know, there's a long time in between buyers coming to see me and them receiving the product. Everything has got to be done way, way in advance. Typically our timing is two years to get something made and that's from a finished design.
Speaker 2:If you're starting a design process, it could be three years I think that's something that yeah, that was something I was reading just a moment ago on the the harkila website. It's obviously they take time to to plan, so a sketch or something like that will be drawn and and it takes a good period of time before that product will actually hit the shelves in sort of any of the markets, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Literally. My previous team's call, rather than talking to you now, was with Sealand, which is also under the Outfit International banner, looking at spring-summer 24 and autumn winter 24 um ideas and various products for that. So you know, we're looking at that already and it's only 22 and they've they've got it down to sketch size already. So they've got a fairly good idea of what it's going to be and they're kind of justing it down and they'll be placing orders early next year probably with the suppliers for studs, for zips, for fabric, for all the bits that go together, and then they go to the supplier or the factory that we've chosen to make it, which could be anywhere in the world, and then it's all made up. Everything goes to that factory and then it gets delivered to Copenhagen.
Speaker 2:Oh, fantastic, all made up everything goes to that factory and then it comes, gets delivered to Copenhagen, to the retailer, right? So just sort of carrying on, what's sort of the what's Harkila about? And sort of where did it come from? How did it appear? Obviously, I know it says on the website it was established in 1985, but established dates and and who created it. It's it's sort of that sort of the company that you're under at the end of the day. So can you give us a bit of insight into Harkila and who and what they are?
Speaker 3:Harkila was actually started in 1976. And it was started by the Lennertson family in Sweden and it's called Harkila because that's the village that he lives in is called harkila, okay, and if you go to his farmhouse, um it there's a blue swedish sign with white letters on, as they all everything is, and it says harkila, there and um, so that's his house, stroke farm, and they are, and still are, the breeders of the Swedish elk hound, champion Swedish elk hounds. That's one of their huge passions. They're big hunters and very, very keen on going out with hunting dogs, because a Swedish elk hound is trained in a very particular way, because a Swedish elk hand is trained in a very particular way, and so that is to A find a moose and then to stand 20 yards away from it and bark at it and not do anything else Don't attack it, don't go for a pee somewhere, don't go and find a pheasant. They stand and they do that, and then the moose will sense that the dog is potentially danger, and so they, in their jeans, they stand just fairly close at bay, put their head down, uh, in a threatening manner, and so there's this standoff between the two and, uh, that is the chance for the hunters to catch up with the barking dog and shoot the moose. So this is what they do in Sweden. Sweden is an amazing place. It's an enormous country, absolutely huge, and they have some very extreme weather there. In certain parts of Sweden it's not uncommon for people to be under 20 foot of snow and go down to minus 25 and this kind of thing Far more extreme conditions than we have in the bulk of the uk. And the uh lennison family, um, really guided by the father and the son son is called shell lennison and uh, he still works with the company today.
Speaker 3:They started making clothes because they couldn't get things that they wanted, certainly in the 70s. Basically, you had a barber jacket, a wax jacket and all versions of that and that was about your lot and you either were wet or dry or smelling like an old sack or whatever it was, but that was your lot. Really, it was still oilcloth. The Gore-Tex hadn't lot. Really, it was still oilcloth. The Gore-Tex hadn't really come across. It had been invented, because Gore-Tex was originally invented as a wound dressing in the Korean War and nothing to do with waterproofing, that's, to keeping a muck of germs out of the wound if you'd been damaged, shot or something, so you know all these things were going on and developing. But shot or something, so you know all these things were going on and developing.
Speaker 3:But really your staple dyer for as a field sports person, whether you're fishing, shooting, whatever you're doing was a wax jacket and that wasn't good enough. That was certainly if you're in sweden. That was really not up to the job. Um, if it was wet, if it was snowy and these sort of things, you know, wax jacket was very stiff. Um, I've got a certain affection for a wax jacket. Of course, I spent 10 years as an agent for barber in my past, which I absolutely loved, even though that was working in central london. But, um, you know it was great.
