ABOUT BRAVE GENTLEMAN

Brave GentleMan was an award-winning brand launched in 2010 most known for high-quality, expertly-crafted footwear made with cutting-edge materials and ethical manufacturing. Brave GentleMan has been featured in Vogue, GQ, Forbes, The Financial Times and photographed on celebrities from Lukas Gage, Stephan James, Alan Cumming and Zach Woods to Liam Hemsworth, Joaquin Phoenix and Elliot Knight. In recent years, the brand was named Menswear Brand of the Year and Most Influential Designer by PETA.

WHY WE CLOSED

After almost 15 years, Brave GentleMan ceased operations at the end of 2024. I want to say an enormous, heartfelt thank you for our customers, supporters, investors, friends and family for keeping my vision, values and mission thriving far longer and reaching further than I ever could have imagined.

Brave GentleMan came into existence to make a point: that for design to be truly good, the beauty of an object must be matched by the beauty of how it was made. I was driven by the desire to transform fashion supply chains for animals, the environment and people. Over the years, Brave GentleMan set new standards, garnered attention from major press and celebrities, influenced legislation, led me to lecture and teach at top fashion schools, to write an award-winning book, contribute to meaningful research and help inspire a new generation of vegan fashion brands. None of this would have been possible without you. And you did show up.

Brave GentleMan had some of the most loyal supporters, from early lenders who took a risk on my dream, to angel investors who truly were angels. From professionals who became friends offering their photography, PR, design and marketing skills to models who worked for barter, experts who provided insights and celebrities who used their platforms to magnify our presence. Brave GentleMan sparked something in most who came across it.

Brave GentleMan became something that appeared so much bigger than the reality of what was going on behind the scenes. I would often think to myself, “if they only knew” when we’d get emails asking to speak to our fulfillment department or our sales department. “Department?” BGM was never more than a rag-tag, skeleton crew of two or three employees doing everything. For many stretches, it was just me responding to emails, packing orders and coordinating with contractors. In fact, the financial strain often left me with little to no salary. I was rarely able to pay myself anything at all, and instead, I worked other jobs—freelance work and full-time employment elsewhere—just to keep things afloat. This meant that the love, attention, and focus that I wanted to pour into Brave GentleMan had to take a backseat. It wasn’t the vision I had for the brand, but it was the reality of being a small, independent business operating within a highly competitive, capital-intensive industry. The limited resources, coupled with the struggles mentioned earlier, made it increasingly difficult to scale the business and bring the brand's potential to fruition.

As with any entrepreneurial journey, I encountered my share of challenges. While I remained committed to the vision, there were moments when the path was anything but certain. From trying to gain traction in mainstream stores that didn’t fully understand BGM’s value, to enduring a series of unfortunate events — getting burned on several wholesale orders at our first major trade-show, surviving a fire that destroyed an entire season of inventory, a warehouse robbery, a contractor who disappeared with most of my patterns and samples, then a major department store that kept all my samples and refused to respond, two glove-makers who took the money and ran, and a subway shutdown that significantly impacted foot traffic for well over a year — I faced many uphill battles with very meager resources and little recourse. Then the covid economy presented its own set of challenges forcing us to close down our flagship store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Each of these hurdles only strengthened my resolve to stay true to my mission, but sometimes what we want to do, and what is possible are not one-and-the-same.

And so, I must say a bittersweet goodbye. Brave GentleMan was never just a business; it was a vision, a fight for something better, a dream and a community that burned bright for a while. We pushed, we fell, we got back up, and we made something beautiful. But the road ran out. There’s no regret, just gratitude for the journey, for the people who believed in it and became part of it. We gave it our all, and now, we let go.

The story doesn’t end here, though — it lives on in the work, in the people, in the animals, and in the world that will slowly, but surely, change.

