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Super-slick branding, but then from retired ad execs, so it should be. If mugs will pay £140 for a hat and scarf, then who can blame Howies for charging it?
Most of the stuff Ive bought or Mrs B has bought have got holes in. Not with in weeks but in less than a year. Why not send it back? Well its a year old so hows that going to stand up as a complaint? Though I have T shirts that are decades old.
Yes their stuff is right on and in principle its a good thing to buy it, but to me it seems there is a hefy 'right on tax' on the price.
Without getting too northern I think they are taking the piss
Isn't most the clobber made in China, Portugal and Turkey? Jeans are good if a little odd in sizing; everything else has gone downhill in the last 2 years.
I used to think it was pretty cool stuff, in fact I think they were once voted the coolest brand of the year or something similar.
However, I once saw a chubby guy in his 50's, wearing a leather jacket and a Howies T, oh he must of though he was so 'cool', 'hip' and 'down' with it...
However, I once saw a chubby guy in his 50's, wearing a leather jacket and a Howies T, oh he must of though he was so 'cool', 'hip' and 'down' with it...
do you propose a set of scales and an entrance exam for all prospective purchasers?
i like some of their stuff. i have jeans n tshirts n merino
i`d never buy full price. and the ethos branding is a bit iffy.
@ Stoner, no I don't. If my dad walked in wearing a Howies T I'd tell him take it off! 😉
I used to be a massive fan, but in the last two years or so prices have massively gone up and quality has gone down, hence now they are just another overpriced fashion brand and offer nothing different from your YSL's and Ben Shermans.
I've got a few Howies things and though they are on the expensive side, I'm not sure it's fair to single them out for that- I don't think their jeans are [i]that[/i] much more expensive than, say, a pair of Levis. The stuff I have is on course to last a good while and since I don't buy many clothes I suppose to a certain extent I subscribe to the "buy better, buy less" thing.
It's also a bit too simple to say "Aha! But how can you be all ethical when your stuff isn't made by craftsmen in Wales from locally-sourced materials?" Inevitably ethics have to be balanced with reality- at least they're trying.
That said, the relationship between the ticket price and the extra costs involved in using organic stuff etc. could maybe be a bit clearer. And I'd have to say that in the last couple of catalogues very little has appealed to me.
hey tim! how come all your adds with bikes in never have the cyclist in a helmet? (in your catalogue... just out of interest)
Possibly because it is a fashion clothing catalogue and not a leaflet produced by the Department For Nagging and Bothersome Tedium. Anyone who makes their decision not to wear a cycle helmet based on the fact that a Howies jeans model doesn't is beyond worrying about. 🙂
hey tracknicko! I ride my bike while wearing Howies jeans and no helmet!
I bought my first ever full price Howies stuff recently. A pair of ethnic peace trousers, sorry jeans. Worth every penny.
I get frustrated about the blokes v. girls range.... Lots of cool outdoorsy ruggedy stuff for the guys and flowery skirts for the girls. I want outdoorsy ruggedy stuff too 🙁
I have bought some howies stuff over the years, first piece was a H logo t shirt from bike 99 i think which i still have, got an outback jacket and a base layer. jacket is good but stitching issues. I also had some of the merino boxers that fell apart after litle use , need to get the Gf to send them back actually. For the last three years they have not offered any technical or innotive clothes, just jeans , t shirts and jumpers etc. There seams very little creativity in this department and I believe this has caused the move towards the fashion market. Everybody says that they would ever buy howies at full price, which I think best demonstrates that it is over priced. In summary I was once a loyal howies customer , I no longer buy their stuff.
Howies have had their 'niche' day and now they're just another overpriced label
Make some nice gear... Think they need to go back a little as to what made them different and it wasnt just save the whales.
Their jeans are really nice except they are not made for me, my large thighs mean that even with a waist 3" to big they are tight round the top of my legs and arse! Not Howies fault I know but if other makes fit seems strange that they are miles off.