Speaker 2:Well, the wax jacket is essentially sort of it was the british garment, wasn't it, at the end of the day. But as you say, when you're in sub-zero temperatures that would become incredibly stiff and almost at the point where I remember them just as a kid. Yeah, they'd be like this stiff item that just doesn't move and it's not going to be something that's going to work for hunting. In Sweden with the snow and the weather and the rain conditions, they always leaked as well. Wax jackets always around all the seams. It didn't matter what happened. As much oil as you put on them, it just seemed to run in through the stitching it.
Speaker 3:It was up. No, it's the way it is, that that's as good as it got. Really there was. Uh, there was kind of nothing else. Um, somehow, um, later on, shoal and his father managed to get a gore-tex license.
Speaker 3:This must be a time when, when Gore-Tex was trying to expand, I guess, from the US into Europe and wanting to gain traction in extreme sporting activity they do a lot, obviously, with cycling and skiing and climbing and everything else. Hunting was just another element of that and so Shell managed to get a Gore-Tex license and started making or having gore-tex products made. They did it quite a lot with fleece, um, stretchy fleece, camo fleece and some very swedish looking products. I've got to say swedes quite like natural products, as people do today, so they have a lot of leather leather trousers, leather waistcoats, leather jackets, etc. But not like you're going to buy from the high street Things that would make a motorcycle jacket seem lightweight. I mean the ones that the Swedes like are very, very heavy and very tough. We did sell them for a while. Haven't got any in the range at the moment, but I believe there's some coming back, so that'll be quite interesting to see how the reaction goes to them.
Speaker 2:I suppose that's definitely a thing. When you look at it, the European and the Scandinavian market for hunting clothes is absolutely massive, but then driven hunts and traipsing through or tracking a wounded beast through pretty much uncut undergrowth is quite common. I remember talking to a Swedish tracker and it's like oh yeah, you could track for several hours through everything to try and find an animal that's gone down, so you do need a hard wearing clothing, whereas obviously in the uk it's completely different, isn't it? At the end of the day, it's um, you might need to just go gently through a hedge yeah, yeah, exactly, or it's all it's gonna have open hill.
Speaker 3:it may be terrible weather, but it's open, open hill. They're not quite the obstacles that they can be there. You can't be wading through the snow and everything else. It's very different and very much geared to rifle shooters, very much geared to rifle. That's the DNA for Harkila is rifle shooting and we do have shotgun shooting product. In fact, we've got a brand new tweed set, which is very exciting, coming out for winter 23, 23 that, um, we're getting samples of in the next couple of weeks, which is very exciting. When you get something like that, it's not a product that we get lots and lots of, but we can certainly sell things like that and we've done very well with our previous tweet set, so that's given us some encouragement to do another one.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, that's good, okay, so yeah, no, that that sort of covers the sort of the background of our keeler, which is something I didn't even know, so hopefully everybody's going to find that really interesting. But, um, how do they you've talked about products being already the drawing board for 2024 how do they keep cutting edge? How do they know what's going to be the next big thing? Because, at the end of the day, a jacket's a jacket, is it not? Or is there something more to it?
Speaker 3:a jacket is a jacket but, like we've said, you know, looking at the in my selling career, from barber wax jackets not particularly it's a barber but a wax jacket to something like our um harkila move set, which is I've got a lightweight gore-tex spider liner in it. It's a lighter weight jacket. It's it's well cut, it fits well, it works really well. We give a five-year warranty with it as a as. It's not a cheap product by any means, but it's tough and it's light. It'll keep you dry and you won't get horribly, horribly sweaty in it as you do with some other things. The development from one to the other is is huge. It's been through many different kind of reincarnations since then, from very heavy products to light away, and light away and that's the big thing at the moment in the market is light away product. That's what everybody wants. They want the lightest product possible, um, for the maximum warmth, waterproofness, and if you can get that, you're doing well yeah, no, I, I see that and you see things change.
Speaker 2:Obviously I think some of us hunters we get stuck in our way and we like a something that's heavy weight because it feels it feels quality at the end of the day. When our keeler first came out, I remember my pro hunter trousers. They were heavy weight and and you felt that you were getting value for money because it had that heavy fabric. And then you get a new bear and it's a lighter fabric and you're like, oh, it's different, is it going to be as strong? And things like that. And I think that's always the things change and sometimes we kind of stick in our old sort of rut and go, oh, I don't like change, but if the product is moving on and it is as good, then that's exactly what we're everybody's looking for really at the end of the day, I think, and that's aided by technology.