LESSONS LEARNED

As an early pioneer in the vegan and sustainable menswear space, Brave GentleMan set out with the goal of transforming how fashion is made, using Next Gen materials, ethical labor, and fostering an ethos of circularity and transparency. However, the reality is that the path toward circularity is becoming increasingly difficulty. Here are some observations and insights:

COSTS
One major challenge was the high production costs associated with using more sustainable materials and fair labor. Animal-free and plastic-free Next Gen leather, for example, can be much more expensive than farmed-animal leather. The high cost of such materials has led to higher retail prices. Without levers like government subsidies or collective purchasing for small businesses, it became difficult for Brave GentleMan to compete with significantly cheaper fast fashion and conventional brands. Many consumers, while increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of their purchases, still struggle to justify paying a premium for products from smaller, sustainable brands when fast fashion offers comparable items at a fraction of the price. Intentions and values do not always align with the reality of what people can actually afford.

MARKET SATURATION
In addition to cost concerns, Brave GentleMan also faced the growing saturation of the sustainable fashion market. Despite our established position as a leader in vegan footwear and sustainable menswear, the overwhelming number of new brands meant that it became harder to break through to a larger audience. This was compounded by challenges in marketing; we simply didn’t have the same budget, staff or resources as the bigger players. Social media algorithms further made it harder for us to reach new customers. Despite our strong following, our organic reach was mostly word-of-mouth and our few paid posts were stifled by platforms favoring larger, more heavily funded companies.

COMPETITION
As competitors entered the market, many were willing to make larger compromises—whether in materials, labor, or quality—to increase margins and scale faster. While flexibility is necessary in business, compromising too much can undermine the principles that set a brand apart and the reason for a brands inception in the first place. For Brave GentleMan, staying true to the core values— veganism, sustainability, ethical labor, sourcing of innovative and emerging materials, and high-quality craftsmanship—was non-negotiable, even if it meant forgoing the rate of short-term growth. While some cut corners, we chose to stay true to our core values, understanding that long-term success comes from building a brand with integrity and purpose. I believe that maintaining those standards was crucial, even if it ultimately led to a difficult decision to close.

ETHICAL IDEALISM
Early, I approached Brave GentleMan with a sense of “ethical idealism”, assuming that doing things the “right way”— prioritizing veganism, sustainability, ethical labor practices, and innovative materials— will would naturally lead to long term success. However, ethical businesses often face systemic obstacles, including higher production costs, price-sensitive consumers, and competition from brands that may not hold the same ethical standards.The danger here is that while ethical idealism can be a North Star guiding a business toward meaningful goals, it must be balanced with practical strategies to avoid pitfalls. Innovation must be paired with market demand and strategic positioning, not just good intentions.

PRIORITIZE CORE OFFERINGS & SCALABILITY
Considering the challenges faced by Brave GenlteMan, a more focused approach—starting with footwear and possibly expanding into suiting—could have allowed for more manageable growth, resource allocation, better scalability and a more efficient supply chain. The importance of specializing in the early stages of a business, rather than overextending, is a reminder that growth isn’t always about breadth, but about depth. Many successful brands focus on a few key products to ensure scalability is built into the processes.

PATIENCE, FINANCING & GROWTH
A more strategic, long-term growth plan would have been a big benefit since the market often cannot absorb premium products at scale immediately and many early-stage sustainability-driven companies face initial pushback or slower-than-expected uptake. The financial runway for scaling Brave GentleMan was too short, especially when relying on initial investments and slower returns from a niche market. A deeper understanding of cash flow cycles and securing sufficient early catalytic capital, and then patient, mid-stage capital might have alleviated some of the cash flow gaps that impacted Brave GentleMan’s ability to continue innovating and scaling.

CLOSING
Closing Brave GentleMan was not a decision made lightly, but it is a reflection of the wider trends many sustainable brands are facing today. Rising production costs, market saturation, and competition from fast fashion created financial pressures that were too great to overcome. The real challenge for brands like Brave GentleMan is not just having sustainability as a selling point, but ensuring that every operational aspect — like sourcing Next Gen materials, is both scalable and cost-effective. While our use of cutting-edge, sustainable materials and ethical labor was a strong differentiator, the cost of those materials and craftsmanship often put us at a great disadvantage when competing with larger brands that could benefit from economies of scale and more easily absorb costs and pass them down to consumers. Smaller sustainable brands like Brave Gentle Man could have benefitted from more collaborations with others SMEs or material innovators in the industry to bring down supply chain costs, ultimately increasing our competitiveness. Brave GentleMan could also have benefited greatly by being acquired by a larger entity with built-in sales, distribution and marketing channels.

