The Grey NATO - Ep 57 - Abe Burmeister Of Outlier
Published on Tue, 17 Apr 2018 09:00:03 -0400
Synopsis
This episode of The Graynado covers a variety of topics related to travel, adventure, gear, and watches. The hosts discuss new clothing items like shirts and jackets from Alps & Meters, a new flashlight from Muyshondt, and a dive watch from Zelos. They talk about books like reprints of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and a new coffee table book about the Clipperton Island expedition. They also recommend following photographers like Jeff Coombs and Robert Spangle on Instagram, and using paracord for lightweight camera straps. The main segment is an interview with Abe Burmeister, founder of the technical clothing brand Outlier, where he discusses the origins of the company, their design philosophy, and use of innovative materials.
Links
Transcript
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| James Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 57 and we thank you for listening. How's it going, Jason? |
| Jason Heaton | Good. Yeah. You feeling more human again after our last show? |
| James Stacey | Yeah. You know, I battled a cold for a little while, but I think I'm on the other side of it. Just kind of the, the elastic effect of coming back from the travel. And then, you know, spring with kids, there's always colds, that sort of thing. So it's good to feel on the rebound from that. And spring's looking great. Finally had some really nice days here in Vancouver. So, you know, they had closed the seawall, which is near where I live is False Creek, which is kind of like a body of water that comes partway into the city. And all along it, And then pretty much all along the perimeter of various parts of Vancouver is the seawall. It's a walking, running, biking path. Yeah. And they closed the section closest to my house for some time, seven, eight months maybe. Why? Just to revamp and kind of like beautification and put in some fencing and split the path. They want to do more split path to keep the bikes away from the strollers, the runners, that kind of thing. Yeah. And and so that just reopened probably within a day or two of coming back from Basel. I walked down the hill from my house to the seawall for a run. And for a while, I'd been running along kind of a service road and then through the woods a little bit and then down to the part of the path that was still open. Yeah. And now I walked down and the path was open. And so I've been really enjoying. We had a couple of nice days and the seawall open back, back to runs, all that kind of thing. It's a it's good. I really can't wait to get hiking. That's what's that's what's really weighing on me at this point. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, so lots of snow. Send some good weather here. Yeah. We speaking of snow, we've we've got another snowstorm incredibly slated for this weekend. Wow. So mid-April snow in Minneapolis is, it's not unheard of, but we've still got a good, I don't know, geez, I look at our backyard out the window here, we've probably got a good four or five inches still on the ground. So it's a, that's bonkers. Yeah. It's crazy. It feels like, you know, early March instead of mid-April. I'm kind of ready to be done, but yeah, that's all right. |
| James Stacey | I think you said that. I think, I think I have it on record that you said you were pretty much done with this like two or three, two or three episodes ago. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. As I posted on Instagram a while back, you know, you just have to kind of lean into it a bit, you know. So I went out skiing last week and, you know, I guess there's sort of a novelty effect to getting on skis in April. But yeah, it's time. I want to get the bike out and, you know, do stuff like that. Paddle the creek, which is still frozen and that sort of stuff. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, for sure. So last episode was obviously the Big Basel episode, so we didn't do any sort of like new business or recap. I kind of feel like it's been a while since we've just chatted about, you know, kind of stuff and things and whatever's kind of coming and going. Yeah. You want to give that a spin? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do that. I can kick it off. Speaking of skiing, you know, earlier in the winter, I had, it was actually well, well early in the winter. It was before we went to Colorado. I talked briefly on the show about this company Alps and Meters that makes this kind of high-end, sort of vintage inspired, to use kind of a watch industry term, ski wear. And, you know, during the winter I was kind of wearing a couple of their sweaters and those really awesome tweed suspended ski pants. Well, they've come out with a spring, what they call the touring collection. I think they're kind of trying to expand their I guess their audience or their reach from strictly kind of winter skiing clothing. And this touring collection is sort of a set of shirts and a vest that can kind of be used more in spring and probably even into summer for a couple of the items. And they were kind enough to send me a small collection of stuff to try out for kind of these warmer months. And I got to say, it's really nice. Um, they sent me the, uh, the touring Henley, uh, the crew and the Oxford. All three are made from a really fine weave of, of Merino wool. And you know, you and I, I think we've talked in the past about, you know, Merino wool t-shirts and kind of base layers and, and I love Merino and I know you do too. It's, it's a great material for, for stuff, but I've always found it a little bit, um, I don't know, the itchiness is kind of a thing of the past. I think brands have sorted out the itchiness of Merino, but the kind of the general feel has always been a little bit sort of drapey and slippery. And especially the Oxford that they sent me, I had to check like three or four times to actually confirm that it's Merino because it feels almost like if you can envision or imagine what like kind of a rough linen shirt would feel like, sort of that slubby, sort of slightly rough texture, but very light, lightweight. These shirts have that feel to them and it's really amazing. I've never felt merino quite like this. And I think there'll be pretty versatile pieces that the Henley of course is, uh, um, you know, the long sleeves with the button placket and no collar. And then the crew is just a short sleeve t-shirt. Um, and then the Oxford is a button down shirt with, with a button down collar. And what's kind of neat about all of them is that they have these sort of contrast sections of the of the shirts where they've put some sort of technical material as reinforcement so on like the forearms and elbows and then on the on all three of them they put kind of a reinforcement sort of panel up on the right shoulder which you know ostensibly they say is for shouldering a pair of skis or something if you're if you're walking with a pair of skis but I just think it kind of looks neat it has that sort of techy vibe but not over the top Like the Oxford, it looks like, it's neat because it sort of has the silhouette of a dress shirt. Buttons down, button down collar, button and cuffs. But then the panel kind of over the left chest where you have a pocket is actually a vertically zippered pocket behind this tech material. And it has kind of a tethered wipe for a lens or for goggles or glasses or whatever. And then this Reinforcement on the forearms and the and the right shoulder. So it kind of hits that refined rugged sort of casual Vibe that that I really like and and so far it's uh, it's been great Now our weather here has been you know, maximum 40s and up to maybe 50 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's not Hasn't been terribly warm. So I'll be curious to see how the the t-shirt and the Henley especially where when when weather gets into the 60s and 70s might be too warm, but I'm eager to find out and and it's it's just just like the the winter ski stuff that they sent me It's it's super well made really kind of neat little attention to detail a little leather Hang kind of loop on the back of the of the Oxford and stuff like that. |
| James Stacey | So I like the look of the Oxford a lot Yeah, yeah, that's a really cool-looking shirt kind of has like a bond at Skyfall. Yeah Yeah, you know under under like a barber or a bell staff or something like that. Like it's just a Yeah, it's cool. It's a good look. That touring vest I think looks really cool too with the big chest pocket. It's so cool. It's sort of that lacing. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what I would put in that pocket, like maybe a sandwich. I don't know. I'm not really sure what you put in that pocket because you can't like cram a camera or something in there. I guess your gloves, that sort of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, you'd look like you have kind of a big belly if you start to put too much in there. Yeah, exactly. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Another another vest. I don't yeah, it's uh, I their stuff just looks fantastic. So it's nice to hear that. It's well-made. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, thanks again to them for sending that over. Um, not quite sure what I've done to deserve it, but you know, I'm happy to chat about the products on the show and, uh, and just try it out and give them feedback. And, and, uh, I just really like what they're doing. I think, um, especially given kind of the main theme of today's show where you've got a discussion with, uh, with the guy from Outlier. I think, you know, we both have an appreciation for these, these brands that are doing something a little differently with, uh, with clothing. So, um, yeah, for sure. How about you? What, uh, what's new? |