Speaker 3:I mean, we are the whim of technology, just like anything else, like your computer, your phone, the car, whatever it is. You know, you, you tend to gravitate towards the, the newest, the best, the latest, the highest spec, etc. Etc. But products of fabrics have come on enormously. I mean, there's a few exhibitions that you can go to see. Um, there's one in in paris called premier vision and that is a fabric exhibition and there's loads and loads of those who has ever been to it. It's a huge exhibition and there stands full and full and full of different fabrics and it just if you didn't know what you're looking at, it would just look be a complete nightmare.
Speaker 3:But there are certain people that suit the sort of the business that you do. We are a very northern european, centric kind of organization. We tend towards swedish manufacturers. There's quite a few. We use a few. We use a lot of their products, a lot of their fabrics at the top end, but they can come from anywhere. There's a lot of people doing some really great products and they are as you say. They're tougher, they're lighter, they're stronger, they move better. Stretch is something that we incorporate in virtually all our garments now, and that's something that hasn't happened before the advent of stretch just transforms the feeling of something you don't need a gusset in the back of your jacket, or a quilt or a or whatever it is, to let you move and shoot your jacket is just stretchy and yeah, no, I can.
Speaker 2:I can agree with that. Yeah, because obviously I think that was, I think think, my first. Well, it's a slightly different brand. Obviously it was Sealand, but it was always a problem with Sealand trousers that you'd always go to stretch somewhere across a fence or something like that and you'd end up ripping the crotch or something. And I know people have had issues with their Pro Hunter trousers. So obviously stretch just changes everything straight away, because at least the product moves with you.
Speaker 3:It does, and I think actually you're harking back to something you said about Harkila Pro trousers being heavy. I think that was part of the problem, because gravity will take its own way. So the way you're moving, your trousers are going to head slowly south as you're moving around, so you need a belt. You probably need braces as well. To be honest, all our harkier trousers come with brace, uh buttons, but you really need to use those because to keep the damn trousers up?
Speaker 2:no, I have. I have a pair of harkier braces. No, I, I agree, that was on my christmas list. I remember about two years after having the trousers I needed a pair of braces to keep them up and it made a huge difference because the trousers didn't slip and they did stay up around the back and you didn't get that cold patch on the back of your um, your spine and things like that. So, no, I, totally, and again, it's still a, it's definitely european and the scandinavian things. Braces are commonplace because snow, you don't want snowing grass. It's the same with skiing clothes and all the rest of it. Everybody has braces on them. So, uh, okay, here's, here's the, the sort of the. The big question how Kieler got some bad press over its boots and, um, you've obviously there's been a lot of advertising and new boots are out there and things have changed. How, what, what? What's the? The?
Speaker 3:I think you know the boots that we had at first. I'd say we did have some problems with the boots. Some were worse than others and inevitably it's the ones that the stars that didn't work quite as well like the Kevlar boots. It was a great boot. People loved it. It was nice and lightweight. It wasn't very warm because Kevlar is not very thick and there's no warmth retention, but it had an unfortunate habit of wearing a hole in the rubbing. The two would rub together. The Gore-Tex would rub on the Kevlar membrane, which is very tough but very hard, and it would wear through and then it would leak and that was a great shame and we had to discontinue that boot. We couldn't fix it without a complete, complete redesign and that would be going back to the, to the drawing board. So we we had to abandon that, as I think most manufacturers have had to abandon their kevlar boots. It just doesn't really work with a boot that is constantly on the move. It as you walk, it's stretchy. For various reasons.
Speaker 3:We've decided to shift our production to Italy and that's been a huge plus point for us for many reasons. It's good timing, because shipping things from the Far East takes three months in a container. The lines are long. The delay is delay on delay. Um, we've got much more control now. If there's something in production or in design that we're talking about, it's easy to hop on a plane or even drive to italy. You can do that relatively easily and go and fix it. Um, getting it the stock to us again, it's fairly easy. It can easily get to copenhagen from italy. It's a good quality manufacturing base and we've decided to buy the bullet and go. It costs more, um, but that cost is worth it and probably offset by the cost of some of the costs of shipping from the far east, and um, we think that it's a really good move.
