Will Brown and Marie Willey have spent more than three decades building Old Town in much the same way they make their clothes: with patience, the utmost care and entirely on their own terms.
Their story began in the early 1980s when London’s creative scene was fizzing. Will was making clothes for his Shoreditch boutique while Marie, who was working as an assistant fashion editor at 19 Magazine, borrowed his designs for fashion shoots. They moved in the same circles but it wasn't until years later, after swapping London for Norwich in search of a different pace of life, that they decided to build a business together.
Initially, they opened a lifestyle shop, where they sold balls of string, enamelware, handmade homewares and carefully sourced objects from across Europe. It wasn't the success they hoped it might be. But on a whim, they took a small rail of clothes to The Country Living Fair, which got them a feature in Country Living Magazine that started their mail order business for Old Town.
Old Town has become one of Britain's most admired independent clothing brands, built on small-scale production, exceptional craftsmanship and an unwavering commitment to doing things their own way. Today, Marie and Will – who both recently celebrated turning 70 – have handed over production to a carefully chosen factory in Tottenham, while Labour & Wait now looks after the retail side of the business. The Old Town shop may have closed, but if this conversation is anything to go by, they're showing little sign of slowing down.
Based: Sheringham & London
Working together since: 1992
Team size: 7
How did you two meet, and at what point in the relationship did you start the business?
Will: Well I had a shop in Shoreditch in 1980 on Rivington Street, which I set up with my partner at the time. I used to make clothes to sell there and Marie was working at 19 Magazine, as an assistant fashion editor. We first came across each other because Marie would borrow clothes from the shop.
Marie: We would use a lot of Will's clothes in the shoots, and Will obviously realised he was on to quite a good thing! I used to wear the clothes, but we also used to photograph them too.
So you met in a working environment?
Will: We knew each other before that I suppose from clubs…
Marie: It was the 80s so we’d go to places like the Blitz Club and there was quite a gang of us all around the same age and into similar things.
Did it then seem like a natural gravitation to work together?
Will: No, not for years. Marie worked at 19 for a while and I had different little workshops around London and I rented a shop off some friends in Soho. It was only in the early 90s when we decided to move out of London to Norwich that we decided to start a business together. But it wasn’t clothing, it was more like a lifestyle shop – like a very early version of Labour and Wait.
At the time, I don’t think Norwich was really ready for big balls of string and candles!
Marie: We used to go to all the antique suppliers and we’d buy amazing enamelware and other bits from France and Poland. We’d mix them in with other handmade items like these Shaker-style boxes that were made in Shropshire and beautiful woven blankets. As much as we tried to sell them, we couldn't.
We soon realised we'd made an absolute hum-dinger of a mistake opening a shop like that in Norwich. It was a complete disaster. By that time, I'd left the magazine and went freelance as a stylist. For about two years, I commuted to London from Norwich, which was a pain in the backside but it gave us an income.
After a couple of years, I think the turning point was when we had a stand at the Country Living Fair.
At the time, a lot of people were moving out of London and everybody was into the idea of “rural living”. Including us, because we lived on quite a dodgy council estate in Kennington, and we were desperate to get out of the city. We decided to move to Norwich because there’s a street called Elm Hill, which is a little bit like Spitalfields – it’s a cobbled street with Huguenot-style houses. A shop came up to let with a flat above and we thought we're having that. I think after a week we thought, “oh my god what have we done!”
Anyway, we had this stand at the Country Living Fair, we got this bloke to drive us down with a van load of stuff – enamel stuff, dresses and a small rail of Will’s clothes. From that, we got an article in Country Living Magazine, which really helped to kick start our mail order. We’d get cheques in the post with orders and that’s when we thought we were onto something.
I'm right in thinking Old Town is now closed? The shop is, anyway?
Marie: Yes. It happened gradually but I’d say it started around January 2024, when everything went a bit peculiar. We suddenly thought, “do we actually need the shop?” During Covid we were incredibly busy. Everyone was stuck at home with more disposable income because they weren't going out, so people were ordering clothes.
We found people would also ring up just because they wanted someone to talk to. They felt so isolated. They'd think, "I'll ring Marie and have a chat."
There were a few things that all came together. First, the building we owned was in a real state of disrepair and needed a complete overhaul. To do that we'd have had to move out, find somewhere else to work, then move back in. We just weren't prepared to do that.
