Footpatrol x Soho Yacht Club ‘World Book Day’

Interview | Bradley Martinez

Concept | Wilson Sanchez

Photographer | Wilson Sanchez

2022

To celebrate World Book Day, we met up with Ellis Gilbert who co-founded London based Soho Yacht Club to discuss the birth of the brand, an insight on his background and how the act of giving back to his community is essential to their ethos.

Soho Yacht Club has of recent made huge ground in exposing itself to the world. From young consumers to senior wearers, SYC caters to every generation without any judgement.

In addition, we are giving away limited edition Footpatrol x Soho Yacht Club t-shirts in-store in conjunction to donating your old books. All books will be donated between Clifton Primary and St Marks Primary School in West London.

FP: Ellis, to start things off nice and easy. How are you?

Ellis: I’m good man, I am sick of the weather, I can’t wait for some sunshine but I’m good man, I’m happy , very happy. How are you?

FP: I am good thank you bro, I don’t get asked that enough you know! Could you give us a little bit of insight into yourself and also Soho Yacht Club?

Ellis: I am just a young man from very far West London called Hanwell. I’ve lived there my whole life. I’ve worked in Soho for 10 years now for a few different brands, I’ve worked in Woolrich, Stone Island, I was at Patta for a very long time and I met some good friends - shout out Damo, Andre, Edson. All those guys I mentioned have taught me so much about business and friendship and about being a man and being honest. Whatever you want to do you can do it with hard work and being straight to the point. It's not always about fun and messing about. I have a lot of love and respect for those guys.

FP: Where did the idea for the brand come from?

Ellis: I wanted to make some clothes and all my friends from where I live used to mess about calling me Mr Soho because of were I worked. I was in six or seven days a week and I would always be out afterwards eating and drinking around here so you would probably see me at the Blue Post most days. My friend Clint, was saying ‘Mr Soho’ that should be your T-shirt. I was thinking of playing on the theme of always being in Soho, as well as something that was community based. I couldn't really call it Soho Club because it really doesn’t have a ring to it. Yacht Club kind of sounds prestige but it's a gimmick because obviously you can’t have a boat in Soho! I came up with the name way before I was thinking about any designs or anything like that, then I told my friends what do you think about Soho Yacht Club? They were like yeah, it has got a ring to it, that’s definitely one you should roll with. I was thinking I’m not sure because are people going to think that I am going to be serious with this massive boat and also because it was community based thing. I didn’t want people to think it was too exclusive in terms of a yacht club to actually be apart of but it’s actually all community based.

Then I left it for a few months and then my friend Harry Clemence he messaged me and was like so the Yacht Club, the name is amazing, let’s get cracking on it and I kind of needed someone to spur me on. I was chilling in Paris, I went to shoot something with Corteiz with Clint and Flynn. It was ten in the morning looking at my phone so hungover I could barely see it and theres all these designs that Harry sent. It looked sick, the name and logo and stuff. I was like, when I get back we got to sit down and start working on it. A big shout out to Harry for getting the ball rolling. That’s kind of how it started off.

FP: Like you said you have been based in Soho forever, do you think being here for so long helped you build that community a lot easier ?

Ellis: 100% there is so many people like Duke’s Cupboard that has got behind me. Wilson, bringing me in on Footpatrol. I am always so grateful for people that around me that are always offering me stuff when they don’t owe me anything. I think that makes the world go round, having a connection not just because they can do something for you but because you actually like them. The work stuff comes a lot easier and that comes after. When you can build a connection with someone just over the simple things like a passing comment, laughing and joking or how they dress or what food you like to eat. Then you can build on that and you’ll be  so surprised how you can go. 

FP: How has it been seeing your local community respond to it the positive way that they are?

Ellis: I really couldn’t believe it. There are people that I see when I am out and around where I live, 60 year olds wearing T-shirts, I’ve seen people wearing our hats. The funniest thing is a lot of the people that I see don’t actually know me for making the brand. The fact that they want to support that has been amazing, especially the amount of people I see in the messages when we do a community project . Whether it would be getting food for a school or new school books and uniforms. From the bottom of their hearts they wanted to help. For me that is the most special thing about being able to do something like this.

FP: We have brought you down to talk a bit about World Book Day and the T-shirt and anything in terms of these of book chats. Is this the first time you’ve done something like this?

Ellis: We’ve done things before asking people if they can drop any clothes or toys and a few books. It's funny to see how quickly the books go. Even my own little brothers love my old James Bond and storm breaker books and stuff like that. For me, I am severely dyslexic so for a long time when I was in school I used to always shy away from reading. I had one teacher called Mr Gale, he said if you find something you actually want to read it comes a lot easier. I actually used to go to the library and look around and I would find books on football or I used to love adventure books or spy things like that. It spurred me on a lot more to try harder in my education. Reading for me was one of the most difficult things and it can go a long way. It's a tool that you can use in every walk of life, being able to read and write and communicate with other people isn't underrated because you are still learning. You’ll be so surprised where having good manners and being able to read and write can get you. Communication is the key man! That is for almost every walk of life and every job.

FP: That’s a good piece of advice 

Ellis: I have two older sisters, they always work hard. Reading and writing is like an adventure and where people grow up isn’t always exactly where they want to be in life. Sometimes the escapes you can get through books are amazing, you can be sitting in your house and then all of a sudden you're travelling the world..

FP: What about a larger aim? Do you guys see it being a UK or worldwide thing? Do you have a larger game or are you working towards smaller, reachable goals that you think you can see instant success from?

Ellis: You know what I haven’t really thought about world domination or being here and there. For me, if I could impact 5 people’s lives and they do the same, that would be massive for me. Soho Yatch Club is more so just to show that, it doesn’t really matter where you are from, or what you do. If you want to help people you can do it and often helping people will be better than getting that million pound job and having that fast car. In London you can only drive 20mph in most places so what’s the point of having a Ferrari. That amount of money shared between people, you can do a lot of good and that’s what will impact the world long term. Instead of being like consume, consume, consume. I am just happy to be on this journey and to see where it goes.

FP: Ellis, thank you for coming, we really appreciate your time with us to go over your story. Before we let you go is there anything you would like to share with the Footpatrol community?

Ellis: I would just like to say thanks for the opportunity to share the story and join us on this journey. I hope this is the start of many future collaborations. To anyone younger that is reading this - try and work hard. School is only a short period of your life and it can affect what you do in the future. Working hard now will help you in the long term. All in all the message is just be nicer to people man, you’ll be so surprised how much that does for others and in turn it will come back to you, good energy will always come around. When you’re gone no one is going to talk about oh do you remember his Rolex, do you remember his car? They are going to remember that guy that was always nice, had good vibes and got stuff done.