Speaker 3:We've had, uh, various people working with us to come up with the design for the newer boot range and that's worked extremely well. Um, we've really paid attention to some of the things that we've had problems with, um, like rands. Rands would come off the rubber rand around the boot or start to flip up at the corner. So we've we're now triple stitching all the rands down and gluing them. So they're glued and triple stitched and, uh, in a big effort to make sure this doesn't happen, and that's been extremely successful in in the three years or so that we've been working with an italian manufacturers that hasn't actually uh haven't had anything like uh any problems at all. I don't think I'm trying to remember now because they I've worked from the uh uk head office and we they come back here everything, all the the uh or any products that have got a fault with them or something, come back here for inspection and they they're either dealt with here or returned to Denmark. So you know, we do see everything absolutely passes through this office and that's absolutely not been one of the problems that we've had. So that has worked extremely well. Wash proofing issues, it's just not been anything like the problem.
Speaker 3:I won't say we can't say that we're 100 percent that we've never had a boot back with a complaint from that it's leaking. But we test everything. We test everything here. We have our own methods and uh, they're they're kind of tried and tested and they and they work and if something is wrong we'll put our hands up, we'll replace it. We give all our boots a two-year warranty, whichever they are from the point of purchase, and uh, if there's something wrong in that time, we'll either fix it or replace it. Um, we've used some new things. Uh, there's a system called u-turn which is like uh, I don't know. Any of your listeners know about boa boots, which is a wire and a dial.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, that kind of came from the snowboarding industry, didn't it? That's the original, original idea, was it? It seemed to be a much faster way of of doing up a boot, and and then it did transition across to the harkila boots is where I first saw it again yes, it's been.
Speaker 3:It's been something that we've um worked. We had boa boots, um we we kind of fell out with with with boa. We decided to part company with them because of the uh, uh, the way that they were working, um, so we found another one. It's actually a danish manufacturer who make workwear boots in in denmark and they have a system called u-turn which is very similar. It's actually slightly simpler and not quite as bulky as the Boa system and it seems to work very well, very well.
Speaker 3:If you're saying that this is the answer to everybody's prayers, you know it's not. Can you snap on one of these very strong laces? It has happened. We've sold thousands of boots. It has happened. Uh, we've sold thousands of boots, uh, and maybe we're getting the. We've had them back in there 20, 30 pairs, something like back with these broken, but we can fix it here straight away and send it back again. We've got all the spares, all the spare bits and pieces. We've not been defeated by one yet. Uh, and it's and it's a great system. It's not. If you're going to climb the eiger, don't use some of these boots no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:They're designed for hunting and and sort of that sort of effect. If you yeah, if you say you want a set of mountain boots, you go out and you buy a set of crampon grade boots that are designed specifically for those conditions, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3:This is a more general purpose boot. Um, it do a bit of everything. They're extremely lightweight. If you see one in a shop, just just pick it up and I guarantee you'll pick it up and your hands will go up and you think, blimey, you're expecting something much heavier than that you. You test it next to another more established, you know, old, old-fashioned made boot and they're probably about, you know, two-thirds the weight.
Speaker 2:I mean well I've got yeah, I've got to say that the new boots. Obviously I had a pair of the just before the transition. I think it would have been the ridge and stuck them on, went and stalked a stag straight up the hill. K-note feet were absolutely fine. They're now 12 months old and again they. They're just like gloves. You put them on and you wear them. You don't realize that you've got your boots on at the end of the day and they're a 10 inch boot and they're so comfortable. And that was it. I love the original, uh, the kevlar boot because of exactly as it was it was. It was a lightweight boot and it was great. But yeah, we, everything, everybody had problems, but it's one of those things. The internet runs wild with it and everybody slags the brand off. So hopefully your new and new design you'll get out there and people will start to take heed and buy boots again.
Speaker 3:We've certainly put a huge, huge amount of effort into trying to rectify these things, find out where we went wrong and what people actually were looking for. And everybody wants a lightweight boot Very few people, okay. If you're again, if you're talking of high mountain climbing, don't get a Boa boot, a U-turn boot. It's not going to do the job that you want it to. Get something heavier, you can fit the crampons on, but for the vast majority of everything else, this is an absolutely perfectly fine boot, and the Ridge is a classic example of that. That was the first one we had made in Italy. There was his brother as well, called ledge, which is a lower boot.