| James Stacey | Uh, let's see, I guess the first in is, uh, Enrique at Michant sent me a new, new flashlight. So talking about, you know, really nice high-end sort of, uh, enthusiast product, uh, with a lot of nice details. This is the new, uh, it's, so it's the Aeon Mark III. which I've spoken about before, I've had in both aluminum and in copper. And this is now the titanium version. So it's been a couple of years since they offered a titanium version. And I think this is the first time they've offered it as a Mark III. Yeah. And so this is the S2 titanium is what it's called. It's on pre-order currently. And so, you know, at this point, I guess I've tried all four roughly of their sizing from the Maus all the way up to the Flieger. Yeah. And the Aeon is the one that I actually carry. It's just the right size. You know, if I'm traveling, I can put something like a Beagle in a bag. Yeah. And then it's amazing if you have to walk down a dark street. I used the Beagle a bunch in Basel. It's just a handy size and it's a ton of power. But for more everyday use around the house, looking in a box under the desk or something like that, I really like the Aeon. And in titanium, it weighs nothing. It feels fantastic. They've made a few subtle changes to the body. There's no more knurling. It's a, it's a cleaner sort of finish. And, uh, the tail switch has been slightly changed as has the like custom light engine. I would say that if, if you're looking for kind of the most pocketable, but powerful version of a Machant, uh, torch, the, uh, the, the Mark III would be, uh, would be a pretty good, uh, choice in that range. You know, they're not very big. They run on a CR2 battery, which would give you an idea of their size, but they're about two and a half inches long, 1.5 ounces in this, in this build. And it really feels like, like a solid thing. This has a sapphire crystal as well. And then of course, these are the one, the Aeon was the one that they tested in near space, attached it to a balloon, I believe, and went up 31 and a half kilometers. Wow. That's crazy. negative 48 Celsius. I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit. At a certain point, they converge. I think it's right around there. Yeah. And, you know, when it came back to Earth, it was still functional and that sort of thing. So, you know, we've talked a lot over the years about Michant's stuff, and I absolutely love what Enrique is up to. I love his fascination with detail and quality and not unlike some of the discussions I get into with Abe from Outlier. I think, Jason, you and I have fascinations for people who attempt to do things better than everyone else. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and don't get me wrong, it's easy to look at a, at a Machant flashlight and see the price because they're definitely expensive, but you're buying kind of a singular vision. Yeah. And, uh, and in many ways, uh, the effect of one man's kind of very passionate push towards making something better than what he could find on the market available. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I think also what's neat about brands like we're talking about here, whether it's Outlier or Machant or Alps and Meters. These are the types of products that there's really excellent well-made craftsman type stuff that used to be, you know, for a number of reasons, kind of more of the province of the big luxury brands. You know, it was just to kind of circle around the kind of the world that we live in, the watch space. you know, there's kind of parallel in looking at what say a unimatic is doing versus, um, you know, in the past it would have just been, um, you know, you would have only been looking at Seiko or Omega or something like that. And it's, I love this, I don't want to call it trickle down, but I love the, I guess it's more of a rise of the, um, or a return to kind of individual craftsmanship. And I think what's happened is with the internet, the ability to find these, these brands, you know, social media and that sort of thing, as well as kind of the enhanced ability for things to get 3D printed and prototyped and built around the world has opened up all of this opportunity for these brands and for us to find them. And I think it's great. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think it's exciting to get a chance to check them out. And, you know, especially with products where they're only available online, it can be hard to kind of see one in person. You might see them on Instagram, something like that. It's fun to try and you know, communicate a little bit of the experience through something like the show, whether that's clothing or a flashlight or something like watches. I hope it's what we can achieve long-term with stuff like this. But thank you very much to Enrique for sending that. Obviously, it's a treat to have any of his torches in hand. They're not like anything else. And I like how kind of intensely detailed they are. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. I still have the Flieger that he sent me a year or two ago. They just feel heavy in hand. You know, I love that for anybody that appreciates kind of a heavier watch or pen or anything like that. It has that same appeal. Yeah. And, you know, kind of, I guess, along the lines of the rise of these smaller brands, you've also got a new kind of a dive watch from a smaller brand that you got in recently. How's that treating you? |
| James Stacey | Yeah. So I got in the Mako 500 from a brand called Zelos. Z-E-L-O-S. And I'm sure many of you listening have had experiences with Zealous. They have been around for a little while. They make, I would say, fairly distinctive-looking dive watches. They're an indie manufacturer. They're not making Rolex clones or something like that. And the 500, I've only had it for a little while at this point, and I've worn it a bit. I'm still kind of collecting my thoughts. So I think we'll do a more expanded chat on it in the future. Maybe I'll send it to you, Jason. You can take a look at it as well. But it's a 40-millimeter steel diver. And the basic premise is, you know, it's a Sellita SW200 and they sell for about 750 bucks. I'll throw the link in the show notes. They have kind of a different structure for their pricing depending on how the watches are pre-ordered. So that's the kind of brand where you might want to know about them before the watches are on normal web retail. Yeah. You get a better price by pre-ordering earlier. But at 750, I think they're kind of right in that spot that a lot of brands are now and they're offering a Swiss caliber. It's a very distinctive looking watch. It has this kind of very busy swirling effect on the dial and applied markers, lots of loom. It's a great size. It comes with a couple of different straps. It's a nice thing. It's something that I want to spend a little bit more time with before I dig too far into. But yeah, I got that one in and it's always nice to Check out what's around, what people are making under $1,000 is always fun and has kind of been the bread and butter of my watch enthusiasm for, I don't know, something depressing like 10 years. And yeah, so I'll probably, you know, have more to say about it once I've had more time with it, but it's, you know, it's on a rubber strap. It's a nice dive watch. It's got a nice bezel and it's, yeah, I think it's interesting. It's always nice to check these things out. You got a dive watch in as well, eh? |
| Jason Heaton | I did, yeah. It's kind of on the other end of the spectrum. It's actually one you, well actually you didn't see because you didn't have an appointment with Omega at Baselworld, but definitely fresh off the Baselworld boat, so to speak. I got in the Omega Seamaster. It arrived yesterday. This is the kind of the, I guess what people used to call the Bond Seamaster. I don't think actually Bond wore it in the last film, but this is the update to the Um, kind of the standard Seamaster professional 300 meter. And, um, yeah, I mean, I was really pleased and pleasantly surprised to, to be able to get a working press sample within just a couple of weeks of, of leaving Baselworld. But, uh, I've got a dive trip coming up in two weeks where I'll be taking a handful of watches to kind of review for a series of articles. And, uh, Omega was kind enough to kind of expedite. one of these Seamasters and it came yesterday. And I have to say, you know, we, we talked about this a little bit on our, our big Baselworld show. This was a watch that didn't immediately impress me. I was a little bit, I would even go as far as saying disappointed when I saw it in person at Baselworld. I've never cared much for the sort of the quote unquote Bond Seamaster aesthetic with the skeleton hands and the wave dial. Yeah. But, um, I've been wearing it for the last, 24 to 36 hours and it's it's growing on me in a big way. I mean it's Without a doubt, you know as you'd expect from Omega, it's a really well-made watch it It's a good size too. It's 42 millimeters. It fits. It's it's you know, it's not a Super slim watch, but it's also not overly chunky or tall right and they sent me the Version that I guess I prefer of the bunch and that's the the black dial with the black bezel, just the steel case on a rubber strap, and it's pretty darn nice. The verdict's still out a little bit on the wave dial, especially when it catches light in a certain way. It almost has a... it's just this sort of weird, toy-like, almost... |
