THE PRESENTER, ADVENTURER AND AUTHOR ON THE GREAT OUTDOORS, what he’s learnt from leaving the city behind and his third collection with Barbour.
Unless you’ve been living in the wilderness, it’s highly likely that you’ve already heard of Ben Fogle. A spot on the hit show Castaway in 2000 propelled the amateur adventurer to fame, and his list of achievements has been growing ever since. Not only has Ben authored 11 books (his latest is out next month) and presented 11 seasons of hit Channel 5 show New Lives In The Wild, but he has even found time to summit Everest and, most recently, design three collections for Barbour. We sat down with Ben to talk about his latest, and aptly titled Wilderness Collection – exclusive to John Lewis & Partners – what drew him to a life of adventure and what the rest of this year holds for him and his family.
I’ve always loved the outdoors. I grew up a stone’s throw from Peter Jones & Partners on Sloane Square, so I had a very urban upbringing. But my dad is from Canada and so we used to spend all of our summers in the Canadian wilderness and our weekends on a Sussex farm. I feel lucky that I got to experience both rural and urban life.
During childhood, I felt more comfortable in the wild. And that feeling only grew as I got older. I started to experiment, visiting more and more remote regions which actually culminated in Castaway, a TV experiment where I went to live on an island for a year. That was in 2000, and ever since, I’ve been slightly obsessed with the wilderness in all her shapes and forms. I feel at home when I’m in the trees or on a river.
Just before I went on Castaway, I was working for a magazine in central London, just off Oxford Street. I remember looking out of the window and wondering what it would be like on this island and I just knew that that was my calling. That was the serendipitous moment that allowed me to cut my ties to the city and get closer to nature.
Modern society has all sorts of complications and there’s just a real honesty in the wilderness that makes me feel at ease. It’s not necessarily an easy environment or a comfortable one but I find that if you respect it, it will respect you. There’s a slight misconception that nature is a battle of man versus wild, but it’s not. It should be a poetic, beautiful dance and I think that once you’ve established that, it becomes much more attractive and much less frightening.
I think lots of people are still slightly frightened of the great outdoors. It’s either a theme park to visit fleetingly or it’s completely avoided, because people see it as a place where you can get yourself hurt or into trouble. What I’ve discovered over the years is that it’s not any of those things: it’s just a place that can be hugely therapeutic and ultimately, it’s where humans belong. It’s a place where we can all withdraw from the excesses of society.
The fundamental thing that makes me happy is being with my family, outdoors. This collection is all about being happy at home, with your family – whatever that looks like for you. It’s not about disappearing into your phone or being alone. It’s about unity.
I’ve always been a massive fan of Barbour. It’s a quintessential British brand and I love all of their values and their form of sustainability, which isn’t necessarily using reclaimed products and recycled materials, but about manufacturing products that will last a lifetime. Barbour pieces are built to get better over time and that just ticks all the boxes for me. It’s a brand I’ve always worn, that I’ve always admired. And it isn’t just about technicality – it cares about aesthetics, too.
The ethos behind the Wilderness Collection is sympathy for the countryside in every respect. It has sustainability built into its core and the hope is that these pieces will last dozens of years and be handed down to future generations. When you wear it, you are part of the countryside, not apart from the countryside.
My favourite piece from the collection is the smock. A staple smock has always been a centrepiece for me and it’s been a part of all three collections. We’ve tweaked it over the years, but I wanted something practical that was also sympathetic to the countryside. The smock was my original inspiration for this collection because I love the nostalgia and the practicality of it. My wife, Marina, loves mine; it’s the perfect unisex piece. For this collection, we’ve also made it for children – it’s the easiest thing to pull over their heads.
I don’t believe that you need to buy a jacket exclusively for the countryside, the city or a holiday. We wanted to create multi-purpose pieces that work in all of these environments. We hope that the collection can bring a little bit of the wilderness and connection to the outdoors to those who might not be able to get beyond the local park in their city.
This collection has been curated and designed by Marina and myself. We had a very close hand in the look and feel of all of these pieces, so they are fit for purpose for everything that we wanted them to do. The collection is about reconnecting families to nature and giving them the tools to get out there, all mixed in with a little bit of the Fogle DNA. I often get asked about what I wear and how I choose to dress and I think this is giving people an option, which I hope they enjoy.
I think this collection matches up perfectly with John Lewis & Partners. We are a very John Lewis family. We have good, old-fashioned values. The essence of this collection is family, home and enjoying everything Britain has to offer.
After the collection launches, my 11th book will be published. It’s called Inspire: Life Lessons From The Wilderness and it’s my seminal work. It’s all about what I’ve learnt from the wilderness over the last 25 years. It’s not just about what I did, it’s also about what I learnt. It’s part self-help, part love letter to the wilderness, part memoir. And there’s another series of New Lives In The Wild out now.
John Lewis & Partners is thrilled to be the exclusive stockist of Ben & Marina Fogle’s Wilderness Collection with Barbour. The 15-piece collection, which has pieces for men, women and children, is an exploration of the family’s love of the wilderness and features built-to-last hybrid jackets, shirts and accessories.
Inspire: Life Lessons From The Wilderness by Ben Fogle is out now.