Oh and 18mths and STILL leaking dye so cannot wash them with anything else which kind of makes a mockery of the whole eco thing?
Oh and yes cost does seem a little prohibitive at least at the moment... Surely with the financial clout (spelling) of Timberland behind price should come down even with fairtrade stickers all over them.
you realise the MASSIVE irony of what you are saying there big dummy?
do you?
Too expensive... simple
Who care where its made, I Don't 😯
they should do a "value" range like Tescos.
No tracknicko, not really. Why don't you tell me all about it? 🙂
Wear Howies if you want to look like a child!!! 😈
But the expensive range is nothing special!
As for the casual clothing, it looks like stuff from Top Man. 🙄
maybe ill leave you to it dummy. have a little think eh?
Can't be arsed, sorry. I bet it's jolly clever though. 🙂
actually their base layers are really very good! Much better than the Nike one I have and the karrimor one.
I have bought the odd merino top. Lots of money but its good. The fashion items like jeans i can leave to people with more money than sense. Their catalogues are ace though, if I could buy a catalogue without having to buy an item of seperate clothing i might well consider it.
All round a very clever marketing company. Nothing matters now though cos they are owned by Timberland
Used to like there stuff, haven't seen much recently that I've liked, academic really though as they are now so expensive I can't afford them anyway.
Trousers are too long. They need to do a short in more than just one pair. IF ANYONE IS LISTENING TIM.
And I have normal length legs..
Nothing matters now though cos they are owned by Timberland
How's that then?
Timberland are planet rapists of the first order, busy trying to buy themselves a green veneer.
Howies have gone the same way as TNF, sold out, still make the odd good bit of kit, mostly labelwhoredom and overpriced dross now IMO.
I've had a fair amount of their kit and casual clothing for the past 10-11 years, mixed bag really, some great, some shoddy.
Went to the Howies sample sale - 3 T-Shirts for £25 🙂
3 times in the last month I've called howies about a business matter and no one has answered the phone 🙄
but to me it seems there is a hefy 'right on tax' on the price.
What bollocks. We just expect everything to be cheap since manaacturing got shipped to Asia where the lack of environmental and social regulation means people are paid pennies to do what a UK workforce legally requires a minimum wage for. Sure its expensive, but as Tim's post says it is also justified. Make your choice, but there's no need to keep harping on about it.
Timberland are planet rapists of the first order, busy trying to buy themselves a green veneer.
I did some work with suppliers of Timberland store outfitters and they had a genuinely sustainable approach to their procurement and construction. A lot better than other greenwashers.
Timberland are planet rapists of the first order, busy trying to buy themselves a green veneer.Howies have gone the same way as TNF, sold out, still make the odd good bit of kit, mostly labelwhoredom and overpriced dross now IMO.
Are they all that bad?
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/timberland_sets.php
Obviously that article is no more gospel than anything else on the internet but there seem to be worse people Howies could've "sold out" too.
Erm, only buy wool jumpers & jeans from them now. Reason being is soo much of their stuff shrinks in the wash - & not just a bit. Jeans seem to loose 2" on the leg on 1st wash. A fair selection shirts & t-shirts that have also shrank.
Wife reckons it's the cheapness of the cotton.
Was this thread started by some one from howies? As yesterday I wore a howies shirt and today I am wearing a howies T and Jumper.... mmmmm and I even found myself surfing their www earlier.
The plot thickens!
Bought a coat in their sale maybe a year or less ago. Its a nice coat, no way its worth the full price though. Not worn it all that much over the summer and washed it once on a gentle wash. It has almost no resemblance to its original colour though which was a lovely bluish (it faded before washing, I was trying to brighten it up). Its just a dull flat grey as its dye is such poor quality that all the colour tone has gone from it, so it looks dirty all the time now even after I washed it. I have never had any other coat fade in such a way. Wondering if I should try re-dying it, but really, a product should be better than this.