| James Stacey | It's ceramic, so it's an entirely different effect than a normal dial. And certainly in a lot of the last ones, they were either matte or that kind of electric blue that they offered on some of the models. So it's a big change. And I thought, you know, again, I only saw them through the display case at the Omega booth at Basel, but I thought that they looked very kind of glassy. Yes, yes. Which is an interesting effect and different. And there's certainly a lot of legibility there. I wonder how it would be in like really bright sunlight. Right. Probably just very shiny overall because you get the ceramic on the bezel, ceramic on the dial and all of that. But I can see how a watch like that would certainly grow on you. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And the markers, I guess one positive thing about that glassy dial is the applied markers, which look to my eye to be bigger than the past edition. They really stand out. They're really just bright white markers and the lume is tremendous. The hands show up a little bit better against the style and as I'm looking at it now the markers almost almost have a and I know that that Omega's kind of used this formula in the past, but they almost have a Supermarine like Bremont Supermarine form format to them with that double hash at 12 and these these big round power markers, but It's um, it's nice. It still has the you know, what what I always considered uh... the major flaw of this watch is that that bezel that just is really difficult to grip uh... that sort of scalloped bezel but right i've kind of come to terms with the kind of notion that this is this is uh... a dress diver this is the watch that somebody who maybe doesn't dive or dives very occasionally wants to own because it's just it's a little sleeker it's a little bit dressier you know it goes especially on a bracelet uh... or I suppose you could throw it on a leather strap Rubber maybe doesn't work well for dressing up, but it has a very refined look as opposed to say the Planet Ocean or more of the retro style Omegas. So, you know, this is 24 hours into it, so I'll certainly have more impressions in a couple of weeks. But yeah, I'm excited to have it. |
| James Stacey | And you're taking it diving? Yeah, yeah. Can you talk about that project or not yet? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. So It's it'll be in a couple of weeks going to back to Bonaire where I was last fall and have been several times in the past just a great place down in the Caribbean for for this type of project because of the ease of diving and kind of the overall logistics there, but So I'll be taking this watch I'll be taking an Oris the the pro diver GMT. Oh cool, and I'll also be taking a Jaeger LeCoultre Polaris, the Memovox edition. Oh, very cool. That's a good trio. Yeah, good trio. And yeah, just doing a week of diving, you know, just taking a ton of photos. Well, I won't be. I'll be wearing the watch. My wife will be shooting the photos and, you know, we'll kind of, I'll kind of do some assessments of the watches and hopefully get some great photos. And then that'll turn into a series of articles to kind of trickle out over the next few months over on Hodinkee. So I'm really excited to kind of do it, especially with the weather we've had here. It'd be nice to get away to somewhere warm and check out these kind of three new watches, which are new as of, you know, the Polaris as of January and the other two just at Baselworld. So it should be fun. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, that's nice and recent. It's cool to have access to things that quickly. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | A lot of times you, you know, you're in a meeting and they show you something cool and you go, Oh, so like when, if I wanted, if I wanted to review this, when do you think? And they're like, Oh, well, it'll be in, it'll be, you know, uh, maybe fall. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's six months later and it kind of feels like, like time has moved on. Maybe the brand is, has like launched another version, similar thing of the same watch, that kind of thing. So it's really neat that all three brands are able to get interesting watches ready for, uh, for a trip that quickly after Basel. Right, right. I'm looking forward to the piece. |
| Jason Heaton | That'll be cool. And then just quickly, I'll just wrap up my bit here with, I got these straps from Barton straps. I hadn't actually heard of them, but they contacted me and said, you know, could we send over a little care package of straps for you to check out? And I was grateful for that. And they sent three straps. They sent a canvas strap, one of their silicone straps, and then one of their leather NATOs. I guess, you know, we look at a lot of straps and some really great quality ones, you know, Everest and Haviston and Toxic and some of these. Barton, I would say, they're really good straps for the price. You know, these are, across the board, all three of them are right around $20. And, you know, for a leather NATO, $20 is nice for a good silicone strap. And this is a very good one. It's a great price. And then the canvas is nice too. kind of one of the things that Barton does is on all of the straps, well, not the NATO, but the others, they incorporate kind of that quick release spring bar system. So very quick to change the silicone came with a longer, uh, six o'clock side, you know, tail side. So, you know, I don't know if they do that with every one of them, I'm guessing not. But, um, you know, for me, um, I first put the kind of the short version on and it just was too short. So I just, it was easy to swap it out with the, the quick release pin and, uh, So far, I'm really liking it. The silicone's not too tacky. It's not a real lint magnet. It's got a little bit of texture to it. Very comfortable. The canvas isn't quite as nice as some others, like that nice Helios one that you gave me. But, you know, again, $20 for these. I think it's kind of a nice alternative for guys that are sort of obsessively changing straps and you just want to try a look or try something new. Sure. Yeah, I think so far they're a really nice deal. Good value. |
| James Stacey | And you've got those on your Instagram as far as a look at them? |
| Jason Heaton | I've posted a couple of photos on a couple of different watches. Certainly before the show runs, I'll try to get some more photos up and try a few different straps on maybe my Speedmaster or something like that and see how it looks. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, cool. I like a strap at $20 because it's a real impulse buy. And yeah, maybe you don't normally like a silicon strap, but you'll see it. And at $20, it's a lot more reasonable than, I mean, I mean, straps have gotten expensive in many metrics now, especially even outside of the OEM. I mean, there's, you know, premium leather straps are several hundred dollars or at least a couple hundred dollars at times once you, especially if you're buying in U.S. and bringing it into Canada and that kind of thing. So 20 bucks is a much more reasonable space. And I think, yeah, you know, good on them for sending a few over. That's a nice move on their part. And they look like cool straps. And then lastly, I guess before we get to today's interview, a listener at Kyality wrote in to ask for some background on your Land Rover. Oh, okay. He didn't really elaborate. I think he was just hoping that there was kind of an adventurous story to the acquisition or the plan to get one. Yeah, sure. How long did you look? That kind of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Okay, yeah. So, you know, I've long wanted an older Land Rover. I was looking for years kind of off and on, um, in various places, um, for a defender and, you know, at least here in the U S you know, defenders are, they're, they're just always just outside my price range. You know, they're, they're always above, you know, usually above $20,000 and for kind of a hobby vehicle, that's just a bit much. So, um, but I always kind of kept my eye on Craig's list on the classifieds and, you know, various places. And, uh, just last late last summer, I guess it was August or September. Um, this, Series three, uh, popped up on Craigslist and, and I wrote to the guy and said, could I come and take a look at it? And went out to his house, uh, 20 minutes drive from where I live. And, um, and he had, uh, interestingly enough, he is a tractor engineer, which I thought was very fitting for somebody who, who owned this thing, because he was working for Toro, the tractor company that's based here and was traveling a fair amount over to the UK where they have a, some sort of a subsidiary company. And and he really wanted one as well and he found this one For sale and classifieds over in the UK. I guess it was Had lived out of its life on a on an estate in Scotland in Aberdeen and and he he bought it over there and shipped it back and then spent a year kind of overhauling some of the major mechanical bits, you know drive shafts and brakes and brake lines and radiator hoses and Um, all sorts of stuff. So by the time I got it, it was in pretty good shape. And I think he was, maybe he was kind of fed up with, with working on it. He said his wife had a bad back and didn't like to ride in it, which I could understand. And I, I wouldn't say it was an impulse buy, but I had to act fairly quickly. The price was very reasonable, cheaper than I've paid for a lot of watches. And, uh, um, it became mine and knock on wood. It's been, it's been very reliable. I mean, it was a very cold winter here and it always started up. I've done a few things to it, I had some body work done on the rear floor, kind of the cross members were fairly rusted out on it and then one of the foot wells on the driver's side was also rusted through and fortunately with these you can just get parts very readily because they made so many of them. I had a local guy who works on these get it in ship shape and then I put a new set of wheels and tires on it. Knock on wood, it's been a very reliable old truck. That's great. So it's a 1976 Series 3, and for those who aren't familiar with Land Rover, the Series trucks were kind of the first of the Land Rovers. They basically were just called Land Rover until the Discovery came along in the 90s, and then they changed it over to what they called the Defender. And the Series 3 was the last of what they called the Series trucks, and it's a pretty bare-bones beast. four-speed with a high and a low transfer case for low gear and high four-wheel drive, and a little four-cylinder engine that makes about 70 horsepower, maximum speed about 45 miles an hour, and leaf springs all around, and an 88-inch wheelbase. So it's a bucking horse when you drive it. But it's been, I would say, everything I kind of wanted out of something like this, and I'm still having a lot of fun with it. |
