The Casual Connoisseur Blog: MUNDIAL MAGAZINE INTERVIEW.

Interview in full, which is in the current Mundial magazine, our man Dan, talks about hats, hashtag casuals and ailing football clubs.

How did it all start with the Weirs and when did you decide to go full time?

These hats, they are a brand amongst the brand now to be honest. We sometimes wonder whether to say right that's it now and we will do one day. It's something we've just stuck at since we first did them and the way they sell out has got crazier each year, so why stop a good thing? if people want them. We are precious and stuck with the way we've sold them (the nightly releases and limited numbers) but we are a business too.
When we put them up they just go in a few seconds, it's mental, it makes people swear at us on Twitter, it gives us a headache, but it's pretty ace isn't it?
I'm put off by the people buying to simply sell for profit, I'm put off by the people then moaning to us about that, I'm fed up of having to explain that's how they go, but it's just a hat, it's one of loads of different ones we do, and I'm still very happy with how they go and still trying to come up with even more crazier ideas.

What's your proudest achievement to date?

I'm proud of the Overlook, it's a pretty common pattern to see now that, but it wasn't a couple of years back. I just walked past a shop in North London and saw some candles in the window with it on recently. I see it when I close my eyes now. When I first scribbled the idea people around us said it was ridiculous, 'don't do that', but I knew it wasn't, we've sold thousands now, and that's still trying to keep it limited, which it still is. We sent a bunch to the Toronto International Film Festival last year too, they came straight back asking for more, but we couldn't do that. We get asked about this even during the summer months, so will probably still have to revisit this one again! We just sold out of 100 scarves on what was the hottest day of the year thus far.

Who would your dream collab be with?

Good question that, Kanye West. No, seriously I'm joking. I really am.

I don't know really, we did a jacket with 6876 last year which was great for us to do, it's been a long term fave label for me since I could first afford nice clothes and Kenneth is a really nice guy, I dare say a bit of a hero. I'm actually a bit stumped here, I could name one or two personal favourite labels that would be brilliant, but don't want to sound like I'm touting, or begging for it!
The things we have done with other labels so far, have literally just happened through chatting, meeting new people/mates (usually in pubs) and just putting our minds together, I like that aspect of it. We make our own rules and all that.
There's a couple of potential things in the future that would be very cool to do too, if there's anything I have learned, it's not to say a lot first, because people see it and just take it for themselves don't they?

But if any dead good brands are reading this and want to make a coat with us just give us a shout! Deadly serious.

Do you cringe a bit at the word 'casual' or do you think people are too snobby about it?

I guess there's a bit of both there, some things make me cringe 100%, but I see loads of snootyness about it and it's from grown men who've never really been there. I was proud to be part of that thing and though I'd never really label myself like that, it was definitely there. Still is really, it's just progression, we still seek out the best coats and shoes we can find, but as we get older it's not about 'oooh, look at those scruffy c*nts still wearing this and that.......' and it never should be, it's just clothes isn't it? and we all like nice clothes.

Without contradicting myself here, I've always chased mad coats and funny hats and stuff like that, I want something nobody else will have, essentially. That's always been there, that's what it's about, so I expect to get stick sometimes. But you actually get people (men on the internet) saying stuff like 'that's not casual' to certain things they see and it's pretty hilarious to be honest. We've got that coming on a t-shirt soon!
Especially when you actually take a look at them, all the usual casual-by-numbers stuff anybody can buy, at any given time, in any given shop. That is snobbery I guess, but again, that's a part of it. I must seek out that casual rulebook though.

The age we live in now with all the social media, people can re-invent themselves, so there's now thousands of middle aged 'casuals' or 'mods' and kids too. Or hashtag casuals and 'wellends' getting it all a bit wrong. Trainer 'collectors' now, are people who just buy every Adidas re-issue from Size?
Back in the day it was people seeking things out and finding them from afar, these people had their own 'eBay etiquette' on forums, imagine that now? You kind of knew the lads with the best stuff, if not in real life, then at least on the internet, because there wasn't loads and loads of them around and they they spent so long dedicating their time to it, it's never an overnight thing is it? Oh, I'm just going to collect loads of trainers.
Don't get me wrong it's great for the shops and brands I'm sure, it's now it's own market, but there's such a big weird new movement it's all a bit off putting, what you have to remember is we saw all this (to a lesser extent) ten years ago, so it always comes full circle, it's just more in your face now than ever before. That whole 56 hour queing outside a certain shop, just embarrassed me if I'm honest, it's never been about that. That's not casual.

Do either of you still go to watch County or have you fallen out of love with the game?