What bollocks. We just expect everything to be cheap since manaacturing got shipped to Asia where the lack of environmental and social regulation means people are paid pennies to do what a UK workforce legally requires a minimum wage for. Sure its expensive, but as Tim's post says it is also justified. Make your choice, but there's no need to keep harping on about it.
sums it up quite well for me. Thanks.
It's not overpriced. It is our perception of cost and value that is skewed.
Just buy less of it - we don't really need so many clothes in the shops. Most of it is crap anyway, at least Howies 'try' to make smaller ranges of clothes that last longer. (IME). My Levi's - same price as my Howies jeans are rubbish, falling apart in less than 10 months so actually A LOT more expensive than my Howies ones long term.
A well, it's a circular argument again, everyone feels differently.
3 times in the last month I've called howies about a business matter and no one has answered the phone
They're reading your posts on here and deliberately avoiding you, what with your ethics and all.
I've contributed enough times on Howies threads, so I'll shorten my general response:
1. Howies carved out a niche, selling a certain style of casual clothes using lifestyle as branding
2. Outdoors sports types (including mountain bikers) take their fashion cues from others around them and the magazines they read
3. Howies features in the magazines they read. Howies seems cool, beacuse it "makes clothes for people like us"
4. Howies founders eventually exit their business - everyone shocked that people in business want to make some money out of it
5. Howies gets a kicking from the nichemonger MTBers who've moved ontt he latest brands-so-cool-they-don't-even-exist-yet
Some of Howies quality is good, other stuff is less so. Caveat Emptor. You don't *have* to buy the stuff. Mountain biking is only a lifestyle "sport" anyway.
I've got quite a lot of howies stuff, it's kind of accumulated over the years. Lots I bought in sales, some I didn't. I quite like what they do in terms of the wider philsophy etc, as it's my field of work. But it's just clothing, if you don't like it/ think it's too expensive, whatever, then don't buy it.
[i]What bollocks. We just expect everything to be cheap since manaacturing got shipped to Asia where the lack of environmental and social regulation means people are paid pennies to do what a UK workforce legally requires a minimum wage for. Sure its expensive, but as Tim's post says it is also justified. Make your choice, but there's no need to keep harping on about it.[/i]
Bollocks back, I can go out and order a custom made ventile jacket, cut straight from a roll of ventile (which all comes from one or two small factories anyway) and sewn in a mill in Lancashire for half the price of a jacket from Howies - the 'howies premium' is all about a fashion label, nothing else
Z11 - surely they are only doing what businesses do... supplying a good or service at a profit. Fashion labels such as Prada etc do this a lot 'better' than Howies who actually take the time to make sure what they are making fits in with the principles of the business.
If those principles are important to you then thats what you buy. If not then you have options, thats the joy of a free market economy.
I bet they work on harder margins than just about any other fashion label. Plus, the jeans make your arse look well hot so they are well worth buying! 😀
imo their stuff is good. expensive but good. if you are concerned about the ethics of your clothing, and you earn enough to choose to pay more, then Howies is good stuff.
personaly I want my clothes to last, and to have been made by people who care about sustainability.
I don't buy fashion, since the fashion goes out of fashion. well designed and well made stuff is always stlishly functional.
I try to buy localy designed and localy poduced stuff.
why buy 3 pairs of cheap jeans that wear out and cost the planet, when a single pair of well made jeans does the job with less impact to the plant?
Was this thread started by some one from howies?
No, but it had been dead 2 months before someone from Howies revived it and bumped it up the page.
today I am wearing a howies T and Jumper.... mmmmm and I even found myself surfing their www earlier.The plot thickens!
And only 2 weeks until Christmas too...
I've got two of their merino tops, it does wash better than the other merino I have. (doesn't shrink and keeps it's shape)
Tim march - perhaps you could get someone to reply to my email regarding the Alder short - thanks.