By Steven Mair
Up-and-coming Glasgow streetwear label BRKT are set to host a pop-up event next month to help grow the fashion community in the city.
The event will feature resellers of mainstream brands such as Yeezy alongside original Glaswegian clothing brands in a space on Hutcheson Street, near the University of Strathclyde campus.
BRKT, founded in 2017, has featured at a number of similar pop-up showcases – including Ross Street Market in the Barras – but this is the first time owner Andi Manderson has taken the helm of organising such an event.
She said: “If you think of Ingram Street where Cruise and END are, it’s just the street coming off it. It’s the street just looking onto the white building with the statues.
“It’s a really good area for who I want to attract, I’ll be putting flyers into END, 18montrose, all those places. I didn’t want to mark up a price for sellers which was too expensive. £35 isn’t too bad and a rail is £10 extra.
“If you sell a jumper there you’ve made your money back, really. In terms of other brands, we have a lot of resellers and there is a big list of local brands.
“The more you look there are so many local brands that have just started out. It’s about introducing them and integrating them into this community, because nobody, or nobody in my experience, can really get going on their own.
“Pop-ups and contacting other brands is the way forward. You can always learn off other people. There’s enough success and money in the world to help each other.”
Having been in operation for two years now, Manderson claims she has learnt through trial and error.
And ahead of a new drop from her label, which will consist of t-shirts and hoodies, the Renfrew creative has had to bounce back from an inner struggle in the label’s leadership.
“Right now our new range is being made, it will be two t-shirts and a hoodie,” she said.
“I wanted to make it quite minimalistic. We’ve not done anything like that before.
“They will arrive in the first week in August but we’ll need to shoot them and then they’ll be for sale mid-August.
“The brand was growing up until Christmas time but I had a lot of stock left over. That’s the mistake a lot of people make early on when they make a brand: over-buying.
“There used to be two of us running it but now it’s just me, and this split happened around Christmas.
Tóce Glasgow will be at the event
“At the start, it was just me then he came and brought forward some ideas which I liked. I always said, ‘keep in mind this is my brand’. But I knew something like this might have happened.
“I said that we shouldn’t have titles to come from this and then he went and put something like ‘CEO of BRKT’ in his Instagram bio.
“I told him to remove it, and he didn’t, so I told him he wasn’t part of the company. It’s weird going from two to one. But I’m back at it now.”
The Glasgow Streetwear Collective pop-up is held on August 25 at 75 Hutcheson Street. In addition to BRKT, brands such as Miraj Eyewear and TÓCE are confirmed as attending. Attendance is free while two spaces remain for sellers.
