100th Edition: Interview with Meander Co-Founders Jill and Steve Henry

We can’t quite believe we’ve hit the 100th edition of our Meander Magazine already. Time flies when you're having fun! For this anniversary edition, we wanted to reflect on our journey so far, and talk to the people who know Meander better than anyone else; our co-founders, Jill and Steve.

Since the very first launch of the Meander jacket in 2018, to opening stores in Edinburgh and London, to partnerships with other fabulous Scottish brands like Gleneagles and The Torridon hotels, to more recently acquiring Tens Sunglasses and becoming the Meander group! We have an amazing, engaged family of ‘Meanderers’ who support us massively and without you we wouldn't still be here today. It’s been quite the journey from the very early days to where we are now and we can’t wait to share some of these memories with you. Read on whilst we interview Jill and Steve and look back at the Meander journey together.

Jill - I worked in the fashion industry for many years prior to starting Meander. In fact, I think my whole life has been built up to having my own clothing label as I first started making my own clothes when I was at high school. I learned from my mum who was a brilliant dress maker and who loves interior and fashion design. I then went on to study Clothing Design and got my degree from Heriot Watt University in the Scottish Borders campus before heading to London. My first role in London was working for a pretty cool menswear brand called, 'The Duffer of St George'. Duffer was one of the first brands to be in Shoreditch back in the late 90s /early 2000s before Shoreditch was anything like what it is today. It was a very cool brand which was still kind of a small business. The brand was worn by celebrities and had a very loyal following. I got to know the owners well and it was like a family business which I love being a part of. It shaped my passion for this business and definitely sparked the desire to have my own brand one day.

Steve - Prior to meeting Jill, starting a clothing brand definitely wasn’t on my radar. I’d travelled the world, taught scuba diving in Australia and eventually ended up working in finance in London. When I met Jill she was working for House of Holland and I got my first taste of Fashion Week and those infamous fashion parties. I have to say, meeting celebs like Sophie Ellis Baxter and Nicola from Girls Aloud was a lot of fun - but it didn’t dawn on me that I might have my own brand for quite some time!

Jill- We are both passionate about the outdoors and we also love quite minimal Scandinavian design. We first came up with the idea after we cycled from London to Paris with a group of friends. We joked about how bad our cycling gear was and how we wanted something that was functional but a lot cooler! When we got back we started designing our fist jacket which was a versatile jacket for cycling as well as wearing in the city and the outdoors. This is how we came up with the Meander Jacket! This was back in 2018 and it's still in our collection now. We launched it on Indiegogo which is a crowdfunding platform and people backed us by pre-ordering the jacket from around the world. It was pretty cool to see people we didn’t know pre-order the jacket and it gave us the confidence to create a range of versatile performance clothing for wearing from the city to the mountains.

Steve - We knew early on that we didn’t want to create a cycling brand as our passion was more for the outdoors in general and in starting a brand, it had to be something that we were both super passionate about. It was also really important to us from the start that Meander was a sustainable brand, after all, we are creating clothing for people who love to explore the outdoors and we need to protect the place we love to explore. 

Jill - I think it was Steve who came up with it but it could have been me - I don’t quite remember - lol! I do know that we had brainstormed lots of names and none were quite right until we came up with Meander which is perfect for us. We always say that we’re not a brand for people that are running the fastest or hiking the highest mountain, but we are all about enjoying the meander!

Steve - Lol, I have no idea - definitely a team effort on that one. We had some terrible ideas first and I remember being a bit unsure of it at first, but I’d read that Phil Knight was unsure about the name Nike, so I guess it takes some time to get used to it. Now everyone says they love the name :)

Steve - We haven’t come up with a name for our Meander Logo yet, it was always affectionately referred to as 'The Squiggle', so I think it will probably just stay that way. A couple of years after we started we had discussed the need for a logo for the brand; something that if you saw it, you’d know it was Meander, and had come up with the idea for a simple meandering squiggle design. I was really keen that it was tied to something physical and not just a random meaningless squiggle. This then led to months of searching through image archives, maps and photo albums looking at the silhouette of the mountain lines and meandering rivers, but none of these worked, so I started looking at roads. The famous Bealach na Bà first sprang to mind, but it’s way too erratic for a logo. When I found an old photo of the road going down towards Loch Marie from the Glen Doherty Viewpoint - I knew we’d found it. From there it was a fairly simple process of drawing lots of different iterations of it and getting the team to vote on their favourite.

Jill - I’m from Edinburgh and I absolutely love living in Scotland. We both lived in London for a good 10 years or so and whilst I still love visiting London, (we do have a Meander store in central London) I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but Scotland. I love the fact that you can drive for an hour and be at the bottom of a Munro and do a hike easily in a day, or in less than half an hour, we can be at the foot of the Pentlands Hills walking our dog Dexter! It’s also very cool that in just over an hour's drive, you can be in the Scottish Borders where all our Scottish Knitwear is made. My dad went to school in Hawick which is the town where we make our knitwear and I think it’s really special that we are manufacturing our knitwear in a traditional factory that’s been around for over 100 years in a place that's close to our hearts.

Steve - Scotland is the perfect place for us to design, test and come up with new ideas for our products. There are so many beautiful places to visit, mountains to climb and green spaces to walk Dexter on a daily basis. It is our stunning surroundings that inspire us to make the range that we do. Our gear is very much about minimal, functional clothing for exploring in, and Scotland is the perfect place to do that. 