| James Stacey | That's great. Well, Kyality, I hope that answers some of your questions. And obviously, if anyone has any more or any questions for Jason and I in general, TheGreyNado at gmail.com. Okay, now we have something special and a bit different for all of you. It's an interview with Abe Burmeister of Outlier Clothing. I sat down with Abe this past March to chat about starting a brand like Outlier, his fascination with materials and design, and a lot more. I think anyone who appreciates high quality product clothing or otherwise will find Abe's perspective, passion and experience fascinating. I know I did. So without further delay from Outlier HQ in Brooklyn, here you go. All right, Abe, thanks very much for being on the show. I appreciate it. How are you? Oh, I'm great. And thanks for having me. Yeah. So I made my way out to New York. I'm here for some other press work, you know, with the Bremont trip and such that I was telling you about. And, uh, and I was pleased that you guys had a little bit of time. So we could sit down and chat, you know, spoken about, uh, outlier on the, on the show before, and then I got a chance to sample the product and then later buy some and have just been thrilled with it. So I'm excited to have the opportunity to actually sit and meet, you know, the guy behind, uh, just a really solid. You know, wearable usable product. |
| Abe Burmeister | Amazing. I'm glad to have you here. And, you know, we, we love, you know, it's funny, I'm not really a watch guy myself, but like, we have a lot of respect for that world. Cause there's kind of a lot of that. You know, the beauty and how it works kind of thing is something that resonates with us. And I think you get that a lot in that world. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, for sure. So for those who maybe didn't catch the last episodes where, you know, where we had chatted about Outlier and the clothing and such, if you want to give just kind of a brief history, this was started, you're the better part of 12 years ago? |
| Abe Burmeister | 10, 10 is like, you know, we're, this is basically, we're coming up on our 10th birthday right now. There is like a little bit of prehistory stuff I was doing. So yeah, about 12 years, if you count the prehistory. But yeah, so we've been doing it for quite a while. And so what outlier is, is, you know, it's really about making better clothes, making better clothes, using better materials for everyday life. So you can sort of think of it as taking a lot from kind of the functional clothing world, whether it's outdoors or, you know, firefighters or equestrian or whatever, like places where like function still really matters. and bringing it back to the city, bringing the functionality back to a, to the day-to-day life that people live. Um, and that kind of functionality kind of disappeared over the last 50 years or so, you know, clothes used to be hyper-functional, even a suit. Um, and so we're kind of trying to bring that back and, um, do it by using better materials and really thinking through the entire supply chain and also thinking about how things are put together, how they're constructed and trying to, you know, make better clothes for us to wear every day for, for how we live. |
| James Stacey | And your history pre-Outlier was in graphic design? |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, I did graphic design and animation and things like that. |
| James Stacey | And how did you develop the silhouette or the aesthetic of Outlier? Was that basically in your mind before you ever started out making your first pair of pants? |
| Abe Burmeister | No, we really started with the pants. That was really the start. It was out of need. You know, the first product was just something I wanted. Like living in the city, I was like, Destroying my clothes because of the way I was kind of living and moving around and I you know I just couldn't find stuff that could handle the way I approached the city at that time and and allow me to get to a business meeting or around and then go out at night afterwards or and so I was like I need a better pair of pants and so started out, you know, just looking for I figured I could Something I could go buy right and a year later I still was looking for him and I finally was like, you know I got to just figure out how to do this myself Um, and then we kind of, I stumbled on the New York garment district. I mean, I knew it was there. It's a, you know, integral part of the history of New York. Um, it's a lot smaller than it used to be, but, um, it's still this place in Manhattan, a couple blocks from times square where clothing gets made and it's an ecosystem. Like there's factories and suppliers all within this sort of five, 10 block range where you can make clothing like, and you can make high tech clothing. And it's kind of fantastic and amazing and partly historical and, you know, but with an eye to the future too. So stumbled on the garment district, figured out how to make some pants, met my business partner Tyler in the process. And then, uh, and then we just put stuff online and it kind of spiraled out of control from there. |
| James Stacey | And like, uh, you know, I saw in a Reddit AMA, you were saying that you basically started literally by making a pair of pants for yourself. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, exactly. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And that, you deemed those to be good. And then that, that kind of branched on into maybe other people would like to wear these too. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah. I had a pair of pants that, that, you know, I had worn for, you know, worn for about a year and you know, I was kind of worried about what would happen. They cost me a few couple thousand dollars to make those first pants, you know, it's like kind of like what happens when they're gone? Like, can I, how am I going to get more of these? Am I going to have to go through this whole process again just for another pair of pants? And also I thought like other people might want them, they might be interested in them. Yeah. And so I, You know started figuring out how to how to sell pants and quickly realized they were gonna be Insanely expensive if I went the traditional route, which was they sell them to a department store And you know, you know, they'd be five hundred six hundred dollars, which I Had bought pants that cost that much but they came with a sport coat on top, right? so I was like What can I do to get these down to like two hundred dollars? So the range of like premium denim because I bought premium denim before it seemed like something that was accessible and worked. And I realized I could just put them online. And I knew a lot more about making websites than I knew about making clothes. |
| James Stacey | So not having to support the gross margin of another whole middleman. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, there's huge margins. Your average retail store is marking things up 2.5, three times, sometimes more. Oh, wow. OK. So there's this huge margin gap. And, you know, obviously when you do things online, you take on a lot of costs yourselves. You take on the marketing, you take on the distribution, shipping. So it's not like, Oh, you can just drop the price by, you know, to one third. Um, but there's this big gap in between that, that gives you a lot of room to play in between what the wholesale price would be and what the retail price would be in a, in a department store. So that was the space that allowed us to really thrive. And we kind of stumbled on it accidentally early before a lot of people, we weren't the first, but we were definitely early in that space doing direct to consumer. And that was kind of amazing because it let us take these materials that were just kind of too expensive for a sort of accessible price point and let us use them. And that was sort of phase two of what we did. You know, the first phase was very oriented around the bicycle, but we realized we didn't want to be a bicycle brand. We're kind of like anti-bicycle brand. We're making clothes that like, you don't look like you're the bike rider, but allow you to navigate the city. What we realized though, is that there was this whole world incredible materials that nobody was using. You know, so we had a fabric from a company called Scholler in Switzerland that built our first product. And then we fell in love with Merino wool. And at that time, nobody was just making a simple t-shirt out of Merino wool. It's an amazing material in terms of how it regulates temperature and odor. And it's super comfortable and it's washable unlike your traditional wool. It's not scratchy like your traditional wool. It's a beautiful material. And people were only making it in these like really kind of aggressive hiking, sporting silhouettes. And we're like, why not just make a simple t-shirt out of that? And so we did that. And that put us in this whole world of just like this kind of like space of beautiful materials and really functional, beautiful materials that nobody was using. We decided that's what we really wanted to do. It wasn't about a particular activity. It was about really building better products using this kind of space that had been neglected. And we fell in love with the materials really, like there's so much out there and the world of textiles and fabric is huge. It's kind of where the industrial revolution started, you know, spinning Jenny and things like that. But the functionality part had kind of been forgotten or overlooked, except for in kind of niche areas. And we decided that we could take that stuff and bring it to a broader space. |
