Ian Holdcroft, Co-Founder, Shackleton
Walpole: Tell us about the history of your brand…
Ian Holdcroft: Driven by exploration and innovation, our company is built on the life and values of polar titan, Sir Ernest Shackleton. Our brand purpose is "to inspire, enable and equip people to live courageously". Founded in 2016, Shackleton designs and makes high performance apparel and delivers life-changing expedition experiences. Following a series of seasonal pop-up stores in central London, we opened our flagship store on Piccadilly in 2023. Our store is more than just retail, we host regular evening talks from inspiring people and showcase our incredible experiences, Shackleton Challenges.
What is your brand best known for?
There aren’t many modern brands that possess such a rich heritage. Inspired by one of the greatest leaders of all time, Sir Ernest Shackleton, our brand is already well known around the globe. Sir Ernest Shackleton died a little over one hundred years ago, but his values and qualities - courage, optimism, resilience, leadership - are as relevant today as they were in 1922. There is a crater at the south pole of the Moon named after him and a 12-foot statue of him embedded in the wall at the Royal Geographical Society on the junction of Kensington Gore and Exhibition Road in London. We are building a contemporary brand, but one that honours Sir Ernest’s legacy; so in 2122, the name Shackleton will be as well known for what we have achieved as what Sir Ernest achieved early in the 20th century.
What has been a significant achievement in your company’s timeline?
We’re building a brand, not just a clothing company, and it was always our intention to launch experiences. We feel it is a crucial part of contemporary, luxury brands to give customers the opportunity to live and breathe the brand. We were about to launch expedition experiences in 2020 and then the pandemic hit, so we had to put everything on pause. In the early phases of the pandemic we recognised that people were rethinking their lifestyle and how they spend their time. We also witnessed a human resolve to face up to difficulties and overcome challenges. So, In April 2021 we launched Shackleton Challenges, these are authentic expedition experiences delivered by our world-class team of experts and with the level of ‘white glove’ client experience you’d expect from a luxury brand. We delivered our first Challenges in Norway in March 2022.
Since then, we have grown significantly and are seeing strong demand for our unique and challenging experiences. In three years we have taken over 100 clients on Shackleton Challenges to Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Antarctica, the Alps and the Middle-East. It is our ambition to be the world’s best expedition experiences brand and with new environments and destinations launching throughout 2024 and 2025 we expect to see continued growth.
Why do you love the brand?
The power of the brand is enormous and it opens lots of doors and exciting opportunities. We have a set of core values, a cultural blueprint, called the 'nine commitments', which is fundamental to how we think, act, behave and the decisions we make. One of our commitments is "we tread lightly". This commitment is to keep us focused on ensuring we limit negative impact on the planet. We use recycled and recyclable fabrics, we have a completely transparent supply chain and we offset carbon emissions generated by Shackleton Challenges.
In January 2022, to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s death, we launched the ‘Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions’. After only three years, this has become a much coveted award and generates significant interest globally. We are extremely proud of how much impact we have had highlighting the global challenges associated with climate change and celebrating the people around the world who are working hard to ensure humanity works together to find solutions.
Why does your brand represent the very best in British luxury?
British luxury is associated with heritage, style, elegance, innovation and creativity. We are proud to be a British brand and we make many of our products in the UK. We seek to elevate every single aspect of our business and brand; we design, develop and test all our apparel in-house and we place huge emphasis on engineering, craftsmanship and performance. We pay forensic attention to detail and invest significant time in sourcing the finest fabrics, the best trims and the world’s best suppliers.
Our approach to Shackleton Challenges is to design and deliver genuine life-changing experiences that all have an ‘expedition’ at the heart of the overall experience. We enable our clients to step beyond their comfort zone whilst delivering a client experience with the attention to detail and elegance that one would expect from a luxury brand.
What attracted you to becoming a Walpole member?
As a British luxury brand, there is no better organisation than Walpole to be a part of. It feels like we’re part of a family and we have the support of this great organisation to help us navigate some of the challenges growing businesses face. We were delighted to be awarded Brands of Tomorrow status in 2020, which we are extremely proud of. Being a member of Walpole puts us under a certain pressure to ensure we build our brand and business the right way and in a way that creates genuine legacy and contributes to the positive perception of British luxury around the world.
If you could collaborate with another Walpole member, which one would you choose?
Bremont is a great brand and there is very obvious alignment between our positioning, values and audience. We have had some conversations with them recently and we’re exploring ways we can work more closely together. We’re excited about what’s possible.
Tell us about an exciting development or new launch for your brand in the coming months?
We will be investing significantly in our Piccadilly store over the next few months to create a fantastic retail experience. We will be launching new products over the next six months and we also have very ambitious expansion plans for Shackleton Challenges with our team designing some truly unique experiences.
In March 2022, Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was discovered 3,000 metres below the sea ice in Antarctica. There is talk of a major documentary in the making which we’re very excited about – and there have been rumours that Tom Hardy will be making the ultimate biopic of Sir Ernest Shackleton!