While Brave Gentle Man was creating groundbreaking products, the model of relying on higher-priced, small-scale production was not sustainable in the long term given the realities of the fast fashion industry. Moving to a made-to-order system was a step in the right direction to avoid unsold inventory, but it was a bit too late and scaling the production of sustainable footwear in a way that is both affordable and viable requires deep industry relationships, partnerships, and innovative manufacturing solutions.

Despite our deep commitment to creating a better, more responsible fashion industry, the current business landscape made it impossible for us to continue.

HOW WE MADE THINGS

TROUBLEMAKER

Brave GentleMan did things differently. We embraced a slow-fashion production model. We invested in sustainable innovation, superior vegan materials, ethical labor and classic styles made with quality. This was not always (in fact, rarely) met with enthusiasm from traditional manufacturers we would commission.

YOU ARE A CITIZEN

We never liked to call our supporters “consumers”. That title is passive. You’re more than a receptacle, and where you put your money actually matters. We liked to think of our customers as citizen-investors whose purchases actually funded the systems they wanted to see flourish.

MANIFESTO

‘Ethical fashion’ is not an aesthetic. It is a methodology. Brave GentleMan simply applied this method to classic menswear aesthetics. We never believed animals belonged in the fashion production system. We believed that people making our clothing and growing, developing or processing our materials deserve respect and dignity through safe conditions and living wages. We believed that ecosystems should not be destroyed in order to make fashion. We believed that the increasing velocity of "fast-fashion" is one very visible manifestation of a much larger and deeper problem. Brave GentleMan was not perfect, but it aimed to transform supply chains and take steps toward better and better solutions.

TRUE STORY

We believed that how products were actually made superseded any marketed "story". Our footwear and accessories were constructed in a durable, supple, weather resistant, hi-tech materials. As we attempted to fully transition to bio-based materials like biodegradable and plastic-free MIRUM® by Natural Fiber Welding, partially bio-based Appleskin® and recycled bio-based blends like Modern Meadow’s Bio-Vera®, we still used hi-tech polyurethane microfiber made in Italy that was Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 class I certified and met the requirements for REACH Regulation 1907:2006. (For information on comparing the environmental impacts of conventional leather to PU leather click here.) In addition the materials being UNE-EN ISO certified for safety, protective and work footwear. Many of our customers who purchased footwear from our inaugural 2010 collection would send images of the shoes and boots still being worn in 2024 after having been cared for and resoled.

We offered our expertise in Next Gen leathers to several innovators who sought our footwear and accessory experience, emphasizing that nonwoven microfibers with durable scaffolds were always preferable to coated canvas or other woven-backed leather replacements due to their resilience, ability to break-in and breathe like leather and their superior abrasion resistance and tensile strength.

Most of our outerwear and suiting was made using things like organic cotton twills and canvases, linen, bamboo lyocell, Brazilian waste-diverted tweeds and twills woven from recycled cotton and recycled polyester from circular innovators like EcoSimple, and linings made from organic cotton or recycled polyester. Buttons were always made from corozo (tagua nut). Though nascent, we were perpetually on the lookout for innovations when it came to replacing specialized materials like insoles, foam cushioning elements, structural elements, fusible, interlinings and padding which were often still made with conventional synthetics. We were always on the lookout for better alternatives to these as well as our paper and packaging elements. We hoped eventually to invest in materials like SWAY’s circular seaweed packaging to replace conventional plastic polybags, and were always on the looking for emerging innovations.

As a small company, one of the barriers to accessing these emerging innovations was price premiums and MOQ thresholds we could not achieve independently. Having a collective-purchasing/ buyers consortium or SME purchasing club would have benefitted us and other participating likeminded small brands equally.

IN PURSUIT OF SUPERIOR MATERIALS

Brave GentleMan's palette of materials was constantly in flux as we grew, as our buying-power and collaborations increased, and as we gained information about new materials that became available. Our goal was to use the highest performance materials with the most stringent aesthetic criteria that met a set of serious ethical and environmental standards. We were (and still are) excited for the day that circumfaunal materials bypass all animal inputs in supply chains.