| James Stacey | And when you first embarked on that first pair of pants, or then later on the shirts and things, were these all kind of first for you? Had you designed clothing before endeavoring into what would be coming up? |
| Abe Burmeister | Oh, that was a total, we knew nothing when we started. It was wild. Tyler had actually worked for a shirt manufacturer for about a year. So he had like a little bit of experience and everything I learned, I learned in the garment district. Just all my feet on the ground asking questions. Right. you know, Tyler, to a large extent, it's the same kind of way. We just kind of dove in and started asking a lot of questions and making a lot of mistakes, too. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, that's the only way you would grow. And if you're now looking at 10 years, your production is still largely New York. |
| Abe Burmeister | No, we do quite a bit in New York, but we do quite a bit in Portugal right now. So basically, like, you're capped in especially Manhattan itself. You're pretty much capped at the scale you can reach. And it's even more so now. Basically, the garment district shrinks a little bit every year, unfortunately. And it shrinks at these bigger scale things first. So we do a lot of our experiments, most of our experiments, most of our smaller production is done in New York still. But as soon as you hit a certain scale on a product, you kind of have to leave. And we've found that Portugal is the best place for us to take most of this stuff. There are some options that are a little bit larger around the New York area, but they tend to be very, very traditional and not very open to innovation, which is really frustrating for us because we're trying to, you know, we love the tradition, but we like to bring the innovation in there too. Whereas we found Portugal is kind of like the sweet spot right now where, you know, it's Western Europe. The workers are treated quite well, you know, like get a month of vacation, they go home for lunch. It's kind of amazing. And the quality is super high and the prices are pretty reasonable. So it's, you know, for right now it's the perfect spot for us to be. And so we've been making more and more stuff there. We work with one factory in China that's like super high end. It basically does stuff that nobody else can do. So it's not your, oh, let's go to China for cheap labor. It's the opposite. It's like, you know, probably where China's going to end up the way Italy used to be cheap labor and Japan used to be cheap labor, China, was cheap labor. It's not really anymore, although there's parts of it left, but eventually it's probably going to become a really high end place. And that's the fact that we work with there is called KTC and they're, they're amazing. And they do we do taped sort of really technical jackets out there. |
| James Stacey | Okay. Very cool. And when it comes to innovation, where do you see outlier innovating in its marketplace over the last 10 years? |
| Abe Burmeister | I mean, there's a lot of, you know, I mean, materials is key to us, right? So we started out by just kind of finding materials that nobody else was working with and trying to bring them to market. And then we've moved into like over the past five years or so to really developing our own materials. So, um, we spent a lot of time really trying to, to create things that don't exist that are better than is out there. Um, and we try and also just be the, the first people to test things out. Right. So we release experimental products. almost every week where we're playing with new ideas, whether it's a new material or a new construction or a new, you know, new piece of functionality that we're trying to work with. We just kind of go out there and try and tackle it and learn and play with it and then see where we can take it and how far it can go. |
| James Stacey | Right. I guess if you were to focus on a product to explain Outlier, it would probably be a pant. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah. I mean, we started with pants, so that's definitely like the heart of our business. Um, so something like, you know, our, our biggest product right now is the slim dungarees. Right. And so, and this is really a material story. It's a five cut pant. Um, there is some, I wouldn't call it innovation in construction, but we added a gusset, which gives it a much wider range of motion than a, than a similar gene or something. Um, but a lot of it is really in the material. It's a double woven fabric. So it's really engineered so that there's like a, high tenacity nylon on the outside, but at the same time, you know, it's engineered to look good too. It's not like what you might think of as a nylon. It's not immediately recognizable as such, but it has that durability and strength, whereas it feels really nice, but then it's a, it's a double woven construction. So you have an outside that's really tough and then the insides actually are a really soft polyester against your skin. And again, it doesn't feel like what you might imagine a polyester because we're using higher quality. versions of these kind of artificial fabrics. Um, and that keeps everything really dry against the skin. It's, um, it has a light of mild stretch. Um, but you get incredible durability, incredible breathability. Like you kind of, you know, I used to always travel with two pair of pants mostly because I'd be worried like if I got one dirty or if I ripped it or something like that, I'd be out of luck. Right. If you're traveling with chinos or even jeans, um, And now I, you know, with, with our pants, you can kind of just go with one. You don't, you know, sometimes you want something else for aesthetic reasons, but I don't worry that like, Oh, I'm going to spill, you know, catch up all over this and like be ruined. It's just going to wash right off. Cause it's built that way. And I'm not worried that I'm going to fall. You know, you can destroy them, but like, it's a catastrophic type of accident that to destroy the pants. We get people who write us all the time when we get in like bike accidents and stuff. They're like, yeah, my pants are fine. And my leg was like bleeding or like, I mean, it's kind of, it's not the best situation to be in, but it's, it's kind of crazy. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I'm only in town for two nights and the only thing I brought are the, uh, the slim dungarees. I have them. I think it's resonant Navy. Yeah. I've become a little upset. We'll, we'll get into this in a moment, but I, I'm in all product design. I'm now, I've become loosely obsessed with color because I don't know how anyone picks. I've been involved like in picking even the colors for the podcast logo. It's like a rabbit hole that's never ending. Like you feel like you could never just lock in a color and go with it. But some of the colors that you guys have, and I've only ever seen a few in person, like in actual light. But I mean, especially like the Resident Navy is a very different sort of blue than a denim, than your normal denim or your normal Navy blue. And how do you approach something like color? It's not something that I've seen in other examples. |
| Abe Burmeister | I mean, we're pretty methodical about it, especially like we spent a lot of time on this a long time ago, kind of trying to build like the core set of colors where we like lay out, we take the floor and just lay out, you know, we have literally like $20,000 worth of color chips over here that we like look at and kind of work through. And so we were like trying to map out the entire color space. We're like, oh, we're doing a blue, let's get every single Pantone cotton swatch in this space and like map them out and look through and try and figure out We sort of had to reverse engineer their their numbering system to understand what was going on And then there's a lot working with the fabric side to you. You have to really understand what a fabric can do So you talked about denim, you know denim is a yarn dyed fabric. So when you talk about denim blue, there's actually two colors in there There's the white that you see like when you flip it over for the most, right? But that actually constitutes about a quarter of what the surface area of a navy or a denim right a blue denim We're actually looking at is a about three quarters Indigo dyed cotton and one quarter white undyed cotton and that's why you get that depth of color and that denim look That's even before it ages and once you get the aging you get a whole nother dynamic, right? So we very intentionally we're like we're not going to try and do denim because denim is denim. It comes from the structure of the actual fabric and very particular set of dyes, too, as well. So like we didn't want to make something look like denim, but we wanted to find a color that that was wearable, that was easy. And so we went through and, you know, there's a bunch of them out there. And then we just kind of look for like what what excites the eye, you know, like color is is a fashion thing. It constantly changes. Right. So not in the basics. stay pretty consistent, the blacks, the grays, the navies. Um, and so that's kind of just kind of working through the space, trying to figure out how to get a color that works with the material. Cause each material takes the color differently. When we talk about the work cloth, the fabric that we use to, to make the slim dungarees, it's kind of an interesting fabric in that it, it does darks quite well, but it, it has this sort of tipping point where it gets really, really bright and loud really quickly. Like there's, there's not like really a, a smooth dynamic range, right? It like, if we start trying to make it brighter and lighter, it changes really, really quickly. So like when we talk about lighter colors, we have to really tone down the saturation, um, and keep it kind of muted. Otherwise it looks like really, really loud and really bright, which could work for certain products, but doesn't really work for a five pocket casual pan. |