Speaker 2:Those were the first ones and they've been. They've been really really good. No, absolutely. They are so comfortable and they kind of take away. That's the first thing. Most people. You say harkila booting or they're uncomfortable but they're light. But then you say, well, try these. And I know like we were at shooting this weekend and at least four of the team all had harkila boots on. So that's not through me selling them, but they obviously, they've obviously put them on and felt that they're comfortable and and they've taken them and and gone with it and and it's obviously working. So it's great to see so moving that question forward. It's like um, we've obviously talked about Scandinavia and Europe a lot. So how different is the UK market compared to the Scandinavian market? Because obviously we're a completely different breed over here when it comes to our methods of hunting, shooting and all the rest of it that people would buy product for.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think you're right and and you're you're wrong. Uh, we, we are probably more similar to the scandinavians in size and shape. So regarding product fit, etc. Actually that's a very easy transition for us because we are lots of us are descended from scandinavia and somewhere down the line anyway, particularly the people on the north and the east of the country, so that is a big thing on our plus side. If you're telling to the French or the Italians, who are relatively much smaller, that gets a bit more difficult.
Speaker 3:Having said that, the rifle shooting is much, much more popular in this country than it was even a relatively few years ago, you know, 10 years ago. It's grown out of all, all proportion. There are many more rifles and the people that own rifles are very knowledgeable. They don't just it's not a farmer or a gamekeeper with a shotgun and a 2-2 for shooting rabbits and foxes. You know, actually life has moved on massively since then and um, so there's very much more, uh, knowledgeable audience and you know they want the latest thing, they want night vision on their rifle and they want all the latest kit, uh, the latest calibers that come out, their new super duper accurate calibers, and similarly, they want clothing to go with it. And so we are rifle shooting pedigree standards in really really good stead for that. Uh, air rifle shooters as well, um, air rifle shooters, the serious air rifle shooters, are spending a lot of money, hell of a lot of money, on their, on their rifles, and again that they'll they'll relatively happily spend money on good kit to try and keep them dry. It's the driven shooting that is the different part. Otherwise things are, you know, pretty much the same and yeah, we're the only country really that does that. Some of that happens in denmark, there's some in france and a bit in in spain, but really we are that.
Speaker 3:Powers is the powerhouse of the british gun trade and we have had to adapt our products, or um, to suit that market. You know, we we wouldn't have made tweed. Uh, you know, when I started as an agent 18 years ago there was no. There actually was a tweet in the range, but it was a sealand one, not a harkila one. To actually get tweed into the harkila range has taken a very long time, but when it did come, it's a, it's a proper range has taken a very long time, but when it did come it's a, it's a proper. Malaloo's, who are british manufacturer in delft, uh, near oldham. It's an old-fashioned mill. It's 100 wool, it's beautiful, it's gore-tex lined um.
Speaker 2:It's really really good that's interesting to hear because obviously, yeah, there's, there's sort of you've got the, the pattern tweed which is obviously like a printed fabric, which I've got one of the the smocks for. But actually to have a, a genuine tweed, which is, I think, which is the pheasant shooting market, is kind of important because I think there's a feel about it isn't there really? That that you turn up on a day and if you're wearing something there's a bit of a pattern print, it's like, oh, will you stand out a bit, but you, if you're there with an actual woolen tweed, then you don't feel like you're sort of the odd one out at the end of the day?
Speaker 3:no, but the the modern way of doing is to put a membrane inside it so you actually do stay dry and you don't have to make it just so thick and so stinky by the time it gets wet that the water eventually seeps in and it weighs 20 pounds because that's just the scottish hill hillkeepers thing.
Speaker 2:I think we all drag a drag about an extra 20 pounds of water around with us on a wet day.
