Huelwear launches today (19th April)

Huel updates
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I’m nervous but excited.

Today is the global launch of a brand new product line Huelwear…clothes for the conscious

> “Sustainable style from the ground up. No seasons, no animal products. Just planet-kind clothes with minimal impact on animals and the environment.”

At first you might say WTF? But let me explain…

Since the launch of Huel over 6 years we have had a very small clothing range, tees, hoodies, etc. often Hueligans asked me to expand the range, but I resisted to focus on our core food range. But now we’re bigger, we are able to take on more audacious challenges. It’s no secret that fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries, and has a lot of unethical practices.

  • Child and slave labour
  • Burning clothing - company burning excess stock
  • Fast fashion has increased the number of fashion seasons from 1 to 52 per year!! - we keep buying to try and keep up with fashion, even though we have on average 5 times as many clothes as our grandparents
  • 7 wears is the average before an item is tossed away. Clothing now low quality and cheap so seen as disposable
  • Billions of animals suffer and die for clothing and accessories. (peta)
  • Only 15% clothes are recycled or donated
  • 20,000 people die of cancer and miscarriages every year due to chemicals sprayed on non-organic cotton (World Health Organisatio)
  • Inhuman working hour - garment working are forced to work 14 to 16 hours 7 days a week
  • Their basic wages are so low they cant refuse overtime

But it doesn’t have to be. So we’ve created 8 pillars of sustainability.

1. Timeless style, not fast fashion
2. Animal-free
3. Repair or recycle
4. Traceable, instead of a Hidden supply chain
5. Built to last, 5-year guarantee
6. Minimal impact to environment
7. Holistic approach no short cuts
8. Ethically made

This might seem like a big risk for Huel, we are entering a highly competitive space, we are a food brand with little experience of clothing, but if you’re not failing you’re not trying hard enough, and you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, Wayne Gretzky.

There is no doubt in my mind that the fashion industry needs a massive shake up and hand on heart I believe we can make a difference. Maybe I’m being naive but I see naivety as a strength. It forces us to think differently, starting with a clean sheet of paper and first principles we can change how things are done for the better.

We are going to adopt one of my favourite principles… 1000 true fans. Going that extra mile with the aim of creating true fans, not just customers. And build from there.

Find out more…
Huelwear homepage
Our approach to sustainability

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Ouch! :grimacing: Love the ethos @Julian but these are priced way out of my league.

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Like the certifications and subtle design. Would have liked merino wool but aye, not vegan.

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Guess the reasoning behind that is that people will only buy one item and wear it every day for 5 years, rather than buy 500 items and wear them for 10 minutes each.

I thought the price point is a a bit too high to give it mass appeal. Having said that, I was surprised to do a quick Google search and find less ethical products around that price point, so expensive clothes do sell it seems. I don’t really follow fashion and buy a lot of my clothes second hand…because it’s more environmentally friendly than for any other reason.

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I hear you @Bee

A few points… we make the same margin on clothes as we do on food, so in my eyes this is the going rate if you same quality, sustainability, ethical production, and traceability that Huelwear offers.

Yes you can get much cheaper clothes but will cost per use and quality stack up against the Huelwear range?

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I think that given the provenance and approach to sourcing; the pricing is actually quite good.

It’s certainly similar to Patagonia with many of the same claims/offers being made.

Standouts: I’m really happy to see specific use of eco friendly dyes rather than just ‘natural’, audited factories, certifications, lot of boxes ticked for me.

It’s all very muted though, I’d have quite liked to see more colours available. Also a little disappointed with the gender specific hoodies, and it’s a shame that none of it could be made in the UK. But small points, overall quite impressed and like that Huel is willing to take chances like this rather than just hooking up to teespring or whatever for merch.

soon be launching a circular programme to reuse clothes that have reached the end of their life by transforming them into brand new products

Surely you won’t need this for about five years? :wink:

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The pricing is kind of nuts, and I’m not entirely sure who the products are aimed at… what is a true fan? Sorry really don’t mean to be negative and I hope you do really well with these but I’ll stick with the powders!

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I quite like the selection and would consider ordering jeans and a T-shirt. Will you be adding more sizes to the jeans like 30 inseam and 31 waist?

Delivery is free but I suppose return costs are on the customer?

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not sure about 31 inch waist but we are definitely planning to have 30 inch inseam, I want that too :slight_smile:

free delivery and free returns in general, but it does on where you live.