Secondly, we were starting to lose machinists through illness and retirement, and they were virtually impossible to replace. At the same time, we were doing more and more of the work ourselves, especially the cutting and sewing. It was exhausting.
We were thrilled that the business was doing so well, but at the same time we were thinking, How much longer can we keep this up? We realised we had to change the way we worked.
So where did you go from there?
Marie: So we sold the shop and moved out last June. We'd actually given customers two years' notice, and it took that long to work through all the orders because everyone rushed to place what they thought would be their last Old Town order.
It was a bit sad really because we'd built the business up over so many years and a few people approached us about buying it, but nothing ever came of it.
The problem was that the very reason we were stopping was because we didn't have machinists. People would come along and say, "oh, we can do that." But they knew nothing about making clothes. We’d think, “no, you can’t actually do what we do”. Everything has to be made exactly the way we've always done it, otherwise whoever was taking on the business would lose customers.
And now?
Will: Now we work with Labour and Wait. Through them we found a factory in Tottenham, and we've gradually moved production over there. The quality is absolutely spot on. There's no difference between what we used to make and what they're producing.
We also have an agent in Japan who does about six pop up events every year. He takes orders from a range of samples and we make them using our remaining machinists.
I imagine that relationship took time to build?
Marie: Very much so. Simon from Labour and Wait introduced us to a friend he's known since college. She's worked in garment production all her life and is now in her early sixties. She looked at our clothes and said, "yes, I know exactly how to do this."
She's been doing this for over thirty years and oversees everything. We don't speak the language of factories – it's a completely different way of working. Will could show individual machinists how to make each garment, but factory production has its own systems, specifications and paperwork. Helen handles all of that. We approve every sample before production begins.
That must feel like a huge relief?
Will: It is. It's a proper factory full of skilled machinists.
In Tottenham?
Marie: Yes.
But even the owner says he doesn't know what the industry will look like in ten years because there are no young people coming into it. Even overseas, people aren't choosing sewing as a career in the way they once did.
We used to get lots of emails from students wanting to come and design clothes. But that's not how it works. Will does the designing. If you came to work with us, you'd start by learning the basics – perhaps sewing on buttons. You have to begin at the bottom.
Putting a garment together isn't just about sitting at a sewing machine. You need to understand garment construction.
You need those fundamentals.
Marie: Exactly. We used to have little test. If someone could topstitch a pocket properly, that was a good sign.
Will: Or sew the turned-in seams properly.
Marie: Yes. Those details have to be immaculate, and not many people can do them well.
So that's where we are now. It's taken about five years to get here, and we're still gradually moving styles over because introducing each garment into factory production is a long process. They have to sample it, approve it and then fit it into their production schedule.
That's always what put me off using a factory in the past. We never turned down an order – we'd simply work week by week, making garments for individual customers.
It was a wonderful model, but in the end it just wasn't sustainable. It very nearly killed us! It only really works if you can stay thirty-five years old forever and keep that level of energy.
What are you naturally good at? And how closely if at all, do your roles overlap?
Will: Well, I know how the things are made. I do the patterns, the graphics, the visuals for it, and that's pretty much all that I do. And Marie does everything else!
Marie: Hang on, that’s very modest!
Will: Describe your bits of the business then, Marie?
Marie: Exactly what you said. I do everything else! That is all the bits that Will doesn't want to do.
I’d oversee all the orders – sometimes people would order 10 or 15 things, which would be made by three or four different machinists. They all had to come back at the same time, so I’d make sure every order was roughly completed in six weeks. I’d make sure all the machinists had all of their work cut out, all the fabric was there, order fabrics, deal with customers – I used to do a lot!
Was there a defining moment in your working life?
Marie: Will came up with the idea – you went off piste – of the Unity suit, which is a more modernist design.
Nobody knew 14 years ago that they wanted a Unity suit. I mean it’s a jacket with drawstring trousers so it looks like a boiler suit, but it's not, it's two pieces. What Will's really good at is anticipating what people want.
Will: I was pleasing myself, basically!
Marie: But then the Unity suit became our biggest seller. We sold thousands of them and that’s the style Labour and Wait are selling now.
How do you disagree? Do you disagree well?
Marie: You always said, the only time we ever have words is about work.
Will: You bloody liar!
[Laughing!]
Marie: A lot of the time, it was a sense of frustration about something that wasn’t quite right. For example, we used tan cord and completely out of the blue it started shrinking in a peculiar way and it would twist the seam of the trouser leg.