Speaker 3:I'm absolutely sure you do. I mean it's, if you want to do that, that's absolutely fine. But there are better things out there and, to be honest, the bulk of the business is not scottish shellkeepers, is it's people who who are doing you know a number number of days maybe it's 10, maybe it's 20, whatever it is a year. Who wants something light that they can hang up is going to dry fairly quickly. That's going to keep them the wind out, keep the wet out, and they're going to look smart and they can dress up and, you know, look the part and that's great. That tradition is fantastic. We love it. We support it. We've got a new tweed coming out for 2023 winter season that we're just getting the samples very soon and I'm very much looking forward to that. So we embrace it, but it's not our whole business.
Speaker 2:So, moving on, you were saying about the tweed coming out. What other new products are in the pipeline that we might be able to hear about? Or you can give us a sort of a bit of a snippet on or something that's that's looking good for the future, okay, um, heat products, that is has been really, really successful for us.
Speaker 3:um, with the? Uh, you have a power bank and you put it in in the pocket and it heats up, uh, uh, the the small of your back, and that is a revelation. It's a great. Either jacket or waistcoat in its own right, it'll keep you nice and warm. I bought a jacket and I didn't actually turn it on for a year because I didn't need to. It just didn't get that cold. Last year I did actually turn it on because it was quite chilly up at my little high seat, but that has been extremely successful.
Speaker 3:And there's a number of you know Me Too versions of that that have appeared on the market. There is an upgrade to this. We'll have a Mark II version coming out shortly Not this winter, it'll be the following winter, but even so, that's really exciting development, again pushing the boundaries of what we use use. You'll be able to buy our new heated gloves uh, they're coming out this winter. Um, and that heats the back of your hand so you can still pick up a rifle or a shotgun. They're a little thicker, obviously they're going to keep you warm, but that has a, an individual battery per glove and anybody who suffers from cold hands. Absolutely, this is going to keep you warm, but that has an individual battery per glove and anybody who suffers from cold hands. Absolutely this is going to be the way forward. They're not inexpensive, but they're good.
Speaker 2:That's the key At the end of the day. When you're sat in a high seat or something like that and the snow starts coming down or it's getting that chilly just as the sun's about to go in its last light, everybody feels it. They're trying to tuck their hands in and keep them warm while you're out in a pheasant day.
Speaker 3:So that could be a great product that's going to keep people uh, keep people happy? Yes, yeah, I certainly hope so. I think probably the biggest thing for us this winter is the is. The new is the return of the move jacket. Um, it's, in its secondary incarnation, slightly simpler design than the original one, but that um light five-year pro hunter warranty with it. Um, lightweight is is is great. We had a lot of people coming to us at the game fair um asking us for that and it. Actually it didn't make it in time for the game fair in terms of production coming, but it's here now. So, um, happy days.
Speaker 2:The new move jacket is going to be really big this winter so that's going to, that's going to be sort of the best product, that's the new product that's out there, that every so. Obviously people must have shown an interest. How did you find the game fairs this year? It?
Speaker 3:was well, we don't do many um. We do the scottish uh game fair and then we do the the game for iraqi, all um and we did the stalking show. Um, this year, which was the first time, um very well attended. All all, all of them were were were pretty well attended. The stalking show was kind of a bit of a revelation. It's going to be a much bigger show this year than it is, than it was last year, because it was his first year. Uh, we thought, right, this is bang up our street, we need to stand there and um, so that was good, we'll be there, but we'll be working in conjunction with um retailers this time rather than doing it of our own. Bad um, which is fine.
Speaker 3:Uh, the game fair at ragley hall was all just really, really good. We didn't take the whole range. We worked again with a retailer because we sponsored the gundog trial, as we have our Retrieve gundog range. That was very, very good. We were really really busy for the three days and so it worked extremely well. Scottish Game Fair was not quite as well attended as the previous year because it was very late. The previous year, wasn't it? It was. I didn't go, but my colleague did.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the Scottish Game Fair it was a bit short. It wasn't really a full 12 months between it and I think the late season missed a lot of the keepers were not there because obviously the game season had started and then this year it kind of came back to being a bit it was earlier again, it was back to its normal time and I think people were like, well, we were only there, what felt like last week, so we're not going to go again. And and that's probably where it fell down a bit. It's always a very quiet, more personal game for any way, the the schoon game fair compared to that of like raggedy hall or something and uh, but at least well, it seemed everybody was happy. I think a lot of people's comments that we found were there were a lot more clothes being sold this year rather than anything else at the scottish game fair. So hopefully another 12 months get this covid thing, which pretty much is in the past, out of the way and the Scottish game will return to normal as it should be.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, some people had a. It was very mixed, I think, who did what, who did better or worse, or it was just different. It was a slightly different atmosphere to the previous Scottish game. I'm looking forward to next year's anyway. I'm sure, as you say say, if I return to a more normal, the covid effect will have unwound. I hope and uh, I think we should be back to some normal good trading and and great banter, and I would I would say excellent whiskey yes, exactly right.