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How is the situation for EU customers and Finland in more specific?

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Same here @Bee

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Have you stopped selling the clothing products that you were selling?

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I love the idea but these aren’t the sort of prices I can justify, sadly.

I’ll continue to do the best thing for the environment and continue to wear the clothes I have for as long as possible. He says whilst in a pair of trousers he bought when 15 (now 38!), admittedly they’ve seen better days but they still have a lot of life in them and continue to fit. No expanding waistband here, thanks Huel :wink:

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I too make my clothes last for years. I’ve never been fashion conscious and wear stuff I feel comfortable in.

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Just made an order, review of fit and quality as soon as items received.

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I’ve had my old reliable black skinny jeans for 10 years (along with an assortment of oversized black long sleeves). I don’t buy clothes often but when I do I’m generally happy to pay a bit more to know that it’s ethically sourced and durable.

I can understand the pricing, it’s sadly extortionate to buy ethically. But it’s still too much to make any kind of impulse purchase (or maybe any purchase at all?). Maybe at some point in the future I’ll pick something up though. I do really like the ethos behind this idea.

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Well, the prices are pretty much on the low to middle end of other branded sustainable materials/organic gear – comparing to something like Nike’s sustainable line, a standard tee is £49-84, a performance tee is £70-£135 and hoodie £65-£249 vs equivalent Huel prices of £45, £44 and £95 respectively – so no real problems there.

I’d really like to see the performance fabrics offered in more styles and same size ranges as the other garments though. I really love low maintenance (less power, water and detergent to wash, dry fast and don’t need pressing) clothes like these.

yup - same here - curse of the long body :rofl:

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I’m curious why this disappoints you. Anyone can wear either hoodie and personally I get frustrated with unisex/men’s hoodies that are shaped wrong for me. Women’s fit T-shirts and hoodies are designed to come in at the waist and are more flattering for many, obviously not all, women

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I believe they are interchangeable. Size up with the ‘female’ hoodie if you wear mens sizes. And visa versa. It’s a relaxed fit so you should be fine! Pretty sure @JamesM_Huel has been seen wearing the pullover hoodie around HQ.

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As I said above I thought the prices were quite high, until I Googled it and realised they weren’t - it’s surprising hoe expensive clothes can be, and I do like the ethos behind it as @Herbivore said.

I also like the branding and watched all the videos at factories on YouTube yesterday evening.

For many people they weill be too expensive though. I never realised that people wear clothes so little - 7 times before binning… and this is why I buy much of mine second hand. I tend to have 4 pairs of shorts which I wear from mid-March to mid-October; about a dozen t-shirts some I’ve had for years. Jeans and hoodies in the winter. Baseball caps and military caps in the summer and beanies in the winter. I have 3 winter coats - one is Hoodlamb which I bought new; the others second hand. I did buy new a lightweight Northface thermoball jacket a few years ago and that’s good for travelling and has had a lot of use. I bought a suit from eBay about 15 years ago and that’s done me fine all the time I need to dress smartly - weddings, funerals, rare business meetings.

It will need a huge cultural shift though to get people out of the mindset of buying fast fashion that can be very cheap on the pocket yet expensive on the planet, and instead buying ethical expensive products,

It’s interesting but I’d imagine hard to do; people are quite fickle. It’s like I see on this forum, people who have discovered Huel and to them it’s the best thing ever - they rave about it constantly for a few months and then we never hear from them again. It could be that they are quietly enjoying and supporting Huel in the background, or it could be just a fad for many of them, I dunno. Personally I thought to make the clothing brand successful (considering the amount of investment spent in getting it launched) you need more customers and repeat customers.

Having 1000 fans who may spend £1000 per year may make a solid living for a small business, but the clothing and complete meal sectors are very competitive and saturated, so you have to spend so much on promotion (as Huel has done and continues to do). You have to really build momentum and keep it growing.

To me that’s difficult if you don’t constantly have new customers coming at you. And if clothes have a 5 year warranty - you have to keep inventing new styles cos your true fans won’t need to keep buying jeans every 6 months - and if they do, then their environmental impact is contradictory to your aims.

I dunno, I think there’s a book out there about it. I haven’t read it - maybe I should rather than waste my time reading books by Shaun Ryder and Skin from Skunk Anansie, and far from me to tell Julian how to run his business - he seems to have it working pretty f*cking well really. Maybe naivety is my strength.

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