Oliver Spencer on The Ups and Downs of Building a Fashion Business

The celebrated menswear designer joins BoF’s Imran Amed to discuss the evolution of his career in fashion from selling secondhand clothes to building his own brands.

Background: 

At first glance, Oliver Spencer’s story might seem like a fashion fairytale. In just a matter of a few years, he went from selling secondhand garments in a stall on London’s Portobello Road to seeing actors wearing his bespoke waistcoats in the 1994 film “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” putting his formalwear label Favourbrook into the spotlight. 

But in the subsequent years, Spencer faced the challenges that come with running an independent fashion brand: from debt to self-doubt while aiming to reach profitability milestones. 

“Small is beautiful. You have to have a certain amount of business turnover to get to these levels, but you don’t need hundreds of millions [of dollars] to run a profitable brand,” says Spencer.

Key Insights:

The British designer’s formalwear background — which includes creating looks for highbrow events like the Royal Ascot — informed his approach to menswear, even given today’s inclinations for toned-down dressing. “Just because you’re wearing casual, doesn’t mean you’re not dressing right,” says Spencer. Even as consumer preferences change, however, Spencer believes it’s just as critical to maintain clear sight of the brand’s original vision as it is to evolve it. “I will have one foot stuck in the past and the rest of my body walking into the future,” he said.    As a small brand, storytelling and working with the right wholesale partners go hand in hand. “The wrong wholesale partner can send the wrong message,” said Spencer. Spencer has ADHD and dyslexia, which he says creates both challenges and opportunities. “You understand how to deal with problems and you understand how to work out a problem in a different way… You can see things in a problem that other people can’t see.”

Additional Resources:

To watch “Four Weddings and a Funeral” click here.Explainer — Why the Menswear Market Is on Fire: From the rise of work from home to the decline of streetwear, BoF unpacks what’s driving the “unprecedented” boom in the men’s market.Where Does the Suit Fit into the Modern Wardrobe? The fate of the traditional suit was already in question long before the pandemic. Where does the market go from here?

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