Speaker 2:So this moves us on to our sort of our next one. We we see on social media that the European market and the Scandinavians all have their pro staff teams and things like that. The UK, it's one of those things. I don't. It doesn't seem to be, as most manufacturers and suppliers don't seem to have sort of the test teams and things like that. Is there a reason for that? Is it because they're manufacturing it so they put it out to their local sort of guys that are doing it, or is it just a stigmatism of something that's wrong with the UK market?
Speaker 3:No is the answer. That's not it. We did have a pro team and that that included, uh, two english guys. There were, um, or british guys anyway, who were on on the team. Um, I think it was great for them because they got to do some interesting hunting in some, um, very difficult conditions, but actually it was, um, maybe not analytical enough. There wasn't enough chat going on about the way things worked. It was great because they were out there using it, but I think that's probably a better thing to do.
Speaker 3:Next stage down, we have what's called a market board and we have market boards for each country and we have a number of people One of them is one of the same guys, actually who we use and they get together. There's normally three or four of them and they get together and discuss aspects of and they're all brits, uh of the our market and what's happening, what's coming, what's becoming popular like simulated game shooting is becoming a hell of a lot more popular than it was. Some people are being clever and mixing up simulated game shooting with with pheasant shooting or partridge shooting as well. Yes, there's a nice mix coming. People are really thinking outside the the british box, if you like, which I think, is, which I'm all in favor of. I think it's really good to do that. Um, and so they. Similarly, the market board. There's somebody is a is is a renowned. He's in the british trade, he's a excellent shot, he shoots everywhere, all sorts of things, um, and the other guy, another guy's a gamekeeper. One is probably one of the best shotgun shots in the country and there's various people that do this and they they come to our market board with professional eyes, so they are absolutely experts in their version of shooting, whatever it may be.
Speaker 3:And uh, we have these market boards for each of the big countries. We don't have them in every country. Otherwise there'd be 30 different market boards and we never do anything but talk to talk to them. But there's certainly, there's a british one, there's a german one, obviously very heavily um ball shooting, um related and also so dear as well. But they do it in a completely different way. Everything's a different color. It's brown and not green, etc. Etc. The, the danes, the scandinavians very much uh aimed at buck hunting, and buck hunting over there is like our pheasant shooting is here, is their religion and they'll travel all over the world um buck shooting it, and. But we've got those people as well, so the market boards do it from a more professional, probably, angle. That's not being rude to anybody, but we want people who are professional into gun trade.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's probably something that most people wouldn't know about because all they see is they see a group on social media that wear all the kit and it's like they must be getting all of this stuff for free. But actually to hear that explanation of it really does help will help people understand that. Obviously, yeah, you've got a professional set of eyes behind it who are going yeah, this kit does work, this is what we need to develop and how we change it and things go. So actually, yeah, that's really useful, really really good. Um, so what else is sort of future plans, growth etc. For for Harkila going forward?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you know for us in the UK we've still got huge, huge potential here because of the way that we shoot. There's always an opportunity for us to try and exploit that. There's more business there to do particularly with shotguns. Harkila is a rifle shooting brand. That's its DNA. It always will be. That won't change. But actually the balance I think over the next few years you'll see change slightly More towards shotgun shooting, more shotgun shooting product specifically aimed at shotgun shooting.
Speaker 3:Obviously there's a crossover.
