DISPATCH 13

Join us for our first participation event on Sunday 24th May, hosted by our friends at Locker. ‘Herd Mentality’ is an opportunity to move together and share space.

An experience designed to foster connection between mind, body and community. The experience will be split into aerobic conditioning and resistance work, guided by GEP member, coach and Locker co-owner, Harrison Edgson. Guests will be supplied with intra-workout hydration, post-workout nutrition and other exclusive event rewards. To help us look after each guest and offer the best experience, this event is limited to 25 spaces. 

We’re giving Dispatch subscribers first access to tickets. Register now.

In March, we announced the launch of the CLOBBER GEP (Global Exchange Programme) to bring together an international network of creatives, movers and tastemakers. The GEP was established to encourage the exchange of resources and ideas across geographical and cultural boundaries, between those that share a dual-interest in physical and creative pursuits. Programme members from cities around the world connect the brand to the active communities it exists for.

Members are invited to test early prototypes and share perspectives during the product development process. They will receive each CLOBBER release and exclusive gear produced solely for the Programme. The GEP is not about promotion, but participation. Members are not paid to endorse the brand, but choose to wear CLOBBER as they move through the world. Admission to the programme is by invitation only. Personal style and creative identity are shaped by many influences and with that in mind, members are not bound by sponsorship restrictions but are encouraged to support the brands, designers and movements that speak to them.

Be careful using the C bomb in earshot of Siri. Before you know it, your IG feed will be a revolving door of every Tom, Dick and Harry shouting about their new gummies that will make you feel like the Hulk. Truth is, the science has been raving about creatine long before everyone started injected gummy bears with it. So why is it that no one can ever seem to tell you the actual benefits of the stuff? Here’s the short of it.

Creatine increases muscle stores of phosphocreatine which helps rapidly generate what’s called adenosine triphosphate. Let’s just call it ATP. ATP is the molecule your body uses for instant energy during hard efforts. When ATP runs low, performance drops. Creatine helps restore it faster, which means you can lift heavier or generate more power, do more reps before hitting fatigue and maintain higher performance across sets (less drop-off from sets 1 to 3). Over time, this leads to more strength and increased performance. Research also shows that creatine improves recovery. It reduces markers of muscle damage and inflammation after intense exercise, helping you to maintain performance across repeated sessions. But the benefits don’t stop at physical performance. The brain also uses phosphocreatine for energy and studies have shown that it can improve memory and cognitive performance in situations of sleep deprivation and mental fatigue.

Some final remarks on the subject. Creapure® is the gold-standard. 5 grams a day is a good dosage for most people. Timing matters very little - just get it in. Some people experience mild GI issues from taking creatine. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not medical advice. If your strength numbers go through the roof, you can come and thank us, but if you start arguing with your partner because you’re windy in bed, that’s on you.

A few doors along from Monmouth Coffee in Borough Market, there’s an easy to miss door with a buzzer labelled ‘SALT’. Press it and someone on the intercom will ask if you’ve got an appointment before letting you in. Beyond the door is a steep flight of stairs which opens up onto the first floor, ‘The Listening Room’. Concrete floors, floor-to-ceiling mirrors and a pair of huge loudspeakers set into a stainless steel wall. I thumbed through the books on the coffee table whilst I waited for my appointment with Oli Simeone: ‘CUTS’, a book of hair-style portraits taken in Soho in the ‘90s and ‘00s, and ‘JAZZ KISSA’, a book on Japan’s iconic jazz cafes and listening culture. That says it all really. SALT is part hair salon, part instrument. Each detail has been designed to improve the sound experience. Heavy-duty sound tech, modular chairs made from recycled foam to absorb low-frequency sound, silicone wall panels to enhance acoustic clarity, and non-parallel walls to reduce echoes. 

Bang on time, Oli invited me up to ‘The Cutting Floor’. Outside the window, you can see the chaos of Borough Market, but you can’t hear any of it. In here, the ambient music from ‘The Listening Room’ flows upwards and the mostly stainless steel space is clean, precise and geometric. We spoke about calisthenics, the Lake District and the skin fade revolution. I asked Oli how he’d been trained. He called it “The Sassoon Way”. I looked it up afterward and it made complete sense: a hairdressing philosophy based on precision cutting, architectural geometry and personalisation, designed to work with the hair’s natural fall. The physical environment wasn’t just experiential for the sake of it. It matched the philosophy. 

SALT has the energy of somewhere you’d expect to find in a sci-fi film. The sort of place extraterrestrial beings might visit for regular maintenance. Remember Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi mullet in Attack of the Clones? The short, choppy hair with the Padawan braid at the back to signify his learner status. This is the kind of place he would’ve got that trim.

Recently, I’ve been having the same phone call with my old man every few weeks. It goes a little something like this. Me: “I think it’s time for me to leave my job to focus on CLOBBER full-time.” Dad: “Joe - if you don’t, you’ll always be wondering what if.” We go over the pros and cons and then chew the fat a little to distract from the fact that I’ve still not made a decision. This has gone on for about 6 months.

On Tuesday 7th April (the day after my Dad’s birthday), I gave him a call after work and told him that I’d sent my letter of resignation to HR. 

The time has come for me to give my full time and attention to CLOBBER. To see what I can make of this little brand that has come to mean so much of me. As Bowie put it, “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”