| James Stacey | I'm surprised on the website occasionally I'll see, and maybe it's more the experimental stuff, but I'll see that you guys aren't afraid of white, which is pretty uncommon. Like, I mean, aside from a white t-shirt, you don't see white applied to occasionally ski jackets, things like that. But the way that you guys use white is different. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of the basic colors. And so we we tackle it when it makes sense. And sometimes we work with undyed fabric, too. So we've been doing a lot of stuff with garment dyeing lately. And so but the garment dye, the base fabric comes usually in a white or a near white. So we work with that. And then but ultimately, it's just kind of playing around and seeing what you know, like what kind of energy, what kind of visual energy we can bring in there. Um, so there's, there's always the core sets of the darks and neutrals and stuff. And then those are great. And we want to get it like dial those into a great space, but at the same time you need contrast, you need something to lighten up the eye. You know, otherwise you get lost. If you look at 12 dark colors, they might be amazing together, but without seeing something that counterpoint to it, then you get lost in there. |
| James Stacey | So for sure. And with the experimental stuff and with some of even some of the stuff that I see just in the store that's not necessarily classes experimental like you guys had like a snap uh bandana yeah like a bandana I'm sure that other brands make something like that but I feel like I know I have a rough understanding of like what I've seen from other even outerwear brands or technical clothing brands and like I saw that and I was like that seems strange and the more I thought about it the more it made sense like as an item how do you where do you Like if you're not being necessarily inspired by something someone else is making, did you just think of that as an idea? You got tired of wrapping a scarf or. |
| Abe Burmeister | I'm trying to, that one in particular didn't come from me, so I can't speak too much. It was somebody here that, that kind of really felt the need from like how they were moving around the city. They were like, you know, there was combining materials that we'd brought in. So like it started with like making a windproof layer and then like a soft layer and then how to make it really easy to take on and off. Um, but a lot of it just comes from playing. So like the snap bandanas are built around something called a Fidlock. Fidlock's a German company that makes Magno mechanical closures, right? So people have been trying to do magnets and clothes for a long time, but there's a lot of problems with them. But one of the things is that magnets aren't actually that strong in every direction. They're only strong in a certain directions. And so they can often like open up really easily depending on the kind of force you're putting on it. And so, Fidlock does magno-mechanical, so they basically have a level of mechanical locking and a level of magnetic locking, and the magnets kind of guide everything together and add an extra tension in there to hold it together, but there's always a mechanical locking direction as well, and usually a very simple sort of one or two directions that you can move the object that'll open it. right, that kind of like uses mechanical leverage to break the magnetic seal and it opens really easily. So we've been playing around with these closers a bunch of ways and just kind of figuring out what, you know, what can we do with them? Like how, you know, when we first started looking at this company, it was like kind of a struggling to get lift off and now they're doing really well, which is great. And so, yeah, we just play around with it. We put it into clothes, we put it into the snap banners, or maybe the most successful thing we put them into, we put them into bags as well. Is that in the backpack as well? Yeah, the Rolltop backpacks have them. |
| James Stacey | And that was made out of, was that Dyneema, that bag? |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, so it's Dyneema composite. |
| James Stacey | It's a great material. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, so we, again, this is another material that we weren't the first, but we were very, very early to jump on Dyneema composite. And we've been playing with it for quite a while. And it's, it's an amazing material. It has like an incredible kind of stability is actually the sort of secret is kind of the thing that we try and do with materials is sometimes it takes a long time to actually learn what, what they're really good for. Um, we get drawn to them cause they're intriguing cause they're different, but then we kind of have to figure out like, you know, what products they make sense for, where are their strengths, where their weaknesses. And so one of the interesting things with Dyneema composite is that it has almost no stretch. And so it behaves, in a lot of ways, like a hard shell bag, not like your traditional backpack or something. And one of the beauties of a hard shell is that there's no room for things to shift. When you have a regular backpack, you know, you can stuff it with stuff, but like the fabric is flexible, stretches on the bias, moves around and stuff is constantly shifting in your bag when you're moving around in a very small, subtle ways. But like your body's constantly kind of micro adjusting to the movements. And so when you have a hard shell or something like Dyneema, which is much lighter, but still has that structural stability, like everything stays in place and like your body does less micro adjusting. And so it's actually easier for you to carry stuff. |
| James Stacey | And would you say that a lot of the inspiration when you're looking towards something new beyond pants or a t-shirt, something like that comes from finding a technology like these magnetic clasps or Dyneema or something, and then seeing what you can do with it, or it's a blending of |
| Abe Burmeister | It's a blend. So sometimes we start with the materials. Sometimes we're like looking at materials and trying to figure out like, what's the expression for them? Like, what does that mean? What is it saying? What does material want to do? Where does it want to be? And then sometimes we start more with like a problem or a challenge, right? Like, okay, like we're trying, you know, how do we make something that's, you know, warmer, but also like, more breathable, right? It's something that we've done a lot, right? Trying to figure out how to make clothes that have a wider range of of comfort, right? Cause when, if you're outdoors for 12 hours, like you're outdoors in this roughly the same temperature, it'll change over the day, but like, and your body might warm up a bit when you, you move. But if you're in the city, you might be going from, you know, zero freezing, 32 degrees, whatever, like into like a heated, overheated environment, like in seconds, right? So, so we, we spent a lot of time focusing on how to make clothes that kind of thermal regulate and can, can handle wider spaces. |
| James Stacey | just to maximize general comfort. Like you're, you've got a piece of clothing that's the right size. It fits right. But then you don't want to wear when, you know, you've got to be in a certain place that day, that's a little warmer, a little cooler or something like that. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, exactly. So, so, and that's just one of the many challenges we sort of try and tackle. Like, look at like, what can we do better? What, how can we improve on what's out there? Um, and, and that's just from observing our own lives really. We're like, Oh, I got, really, you know, stuck in this situation. Like I got really cold all of a sudden, like I would have been great if I had something, you know, a snap bandana actually is, you know, perfect, right? Like these super compact little things that you can keep in your pocket that can give you by, you know, wrapping around your neck, which is like where your veins are kind of closest to the surface. Like in a large way, you can actually warm up your body quite quickly just by covering that, that vein right there. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I was, I, I, every time I'm on the side, I'm always kind of interested in it. Cause it's such a, something I haven't seen really, you know, you see like buff makes the, the neck covers and stuff, but they kind of very light and they don't necessarily always do that much and they don't stay in one place that well. And then the, uh, I've long, whenever I travel, I carry like a shemag, like a big blanket, light blanket thing that you can wrap around and turn into a scarf. And those work pretty well, but not when you have a big temperature shift, then suddenly you're sweaty and it's like, you've got a heavy scarf on. And I always thought that a more technical response to that sort of need would be like a more useful expression of a scarf. |