100% - Trekking to the North Pole and running across the Sahara Desert were two of the best experiences of my life, but in both places you learn very quickly that if you don’t have the right clothing you are going to have an awful time. With Meander, we wanted to take the technical qualities of these sorts of performance clothing and blend them with a more versatile and everyday aesthetic. You wouldn't necessarily pack one of our jackets for an expedition up Everest, but they can certainly handle the tough conditions that a Scottish mountain might throw at you on a rough day. I’ve still got my Puffer Jacket from the North Pole expedition and I have to say our Recycled Puffer is much warmer!

Steve- Often it’s customer feedback or something that we need ourselves and feel like it’s missing in the market. When we came up with the Recycled Puffer, it was definitely something that we felt there was a gap for. A lot of customers were buying the Meander jacket to wear on top of their Puffer jackets which weren’t waterproof. We couldn't understand why most Puffers aren’t made of waterproof materials and decided we would make one.

Jill- Yeah, we definitely start with function over fashion but we are also suckers for really lovely, soft fabrics! When we visit our suppliers in Portugal we’re obsessed with feeling all the new materials! I remember when we first visited the mill who make our Resquiggle sweat which is made from the softest fibres (made from recycled spinning waste), we knew we had to have in the collection! 

Jill - Having worked in the Fashion industry, I am very aware of the negative impact our industry has on the planet. There is so much waste in textiles and we really wanted to do things differently. This is why we have a core collection of products made from mostly recycled materials and natural fibres. We make it as close to home as possible and go to places that are known for being specialists in their field. Scotland makes the best knitwear in the world and Portugal makes some of the best jersey products which is why we make these products there.

Steve - As a scuba diving instructor, I have been lucky enough to travel the world and go diving in the most amazing places. However, I have seen the negative side of climate change and the impact on coral reefs and the sea life that live there. It’s devastating to see and I want to do everything I can to do things differently without causing unnecessary damage. Thats why we obsess over things like our fabrics, the quality of our manufactured products, and why we consider the impact at every stage of the process. 

Acquiring Tens, Opening our stores, our STV ad, and creating a brilliant team and community.

Acquiring Tens - We've admired Tens for a long time having worked with the brand for years before the acquisition earlier this year. We feel very proud to have two Scottish brands in our wheelhouse!

Opening stores in Edinburgh and London - We love the stores as they’re much more than just a store. They’re the places where we host events, hang out with our customers and their dogs and families, where we showcase the full range of Meander and where people can meet and learn about our brand and products.

Our STV ad was a special moment too! This ad was such an opportunity to really showcase our Scottish brand and what we stand for. It felt like such a proud moment watching it for the first time on the TV!

Our Meander team and community is also very special to us. We have a brilliant team in Edinburgh and London and without you guys, we simply couldn’t do it. Our community of Meanderers are also super special and extremely supportive and for this, we are also truly thankful. 

Meander has been a brand partner of Tens since 2020 when we started selling the sunglasses in our stores, but we’ve known about them since their launch in 2014 and have always loved the brand. Tens is a Scottish brand started by photographers and filmmakers, inspired by a road trip in the Scottish Highlands. It was originally founded by Chris, Marty and Tom, however those guys had moved on and created other super- successful ventures and the brand was looking for someone else to steer the ship. The opportunity presented itself when the Virgin Group (who were the major shareholders) approached us to take on the brand and IP and grow Tens alongside Meander. It was an opportunity which we just couldn’t refuse.

Jill - It’s difficult to narrow down but right now I am loving the Recycled Puffer, my Adventure trousers and the Classic Crew knitwear! I literally have them on all the time. The puffer is so warm and waterproof so it's perfect for walking Dexter. The adventure trousers are literally the comfiest trousers ever, and I love the softness of the merino and cashmere that make up the Classic Crew! It feels like a little piece of cosy luxury.

Steve - I live in my Meander wide leg trousers - It used to be the Adventure Trousers, but now it's mostly the new Wide Leg Trouser. It feels like I'm always wearing tracksuit bottoms and now it’s hard to wear anything else. I’m also pretty fond of my 37.5 Quarter Zip top. 

Jill - Scout! They are perfect for me and I love them. I can’t wait to get more colours of them.

Steve - Scout too - I had mine first and Jill always copies me with glasses. Her new reading glasses are almost an exact replica of the ones I’ve worn for years!

Jill - Vancouver - We have good friends in the city. It's got great places to eat, nice beaches and it’s just a short drive to Whistler and I love skiing :)

Steve - That does sound nice! Maybe somewhere close to home first though. I’m a big fan of Copenhagen and would love to spend more time there. Loads of great shops and design inspo, plus the food is out of this world!

Jill and Steve:

Short term, we’re excited about taking a few days off for Christmas! There are only a few days each year where we get to totally switch off and we plan to make the most of tucking into Christmas dinner whilst drinking mulled wine and a few whiskey nippers too :)

Longer term, we have so many plans for both Meander and Tens! Whilst we have come a long way, there is so much more that we want to achieve in future. We would love to have Meander and Tens stores in some global cities like New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Amsterdam, Portland, Vancouver and that might just about do it!

There are lots of products that we’d love to introduce to the collection too and we would love to do more women's styles for our brand. I’d love to see a few celebs in our gear too! Ewan Macgregor, Tilda Swinton and Gerard Butler - we’re coming for ya!