We eventually found out what was going on when we washed a length and we could see how it was shrinking. But it's things like that which can be so tedious and basically we start getting a little bit niggly. So then I go and have a chocolate tiffin…
Will: And I go and have a cigarette!
How do you both approach taking risks?
Will: I suppose moving to Norwich was a real risk – we had no plan!
Marie: Really, the only reason why we moved was because we had a caravan there so we knew it quite well. But actually, I think after we moved, we thought maybe we should’ve gone somewhere else.
But there's something about Norfolk that was so ‘old world’ and we liked that. We found this tin house, which we bought for less than £30,000 – because that's we could afford – we bought a railway carriage and put it in the garden and we made it our home.
I think over time, I’ve become sort of risk averse. Back then I didn't feel moving to Norwich was a risk; we lived on a not very nice council estate so it was a relief to get away.
Will: It doesn’t feel like a risk when you've got nothing.
Have you had to consciously create boundaries between work and home, or do you sort of accept that there is a bit of a blur?
Marie: I mean, at the moment, we've got a workshop in our garden. So all day we’re literally walking backwards and forwards between the house and the workshop.
Will: It all just sort of rolls into one!
How do you rebalance your mental load when you're not working? Is there anything you do to switch off?
Marie: I listen to a lot of podcasts. I love Rosebud with Giles Brandweth.
Will: I quite like cleaning – I find it very therapeutic.
Marie: You’re also good at it! And you do your model railway…
Will: Yes, I very recently got it and I've always wanted one. I built parts of the trains and the scenery, the trees – it’s great fun!
Who do you look to for support when you feel up against it?
Will: No one that we know. There's no reason why they should understand, but they also don't. Interestingly, neither of our families know anything about what we do.
Marie: I think growing up, it was so alien to our parents and their generation – they wanted us to be either a teacher, a doctor, preferably a nun. I mean, my parents used to ask me when I was going to get a proper job when I was working in PR because it wasn't the sort of job that they recognised.
If there is something business-related that we’re not sure about, we like talking to Tim Little from Grenson. Tim is very supportive; he’s a good person to have a chat with and use as a bit of sounding board. And our friends Simon and Angie Lewin who have a company called St Judes Prints. They are our go to people when we need advice; Simon has managed our website since the beginning and if ever we have any ‘dad’ questions we go to him, which is at least once a week!
What are the benefits of working together?
Marie: We see a lot of each other!
Will: Yeah, we don’t have to make an appointment!
Marie: And we do have a bit of a laugh! I think it means we can be very straightforward…
Will: We work together sort of by intuition rather than negotiation.
And what are you working on that you're excited about for the future?
Marie: I just so look forward to coming down to London. As we walk down to the station from our house in Norwich, I’m practically skipping! I feel like my life starts again when we’re in London and for me, it’s how I switch off. We’re so familiar with it, even though it’s not my hometown, we feel very comfortable here.
...
Ok, time for some quick fire questions.
Introvert or extrovert?
Marie: I’d say I’m in between but possibly more extroverted.
Will: Introvert.
Inbox empty or is it chaos?
Marie: Empty. I'm very good at replying.
Will: I've barely got an inbox.
The last thing you changed your minds about?
Marie: Gyles Brandreth
What's one business tool you can live without?
Will: I've got a sewing machine that’s coming up to 50 years old. I bought it new in 1979 and I've used it every day pretty well for 50 odd years.
What's the best business advice you've ever received?
Will: "Don't make the things yourself. Don't sew them yourself,” which is very good advice. It's advice I've never taken, but I possibly should.
Marie: When we first moved to Norwich, there was this local scheme to help new businesses start up, and you'd have half an hour's worth of advice from an experienced business person. The advice he gave was to put something knobbly in an envelope when you do a mail out so people will open it.
What's banned from discussion once you've down tools?
Marie: It's this app I've got on my phone called Yuka and it’s a total rabbit hole.
Will: Don’t go near it!
Optimist or realist:
Will: Realist
Marie: Realist
Who would you like us to interview next?
Cameron Short & Janet Tristram from Bonfield Block Printers
Links into the unknown.
Will’s Lucky Links:
Marie’s Lucky Links:
Website: Old Town at Labour and Wait
Instagram: @oldtownengland
Words by Imogen Lawrence. Illustrations by Pat Thomas.
