DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN BRAND NAMES

Of course, some brands have a long tradition of making a specialist kind of garment, and their expertise in doing so adds value to their product: Barbour is well-known for its waxed cotton jackets; Sunspel for its underwear; Red Wing for its boots, and so on. But while some brands are built over many years, others become so typically through advertising spend – and that’s money not then invested in, for example, product development.

“Wearing certain brands can make you feel better about yourself but they’re not automatic pointers to quality,” warns Lutwyche. “The value of any brand changes with each generation – and even really big brands experience long phases of low quality.” It’s often because big brands are failing to provide a quality version of a type of garment that a gap opens in the market. Given the access to our wallets provided by the internet now, these gaps are often filled by un-established names you’ve probably never heard of, yet what they make can be of the highest standard, especially if they focus on something specific.

“Every brand tends to claim it does what it does to the highest quality,” notes French. “It’s down to the consumer to consider what a brand stands for and, importantly, whether it can really back those claims up. But it’s down to brands to earn our trust.”