@Giles cheers to your amazing forsight and gamble

Thank you. But it was @Madame-Buttonfly who made the biggest gamble.

G - "Erm, I think I can make a go of this clothing thing, but I wont be able to contribute anything financially into the house, home or holidays, for I don't know how long, what do you think?"
P - "Go for it"

I honestly get a bit frustrated by comments I see online that talk negatively about Iron Heart, because I have tried a lot of other brands over the duration I've been into "heritage-wear", and Iron Heart just feels better than anything anyone else is producing, I'm big on brand loyalty and happy I've found something I can identify with and wear with pride.

Knowing the effort that IHUK put into their care for customers with customer service/being active on the forum and going above and beyond for us, you guys have done a lot of me...

I am not an important person

Honestly, you all are........We exist because of you.

I wore those jeans through all of covid, then I had a big beer focussed trip to Amsterdam > Cologne > Munich > Pilsen > Prague coming up in 2023, I wanted to get a new pair of jeans for it because I had a crotch blowout in my first pair, I was leaving on the Thursday so I put in the order on the Saturday before it hoping somehow I could get it in time, they emailed about the sizing and I explained I already had a pair, just needed them hemmed, but I was leaving Thursday at like 2PM and was hoping to get them in time. Somehow, they managed to hem the jeans and get them to my door Thursday at 12PM, two hours before leaving to the airport. At this point I was like, I am never buying jeans anywhere else. Then things snowballed into shirts and hats and belts and boots and has just kept going, at this point it's the forum here, not that I post a lot, but seeing other regulars post alot, seeing progress on specific items, news about things coming up, the product releases all that on top of just absolutely insane and never before experienced by me customer service keeps me coming back.

One other cool experience was last year I went to London had never been, the IHUK crew setup a time for me and my wife to go by the showroom, before that Alex was texting me his favorite places to get a cask beer, because I wanted to experience that. I had also missed the first STF bucket hat release because I was stuck on some big client escalation and when I got to the showroom they had brought the photo model down for me to buy since they knew I wanted it and I had commented how I missed it as it sold out. After hanging at the showroom for a bit Alex took me and my wife to a pub he liked, gave us a bunch of other cocktail spots to check out around London, some food spots as well, created a group chat with some of the other guys who were into similar things and texted me a few times during the trip to check in and see if there was any advice I needed or anything. Really made me feel like I had friends there who wanted me to have the best time in London, my wife was super impressed, she has told a bunch of people about it when they ask what brand of clothes im wearing.

I think all in all the what has Iron Heart done for me is just made me feel a part of it, like i'm not a faceless customer who is just dollars to them but someone they know and treat so well right from the start, I am not an important person, but Iron Heart crew makes me feel like I am an important person to them, and you can see that they do this for everyone around here, that goes so far in comparison to other brands with zero interaction with their customers.

I found IH myself I was on the hunt for heavyweight.

Put the Iron Heart to one side. I make friends with Paula, Giles his nephew Matt at first. 13 years ago before making more friends as time move on. Wonderful people who show respect and kindness towards each other.

I had a lot of favours, wanting certain items. Am always grateful ️ they go out their way for me.
Get more favours, because of my trust never let them down.
Yeah I spent a bomb here lost count how much, but still not an enough.
Bottom line wearing IH make me more famous wearing IH and GAH.

Don’t hate the player hate the game.
Some are impressed others are not, I don’t care less if you don’t like me.

As for those who bitch and moan giving IH a bad name can spin on this the reason I said it, I seen those comments outside Forum but have a different side on here.

I encourage all these “experts” to: create a product line, learn to craft it (exceptionally well), develop the brand, staff it up, instill a culture of customer loyalty, superior support / service, create an engagement platform, figure out the global logistics and production, create retail partnerships, I could go on ….

In an increasingly divided world, it’s great to be part of this community where everyone can feel welcome and share common interests. Thank you Iron Heart, keep on keeping on ️

I try my best to avoid toxic people on social media platforms (and forums).

It costs nothing to be happy for others success.

To people who want cheap stuff, I ask — what is that getting you? The first, most obvious thing will be that the product quality will suffer. Maybe it’ll crap out in a year or so and you’ll have to buy another one (and that’s what they want).

Secondly, what does it look like for the people at the top of that company? And how about the people further down? The cheaper a product gets, the bigger disparity you’ll see here.

I think when it comes to these factors with respect to cheap shit, the question should always be “is it worth it?”

I left out that IH and quality gear in general can give even a big dork like me the confidence to post pictures on the interwebs ️

I was getting past my trendier years when I was really paying attention to stuff everybody was wearing and seeing how I’d adapt. After a while of course I reached the point of no fucks and started dressing the way I wanted to for the rest of my life, which was essentially American classics like jeans, flannels, motorcycle boots, leather jackets — the evergreens.

IH scratched that itch in so many ways. The fit, the material, the quality that addressed that aforementioned “for the rest of my life” bit; it was all there. Plus I soon got to know the customer service, which is so off the charts that I’m positively ruined with respect to everywhere else. Sometimes I’ll message a company asking if they can measure a specific pair for me or some request of the sort, and they’ll at best act like I’m being unreasonable (masked in babying scripted language, of course), but more likely just not respond at all or refer me to a bot.