| Abe Burmeister | Well, yeah, then our snap bandanas are what you need. Yeah, for sure. And we make some variations with it because there's a shape and a form, and then there's the material side too. So we can take that shape and put a lot of different materials into it, which allows you to calibrate it for different kind of use cases and scenarios and aesthetics as well, of course. |
| James Stacey | For sure. And then, you know, where do you see, uh, 10 years in, I'm assuming the company's grown quite a bit. You've got a sizable space here and where, where do you see outlier going in the coming years? |
| Abe Burmeister | You know, we don't, we're not like a five year, 10 year plan type of company. Like we, we value learning a lot. And so, you know, we want to make sure that we want to grow and we want, I want all my employees to be able to grow and we want to learn. Really? We want to be in a space where we've learned a lot and we can keep learning a lot. And obviously everybody's living comfortably as well. Right. So when you're learning, you just don't know what's going to come your way. Right. |
| James Stacey | Sure. You're open to where whatever materials or product may go. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah. I don't have the ability to predict the future, unfortunately. So yeah, like we were really open. We want to, you know, be in a healthy environment for everybody, both, you know, mentally physically fiscally all that and And we want to keep learning we want to make new stuff and I guess I guess in 10 years I would hope to be someplace really surprising like making and knowing things that I never could have guessed You know 10 years ago like I never could have guessed we'd have this company or especially like 12 or 13 years ago Forget about it. I had no clue that I'd be running a clothing company. I'm not running it anymore. Actually Tyler's a CEO Okay. Yeah, we'd have no clue |
| James Stacey | And, uh, any, anyone interested in checking more about the brand or even buying something that that's all the same space with the outlier.nyc. Yeah. |
| Abe Burmeister | Outlier.nyc is our website. Then the subreddit is great. If you want to dig deep and ask questions, there's a whole world of people and we're up on there all the time. Um, we can't read everything and answer everything on there, but like there's a, there's a lot of information and really helpful people on there too. |
| James Stacey | Cause that's where I found resident Navy, you know, people would put, they've got all of them. and they line them up next to each other and take them in light. One guy even mentioned what the color temperature of the light was, so you could have a rough idea if it was kind of a bluish cast. I mean, this is what I love about the internet, is that level of specificity, and that you can connect with other people who are really into. |
| Abe Burmeister | And people love to criticize our color presentation. It's not perfect, but I think. |
| James Stacey | It's so hard to do on the web. |
| Abe Burmeister | It's so, I mean, every screen is different. When you're with somebody, you can really easily show them, pick up your phone and change the brightness. Like you get two different words, you know, it goes from pitch black to white essentially, right? The same pair of pants, right? But every monitor is different. Every monitor is calibrated different. You know, every, even the iPhones, the color shifts between different models and generations and stuff. So it's, it's really, really tricky. And we actually spent a lot of time trying to photograph stuff as naturally and clearly as possible, um, and put it out there. But it's, you know, it's never enough for everybody. And some people, |
| James Stacey | Well, but that's where a space like Reddit can pick up and try and solve the problem at the community level. I think the site's a pretty clean site, and it's a pretty simple way of understanding one product versus another one. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah, I mean, there's obviously stuff we can do to improve. I'm not saying it's perfect by any means, but that color thing does frustrate me, because we spend a lot of time trying to get them into nice, to have as accurate a representation as possible on the website. But it's a website, and it's limited in how a screen can represent a physical object. Yeah. And I mean, actually physical object itself is limited how it could express itself. You take it from the dark to the shadows to a different type of lighting. It's going to look different in all those environments. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I was kicking around Manhattan this morning and stopped by a luggage manufacturer whose website I really like, but then you actually see all the colors and they, they have a very specific color palette to their, to their luggage and and to see it in person, a whole different idea of what, especially things like greens, and grays and blues are very much different in sunlight and store space than they are, say, on a website. So it's always fun to get a chance to see that in person. |
| Abe Burmeister | Oh, yeah. |
| James Stacey | No, it's a huge art there. Yeah, for sure. Well, I can't thank you enough for your time and being free on a relatively quick trip to the city. But thank you very much. And if there's anything else you'd like to say to TGN, feel free. |
| Abe Burmeister | No, I mean, just, you know, check our stuff out and see and We have a super open return policy because we realize we're only available online. And so if you're in the U S you know, it's free shipping both ways, 45 days, you know, just jump in and buy it. And we try and make it easy for you to, to take the risk and not take the risk at the same time. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, cool. Well, like, like I said, thank you very much for your time and best of luck with another 10 years. |
| Abe Burmeister | Yeah. Well, thank you. And thanks for coming by. |
| James Stacey | So again, thanks very much to Abe Burmeister of Outlier Clothing. That's outlier.nyc. Uh, it was an absolute treat to sit down with Abe. I think that came through in the interview. Uh, I love to nerd out on pretty much anything and something like Outlier has really become a fascination. |
| Jason Heaton | Boy, it seems like ages ago that you were, that we were in New York and you, I remember we parted ways and you took the subway over to Brooklyn to meet him. So that's really cool. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really happy about it. So should we close out the show here with a few final notes? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll kick it off. Um, I, um, got something recently that I've had my eye on for a while. It's a set of books. Um, these are from a company called the Folio Society over in the UK and, um, they, they publish, uh, they kind of specialize in, um, really nice, hard bound, uh, illustrated versions of some famous novels like, uh, I know that they've done Fahrenheit 451 and a few other kind of well-known pieces of literature. And the ones that always interested me that I saw advertised a couple of years ago were a handful of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels. And they're beautifully done. I'm kind of a book nerd from way back, and I have a fairly extensive set of Ian Fleming paperback versions of the Bond novels. Which are, if you haven't read Ian Fleming and you're a Bond fan, I would say drop everything and go out and find any edition, any version of the Bond stuff because it's, in many cases, it's very different from the films, but there's also a familiarity to it. And he's really a tremendous writer. Ian Fleming is, he's such a way with words and his level of detail I think would be appreciated by guys that are listening to The Grey Nado because he, I think you and I are detail oriented guys. We like to kind of dig into the history of brands and the kind of the nitty gritty of how you shift a car or how a watch is made. And he really goes into a lot of that kind of stuff. And so aside from the writing, these books are beautifully done. They're well bound. They come in a nice slip case. With sort of this they call it blocked cloth for the the binding for the cover. So it's this kind of heavy I would say burlap but very textured cloth cover and then the books are illustrated by a British woman named Faye Dalton who does the the illustrations for these and you know, I would say, you know Each book costs. I think they're about 60 bucks each and that seems expensive but on the other hand You know, $60 is not a lot for, I guess, what you're getting here. They're really well done. They'll last a lifetime. And they're just kind of a pleasure to behold. And I guess nowadays, when a lot of even the higher end sort of magazines, whether it's, you know, Gear Patrol or Hodinkee or whatever, they're, you know, you're paying, you know, 40, 50 bucks for an edition of those. I would say these books are a fair bargain. And, you know, if you're into Ian Fleming or you just like a good book, yeah, check it out. So Folio Society, They have, I think, five editions out now. I don't know if they're going to continue, but they've got Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, Moonraker, and the other one escapes me, but so far they've got five and probably more to come. