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