“Upon reflection, was my vision too ambitious? Can a business truly do better for people and planet and achieve commercial success?”
James Bartle, founder of Outland Denim, the sustainable gold coast label favoured by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, remains optimistic but is still looking for answers to Dai’s question.
“You wouldn’t be in this game if you weren’t optimistic,” Bartle says. “We are up against the destruction of culture with fast fashion. A $4 T-shirt from Shein is eroding our humanity.”
In October Outland acquired Nobody Denim, after the melbourne business went into liquidation with debts of $3.6 million.
“There’s no question that if you want to harness sustainability in its truest form its harder and has higher costs,” says Bartle. “But there wouldn’t be any brand that doesn’t have challenges currently.”
“That’s why collaboration is so important. To survive you have to get big or stay niche. To be profitable at a small size, with small margins is hard.” Last year, Outland collaborated with sass & bide co-founder Heidi Middleton’s label ArtClub on a denim capsule collection.
“Acquiring Nobody was about trying to find a better way forward.”
Outland Denim founder James Bartle who…