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, those look really cool. Definitely a good choice for the Bond aficionado. Yeah. You've got a book too, right? Yeah, so I do have a book. It's actually the Clipperton Coffee Table book from the expedition I was on last year. So it's produced by the team that actually put together the both expeditions, the 2016 and the 2017 big migrations expeditions to Clipperton. So that's Michel Lebrecq and Julie Umeh. And they have put together a book that compiles a lot of the photographs from the trip, both English and French descriptions of various aspects of Clipperton. So, I mean, if that was something that you found interesting back when it was something I was actively a part of, then the book is 40 US dollars. I'll have the link in the show notes. And I ordered a copy as soon as I got the email about it and have really enjoyed it. I make an appearance in a couple of photos, which is fun, but it also makes it a lot easier for me to have something physical to show people when I try and explain what Clipperton is and kind of what it signals for the world and you know, what the experience is like and all that kind of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | How cool to have this sort of published photo album professionally done and bound and whatever of the trip you were on. I think that's, uh, that's really special. That's, that's such a heirloom, you know, such a neat piece. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I felt really fortunate to get the, uh, the ability to order one for myself. And, and I wasn't sure if they were going to make, you know, 20, like if it was just a very good shutterfly book or something like that, but the book actually showed up and it's lovely and the photos are really great. And I think they did a really nice job with it. And I mean, there aren't a lot of books about Clipperton to begin with. So if it kind of falls into your general area of interest, 40 bucks seems more than fair by my book. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. No, I placed an order today, so I can't wait for that to arrive. |
| James Stacey | Oh, very nice. There you go. And what else have you got for us? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I've got, it's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from, from books, um, but, uh, equally satisfying. There's a guy that I stumbled upon. I don't remember how on Instagram, um, Jeff Coombs. So it's Jeff is in G E O F F and then underscore Coombs, C O O M B S. We'll link it in the show notes. But, uh, Jeff is, uh, he's a photographer, um, and a, a free diver. And I think he's based in Toronto or somewhere in, um, in Canada, actually. And he, I guess I I'm struck, you know, he, he's got a lot of Great photos on his Instagram feed. But what struck me was this winter, he's done the series of free diving photos from under the ice in Lake Huron and ice diving is something we've talked about before. And, um, we've seen some kind of cool projects. I remember we talked about kind of a national geographic under the ice and Antarctica, uh, article a while back, but what's neat about this is a, it's in the great lakes, which you just don't see a lot of people free diving in the great lakes. He incorporates some kind of cool photos in there of shipwrecks under the ice in Lake Huron and really clear visibility and some great angles and just really high quality photography. So, you know, we don't do a lot of Instagram kind of recommendations. I think, you know, maybe it's something we should incorporate more because, you know, we spent a lot of time on Instagram and we- So much time. There's so much great photography on there that, you know, maybe we'll- These photos are incredible. |
| Unknown | Incredible, right? Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Wow. So, yeah, check out Jeff Coombs on Instagram and, you know, give him a follow if you like it. And can't wait to see more of what he's got. |
| James Stacey | Super. Well, my last one's actually photography based, so that's a decent tie in. And I know that we've spoken at least several times about camera straps. Yeah. And and I've had the let's call it great pleasure of owning probably a dozen different camera straps over the days. And of the ones that I've owned that you can just go out and buy, I really like the sling from Peak Design. Yeah. It's quite nice. And then you had sent me a strap made by Dispatch for Gear Patrol, which I also really like and I'm still using. I love that it's bright orange. It's very easy to be found in a crowd and not be hit by a car or something like that. Um, but lately I, um, I follow, uh, here, here's another Instagram follow for you. So I follow a guy on Instagram that I'm sure a lot of you do follow at thousand yard style, Robert Spangle. And, uh, he carries generally, he'll show a picture of carrying a couple cameras and he does so by stringing the cameras with like simple paracord. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Not unlike, uh, has sort of a military aesthetic to it. And he has a history in the military, so I can see where that came from. And I find him to be a very fascinating guy. He's GQ's roving photographer. It's a lot of style work, but all over the world. And he has a really great Instagram. So that would be kind of the first stage of this follow. The second stage is, I saw that he was carrying sort of lighter cameras. Let's talk like Leicas, not giant SLR bodies with just paracord. And I started to think like, well, why is that better than a camera strap? But the cameras aren't heavy enough to dig the cord into your neck. And so I gave it a try and, you know, I just looped a piece of paracord and then played around with the length until I was happy with it. And then because it's paracord, it's so thin, it's 550 paracord, it's very thin. You can actually wrap a bit of the cord around the lens to bring the camera up if it's swinging around too much. Oh, sure. So it's a really clever way of carrying a camera. And I'll attribute this to at thousand yard style, whether or not He was the first guy to do this. I don't know. It doesn't matter to me, but it works really well. And it's how I've been carrying the 6500 for the last few months. Yeah. And, uh, I absolutely love it. And I also like that, you know, you can buy, let's say for this, you need four or five feet tops of, uh, but it was probably more like three feet of paracord and a hundred foot of five 50 in any color is like five bucks on, uh, on eBay. You could have 10 camera straps that take up the same space in a bag as one black wrapper. Right. Yeah. Or something like that. And, you know, basically you have to figure out a way that works for your camera as far as lashing the paracord to the camera. I still had the Peak Design mounts. Yeah. And so you can tie right into those and then it's kind of a double loop for security. But then that way the strap can be removed without actually untying the knots. |
| Unknown | Oh, yeah. |
| James Stacey | Right. So that works really well. And yeah, that's my small tip is if you're carrying... I tried it on my 5D Mark III with a thicker piece of paracord. Yeah. Doesn't work as well. Huh. The bigger camera with the bigger lens really does require a more substantial strap, especially for balance. The camera just kind of spins and turns. Yeah. On a lighter strap. So something like the Peak Design is a good suit for the DSLR, but for something smaller like a 6500, or, I mean, an X100 if you're shooting the Fuji, all of those sorts of cameras I think would do beautifully with this. So that's my $5 spend and you'll end up with $4.90 worth of paracord left for some other project. |
| Jason Heaton | That's a nice, that's a nice idea. Even beyond cameras, right? I mean, if you, if you just buy lengths of paracord and keep them, keep them handy, I mean, you could in a pinch, if your bag, bag strap breaks or, anything. It's just so handy. I'd never really think about it, but it's a good thing. It's so light. It doesn't weigh anything. |
| James Stacey | Yep. Yeah. I've used it for, like I'll get a, like I got a backpack once that didn't really have any, you know, it was very clean black leather backpack and it didn't really have any lash points. And, you know, with a reamer, you poke a hole in part of the mount and loop a little bit of paracord through there and you have somewhere you could clip a water bottle or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Paracord is, A really fun thing to go buy a bag of and just kind of use it as you need it. And you cut it, you hit the end with a lighter, for anyone who hasn't been around paracord, and then it's pretty much done. It's not going to break. Certainly in terms of a camera, something else on the camera will break before the paracord. Either the knot or the little key ring style mount, like the little triangle metal ring that holds into the mount point. Something like that will fail before Yeah. Before you managed to break the paracord. So it's become, uh, it's become definitely my favorite way of carrying this camera. I, it takes up no space in a bag. It adds no weight. It can be easily wrapped around the lens. It just, it just makes sense. It works really well and it costs next to nothing. Nice. |
| Jason Heaton | Good tip. This was a good show. Kind of a good, uh, follow up to our big Basel episode and the outlier interview is really cool. So I hope everybody enjoys it. And, uh, as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. And you can follow us on Instagram, I'm at Jason Heaton, James is at J.E. Stacey, and do follow the show at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions for us, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com, and please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout the show is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. |
| James Stacey | And we leave you with this well-known quote from Winston Churchill who said, success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. |