Funnily enough, we were talking about this recently, there's one or two ever so slightly bitter folk out there who seem go on about that a fair bit, 'they don't go the match', that's our business and nobody elses. Weekend's are precious now to be honest. I'd imagine most people would have done exactly the same had their own team made the greatest piss poor nosedive in their clubs history like ours did.
We're now part time, we're playing regional football and mates of mine reckon they could genuinely get a game sometimes. Now, that's not me saying I simply gave up because we are shit, not at all. I'm a massive fan and spent over twenty years of my life watching my team, I've been there, seen it, done it and made the t-shirt! The kids who jibe at us won't ever witness all those sides of the football we've seen and I've probably been to more grounds than they've had hot dinners. I'm not going to harp on about all that AMF stuff, what was a brilliant idea and vision was eventually a little bit consumed by people missing the point. It's become an easy way to say, 'yeah, AMF, football is wank, now'. I think the one bit of football that's still great is the FA Cup as we recently saw. Every club has their great era, look at Bournemouth now, they were always below us when I was growing up. I did fall out of love with the game, this came before we ended up in the sixth tier.
Ironically, I lost interest after we won at Wembley.
It's another story but as fans we were duped, we're playing Leeds at home one minute, to going into administration the next. It just stopped being fun. We were part of the Trust that ran the club during this era, we mucked in and helped out where we could, a gang of us got together and painted the exterior of the old Main Stand because it was tatty and my brother even designed the kits one year!

We were still keeping that flame burning, or at least trying, when there was only ever a handful of us out every week, it became a chore. We were very lucky with SCFC that the best decade for the club was the 1990's, literally that whole ten years was dramatic for us, promotions, near misses, cup runs, giant killings the whole shebang, I can't not mention being above the current Premiership champions and our near neighbours too. All that coinciding with coming of age, leaving school, college, starting to work, all living for the weekend watching your team. I saw pretty much all of it, totally spoiled there.
Now we're 'giants' for our level, our old ground is like the San Siro compared to everyone we visit. But it's still a struggle for various reasons, debts and mismanagement etc. We shouldn't be there, we all believe that, it should all be about going straight back up, but it doesn't happen. We stopped playing teams from towns and cities and started playing little villages. If this sounds fickle - I'm not bothered, it's great if you're on a roll, winning at all these places with thousands of awayb fans taking over everywhere we go, but if you're getting twatted off them every week you eventually get fed up. You do those grounds once, you don't bother the next season.
Who fancies Lowestoft away in March? just doesn't grab you does it? I've been to Bradford loads of times but never Bradford Park Avenue, I've been chased through a subway by Luton's MIGs, but never Gainsboroughs.

Honestly, hand on heart, if I was the eleven year old me getting into it just now, I more than likely wouldn't go, I wouldn't go anywhere else though. United and City have enough new fans. Nobody brings any away fans, 'come in a taxi', they fucking did. I'm not ashamed to admit the whole lad thing went hand in hand with it in my twenties, I lived it and loved it, but there's more reasons bad than good to knock all that stuff on the head nowadays. Not many of our circle of friends bother these days, any that do, don't often encourage us to go back. I wouldn't wish what's happened to our club on my worst enemies, well, maybe I would actually. Joking. If all of a sudden we had four back to back promotions would I go back again?
Maybe, probably, I don't know. It would never be as good as the 90's though.

Who is the most famous person that has worn a Weir?

The Overlook is the one that springs to mind, we sold probably 50% of these to North America and Canada and few big studios came up on the addresses. We had a guy, Lee Unkrich who I knew did a cool The Shining blog, but later realised he worked for Pixar, he spliced a few subtle The Shining references into the Toy Story films and won an Academy Award for directing the third one. So yeah, an Oscar winner owning one is pretty cool.
Jon Ronson who amongst several things, made the documentary Stanley Kubricks Boxes (2008) got one too.
Chris Hewitt the Empire magazine editor, an actual real pornstar in America (Alexis Fawx) and one of our favourite alternative models a famed Suicide Girl Erica Fouty (aka Phecda) who we actually met last month!
A few dead fit UK models like Lucy Vixen, Kitty Lea and Sabine have got them too. I'm a bit juvenile like that.
The actual twins Lisa and Louise Burns from the film also had them and sent us a photo which, when you think about it, is pretty crazy.

Do you have to pinch yourself at times because you have an incredibly loyal fan base - it's actually bordering on a cult!

It's definitely a cult, with the hats at least. It's superb what we have really, we're very proud of that. A huge chunk of what we do just goes very quickly and it's sold all over the world. I love that, a lot of the time it's the same names, same places and that's what makes it, I think. We've just done it all as and when, very sporadic, no seasonal collections, no long term plans, I prefer working like this with rolling product and releasing things as we make it. Manufacturers don't though, so it's always been a bit of a learning curve and still is. There's plenty of room for improvement too though. On our part, we're still a two man team and need to build on that now we have grown. But on the whole, when we meet other brands and the people behind them they tell us to keep it the way it is, we're quite unique in that respect I guess.