And lastly, the forum, which is where I not only got to meet so many fantastic buds and total characters, but also I came to really understand what IH international was, and what it did. I’ve long loved Japanese brands, but they were often very limited in terms of what interactions you could have with them, and what you could see behind the curtain. Being in the forum gave me so much insight into the Haraki side of things, it even more so into how Giles, Alex, and everyone acted both as a bridge from IHJ to the rest of the world, but also as partners who add huge amounts of development into new products and help IHJ be in touch with what said rest of world wants.

As a guitar player, I’d compare IH to a “boutique” company that’s been very successful and has gotten to a decent size, but still managed to keep the quality going, offer top class support, and take good care of its employees. Look at a guitar, amp, or pedal business that has done all of these things, and you will find products that are expensive, because they have to be. To any twat who looks at a boutique, considered guitar pedal and says “oh that’s just a handful of resistors that I could buy for $5” I say: go buy those parts. Learn to build the thing. You’ll struggle, and you’ll realize yours doesn’t sound as good. So you’ll maybe put more and more hours in, and maybe you’ll start to realize that all this time and effort you’re spending has value. This time is taken from your life — so what is your time worth?

I’m getting off on a wee tirade here, but I’ll just say that when it comes to IH International, I appreciate what y’all do, so very much. And as for Iron Heart as a whole, some people get it, and some don’t. And that’s ok. I’m just glad I’m one who does.

Certainly you say “head” and not bathroom

I also appreciate your thoughts on the vanity of it all and completely agree. It’s what turns me off to some brands as they became a status symbol for people trying to fit in/look important.

I don’t care what people wear, but more about who they are.

Somewhere along that journey, I stumbled across the Iron Heart Forum. I was immediately taken aback by the transparency of the ownership and staff, but even more so by the support the community gives—and continues to give—one another. There is something genuinely special about the culture that has been created within this community. Ultimately, that culture has been the hook that has kept me on this proverbial clothing journey.

Not many businesses create that kind of alignment with their consumer base. And, of course, that level of connection is bound to create some disgruntlement among people who view every interaction in life as a transaction.

To be honest, to hell with that mindset.

I work for a business that averages between $1 and $1.5 billion in annual revenue, with roughly 400 salaried team members and anywhere from 200 to 600 craft professionals. The way we have built unity and alignment within that organization is through a very similar approach: truth, trust, transparency, and an unwavering dedication to our core values.

That is why I recognize what IHUK has built.

Kudos to all of you at IHUK—and, of course, to Hiraki—for creating a sense of fulfillment that I never imagined I could find through something as simple as procuring clothing.

But that's the thing: it's never really been about the clothing.

It's the journey that's the hook.

And thank you all for being willing to be open, transparent, and engaged in the conversations along the way. That, more than anything, is what makes this community special.

This is probably gonna cost me a CPO’s worth of repair dollars.

On the bright side, I have plenty of time to read all the posts in this thread…

spending time on his boat or whatever you want to call it.(ship, motor yacht, i’m not sure what the English call it

Nor me , It's a floaty thing that I unpark, drive from A to B and then park. I think sometimes I remember to call the kitchen a galley, but it's really just a kitchen.....

Paula bumped into Sir Robin Knox-Johnston recently, and she told him that we now had a boat, but she apologised because it was a not a sailing boat. He berated her in in typical forthright style. "Paula, do not a apologise, I hate it when people get snobby and elitist about boats. What is important is that it gets you out on the water, and that is all that matters"

Every part of me (except perhaps my liver) is thankful for the forum, but it wouldn’t be what it is if it wasn’t underpinned by solid products and the way IH have chosen to do business.

I feel myself drawn to the brand and this forum here, because it has created something in addition to just the purchase, which is mainly because IH International deliberately chose to get customers involved. This is something which I did not expect, but what was very familiar concept from topics I consider a hobby. I always find it fascinating how IH has crossed that line from simply consuming a product to actually engage with others, making it worthwhile to stay on here. It probably addresses a basic human need for community. Still does not explain why I try to hunt down rare IH pieces all over the world, though.

The 'bitching' part seems to mainly come from people I have no interest in listening to. People who define themselves by what they wear and what appearance they create.
That is just vanity combined with a certain hollowness. I tend to stay away from those people, although I see that IH still must deal with them as customers.

Judging from afar, those bitching around most loudly are probably the people who have no expertise in running a business.
Or their business model is being an influencer who need to bitch around to gain attraction and that paycheck from youtube.
But on youtube, I never go for the videos with the reviews of boots, I'll go straight to the cobbler who made a video of fixing them.
If you bitch around topics where no one has asked for your opinion, and that is all you do, you probably should reconsider your life choices.
I'm sure there a numerous points to criticize even with IH, but there's enough space on here to address that with all due respect. Simply bitching around on the internet will get you nowhere.