Speaker 3:You don't have to use it for that but things that you would normally associate um, it's, you don't have to use it for that, but things that you would normally associate. You'd look at the guy wearing a fleece with big square cartridge pockets and think, me, that's good, that's something you could rough shoot with, something you could simulate a game shoot or uh, but you could do proper game shooting as well if you want to. You're wearing things a different way around. You're wearing a waistcoat on top of a mid-layer and no jacket maybe, and that's very popular. People don't like to wear top coats necessarily to shoot in, unless it's absolutely chucking it down. But we do a very lightweight called the jacket's, called Orton, a very lightweight, stretchy layer that is a waterproof, windproof layer. But people quite often are wearing that with a waistcoat over the top more clay pigeon shooting style, um, for game shooting, because it's so much more comfortable, they're not restricted by the garment and you can have carry you know feasible number of cartridges in your pockets it does seem to be a very common thing.
Speaker 2:Now I know we've we've kind of taken to it up here that you'll wear like a lightweight, waterproof. So I've got a, a harkina jacket that then I'll put my waistcoat over the top of, so you still look smart, but you know, at least underneath that you've got a waterproof layer, which at the weekend we needed because we went from from extreme short sleeve shirts to, uh, to literally tipping it down with rain on a simulated game day. So yeah, it's anything that kind of works, which is kind of where the market is. It's all changed a bit. I think everything's up in the air.
Speaker 3:Definitely, definitely. I think the other thing that's changing noticeably is the number of women that are shooting. I think we would love to equate that to sales of more women's clothing. That's not always the way it works. I think we've learned that there are some things that women will buy from us, uh, and some things they won't, and I think top layers they'll buy from us, uh, mid layers, bottom shirts and things they'll probably go to some, uh, their favorite supplier of these things and get something more, uh, fashionable really, uh, or fashion conscious, yeah, as you see, our suspect slow fashion, I think it's called.
Speaker 2:I think I think so. At the end of the day, yeah, harkil is not not one for for the shirts and the and those sort of layers. I know that you've just released I think it just came through on an email today a whole new selection of base layers that, uh, that are coming out. So I saw that today. But obviously, yeah, it's, it's shirts and stuff like that. I'm sure that the lady shooters will all disappear and buy something that they, like they know fits. That's uh, that's got the right lines at the end of the day yes, I mean that that's.
Speaker 3:That's very important. But I think when it comes to outer layers, that's where we can, we can help, that's where we can do something, and we've got some good uh designs I've seen, you know, for maybe future seasons. Uh, there's certainly going to be more for ladies in in the outerwear um department, so there'll be lighter weight things, um. It's not that they don't exist at the moment, but we've probably not got enough within the range we need. We need more and we need um just to maybe make sure we've got the right amount of outer layers as opposed to under layers, as we had a lot of shirts and fleeces and things like that. We were a bit heavy on that previously, but I think we're getting toward getting it right now there's.
Speaker 2:There's no risk, obviously, that you go down this route. There's no risk of harkila just becoming a bit like some of the let's think about to like the climbing gear you had the north face and things like that. That became a bit more of of a fashion fashion item rather than actually what it was designed to do. There's no risk that harkila's heading down that line.
Speaker 3:Art is there there's no, there's no plans for that. The board, uh directors know that this is. You know, this is where our home is. We are a country and shooting brand and that that's our dna and that's where we're going to go. I'm not sure it translates quite as well as um. You know, tnf north face did um because they're they. You know, skiing and those sort of things are probably a sexier um industry. To cross over from that that's not really what we do, but I I've got to say it's really nice when you go to things like the British Shooting Show and most of the people are wearing Kemco jackets which is one of ours or a Knight or Neuer jump, you know the things that catch on. Or a Sandum waistcoat, those things that are obviously a Harkila product because they're a bit different and that's really gratifying to know that.
Speaker 2:That's good to see. So I think we've asked you enough questions and probably taken up enough of your afternoon. I'm sure you've got other calls to get on to, but thank you ever so much for uh, for spending the time and coming and having a chat with me and uh and yeah, and hopefully people will have uh will get something out of that and learned a few bits that even I've learned today. So, yeah, we can hopefully move it forward from there.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much. It's been nice to do it. It's nice to have your mental tested occasionally on a bit of history, so I'm glad you've enjoyed it. It's been fun doing it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for listening and hopefully, with the christmas holidays coming up, I shall get a few more podcasts recorded. There are definitely guests lined up. It's just trying to tie everybody down and at this day and age everybody seems to be really busy. But we will definitely have some new, exciting content for the new year. Thank you for listening and see you soon.