You may have noticed different words under our logo
Since we launched, the tagline has been “making jackets for curious minds”. A sort of ethereal, wispy, hint at what I wanted to communicate:
That FRAHM is different - a thoughtful, open minded, more intelligent and real-life brand, that made jackets for to help this - finding space, working, creating, enjoying - life, basically.
Over the Christmas break I had time to let my thoughts settle, and to look back over our first full year in business. I felt my this phrase was too cryptic. If you want to make a first impression, and you hope that your customers will use a phrase to describe you when (if!) they recommended you, I imagined the phrase “making jackets for curious minds” provoking an intrigued silence, rather than “Oh yea, nice, I get it”.
FRAHM is me trying to create something that says what I believe in. I wasn’t saying it clearly enough.
I’d often wrestled with how to communicate how the jackets we make, our charity donations and attitudes to life intermingle as one. So I went back to first principles.
What do I believe in? What did I create FRAHM for? What is my mission? Why the mental health thing? Charity? The way I design? Does it interrelate?
It FEELS like makes sense up here, rolling around inside me. I’m a better designer than copywriter…
My philosophy in life, my aesthetic, my view of everything, particularly post-breakdown, is that life is tough and that makes it more beautiful. We appreciate what we’ve earned, or fought for, or survived.
This pair of scumbags are tough to bring up and exceptionally beautiful (I think)
It’s an optimistic statement - that we can use what hurts us to makes us better, happier - that is doesn’t crush us, but (eventually) evolve each of us.
I've been saying the phrase “tough beautiful” to myself for years. I look for Tough Beautiful things. I describe elements of FRAHM jackets, like buttons or labels, like that.
This image defines what I love to design. Tough Beautiful
I wrote a poem (RUN! HIDE!) in my head over Christmas, for no reason other than it felt good to get it down - to be creative. I had to push myself to show you, because, well, as hard as I try, I’m still not immune to embarrassment.
Having written it down, I realised I’d found what FRAHM was, after all.
Nick.
Tough Beautiful
Everything worth having is as tough as it is beautiful
Without a fight, you don’t appreciate what you have
No context
Everything I value was tough to get
Tough to keep
Tough to imagine losing
So I try harder
Trying makes you feel good
Everything I value is beautiful
Beautiful to be with
Beautiful to see
Beautiful to hear
Beautiful to think of
My wife is tough
She has muscles, grit, determination, steel
A survivor, a fighter
My wife is more beautiful for the things she and we have been through
My sport is tough
The beauty of cycling for me is not giving up
Finding new places to go, literally, metaphorically
Landscapes, lactic acid, driving rain, mucky face, new thoughts, self respect
Ravenous roadside meals that never tasted better
A tough ride is more beautiful
A breakdown is tough
It is anguish
You are forced into a pit you think you’ll never climb out of
But you can, I did, you will
Now I see the world as more beautiful
Pain offers context
All the shiny surface bullshit stripped away
From possessions to love
What others think of me is swapped for what I can do for others
My life defined by work becomes my life defined by family
About work…. I love it still
Why did I choose to start this business?
Trying is tough
Which makes it beautiful
I create, I try, I fail, I try again, it grows, I grow
Running away is my ugly
Glamour isn’t beautiful
Taking the easy option is weak
Tough isn’t nasty
I love things that work, that last, that do a job - that is beauty
Fast fashion is ugly
An instant gratification
A facile cocaine blast
I want form & function
Tough buttons, tough zips, tough stitching
Beautiful buttons, beautiful zips, beautiful stitching
They coalesce
Tough Beautiful is everywhere
I moved to our new office to be nearer beauty. One swan hit a power line that night and died. It's partner hasn't been seen. There is no escaping many of life's horrors, but we can see more beauty and celebrate it
A roaring fire in a storm, hiking through pine forests, surviving grief, writing your memoirs, buttons, fabric
Our jackets are tough and beautiful because real life is too
Instead of denial through escapism or fast fashion consumerism, we want to embrace real life and the important stuff
Striving, fighting, losing, improving, running, making, moving, working, loving
These things are tough and they are beautiful
