In YMC’s North London studio, rails of clothing are lined up with garments pressed between freestanding glass panels, compressing the jackets and trousers into layered silhouettes that give the clothes movement. High ceilings and winter sun — which is unusually bright for a January morning — spill across the space as the team prepares to ship samples to Paris, where the brand is presenting its collection to buyers from January 20 to 26.
.jpg)
This year marks the brand’s 30th anniversary, and its first full year as an independent company. Co-founded in 1995 by Jimmy Collins and the late Fraser Moss, YMC — short for You Must Create, taken from a quote by industrial designer Raymond Loewy — built its reputation on understated workwear silhouettes, military references and a strong connection to music and subculture. Over three decades, it has become a staple of British independent fashion, stocked by retailers including End, Liberty, Rendez-Vous in Paris, Assembly in New York and Beaker in South Korea.
In 2024, Sage Toda-Nation was appointed creative director to fill the position previously held by Moss, who passed away the year prior. In December 2024, Collins bought the brand back from French Connection, which had owned it since 2004. Collins had sold it during a period of financial difficulty to French Connection founder Stephen Marks, who was a family friend.
The anniversary is as much a moment of reflection as it is a reset, says Collins. YMC is navigating what comes next as a founder-led, independent company with a new creative director and a renewed focus on commercial stability — all while protecting the brand equity it has built.
“I felt a duty to honor the brand’s history,” says Toda-Nation. “There’s definitely a customer who’s joined since I have, but the customer base is so broad.” Toda-Nation says that YMC often enters a customer’s life through its products — it was the first brand the designer ever saved up to buy from in his early teens. Collins agrees: “Our demographic can go from 18 to 80 — I have friends say, ‘My mum’s just discovered your brand,’ and others who are like, ‘My kids have just raided all the YMC out of my closet.’”
Sales are split evenly across menswear and womenswear, with most major wholesale partners buying both. Wholesale represents about 40% of sales (primarily independent retailers rather than large department stores), direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce accounts for 50% and the remaining 10% comes from YMC’s two stores.
Rather than impose a new aesthetic, Toda-Nation is enhancing what already exists at YMC. “We’ve always been refining a modern wardrobe. YMC was quite ahead of the curve with [its positioning] — it sits in between streetwear and luxury,” he says. Prices range from £75 for a printed T-shift to £195 for a lambswool crewneck sweater and £235 for black jeans, while outerwear starts at £450 for a bomber jacket and reaches £1,750 for a shearling lined leather style.
“I feel the customer needs to create their own design; the clothes are a backdrop for their own personalities,” says Collins, pointing to the lack of logos on the garments. “It’s sort of anti-fashion,” adds Toda-Nation. “There’s a real sense of DIY and a Britishness that you get with the humor and playfulness, but also a level of craft, execution and function.” That philosophy also informs how YMC defines non-conformity today, the creative director says. “I think at YMC, we have this consistency and we stick with what we do. Over the years, that becomes a kind of rebellion.”
Creativity vs commerciality
For Collins, the shift away from group ownership has brought freedom. “I guess I felt constrained at the time, being part of a group, and I had ambitions to grow the business but was holding back until I could take ownership back,” he says. “This is a bit of a transition, and I think that comes with the discomfort of breaking out of a group. But at the same time, there’s a real sort of liberation.”
The buy-back required sweeping changes behind the scenes, from systems and production to warehousing and logistics, but now the duo are confident about how the business is organized. “It’s been inspiring because with the brand going independent again, we’re really going back to basics and we’re doing everything ourselves — we’re doing our patterns in-house, we don’t hire a creative agency to do our campaigns, we have two art directors here,” says Toda-Nation.
That operational reset has also sharpened the brand’s commercial focus. After years of prioritizing creative experimentation over repeatable product, YMC works to a more disciplined range. “When we started, I gave Fraser free rein over creativity,” says Collins. “He was always ahead of the curve, a trailblazer — he wasn’t a commercial designer, he was an artist. Anytime there was a whiff of some success for a product, he’d throw it in the bin. And on the odd occasion I’d convince him to keep the style in, he’d rename the garment — so we had the Deja Vu trouser or the Groundhog jacket, and that was his personality, that humor.”
That process went on for about 15 years, before Collins put his foot down. “You need some balance, so we made a system where around 20% was new every season, while the rest became our real lifestyle pieces, our core products,” Collins says. Commercially, Toda-Nation brings experience from running his own label for the past five years, Sage Nation, which has a younger customer base and higher price points. “I had to learn the commercial side to survive. So I don’t shy away from commerciality,” he says.
Manufacturing remains one of the clearest expressions of continuity. “We work with really small family-run factories and it works really well because we’ve built those relationships face to face. I’m very old school,” Collins says, mentioning knitwear suppliers in Scotland and India. “The benefit of having those long-term relationships is that they’re prepared to produce small quantities for us, so if we want to do a special [collection] and produce 50 pieces, we can get it done.”
This model also underpins YMC’s collaborations with British footwear brands including Grenson and George Cox. “Collaborations are something we’ve always done. The mantra, You Must Create, also [dictates] how we do them — working with people who have been honing these skills for years and are the best at what they do, while bringing the best product to our customer,” says Toda-Nation. “What we bring is the contemporary edge and image-making, and we lean on them for the expertise of the craftsmanship, the technique and the manufacturing.”
From here, growth is expected — but not at the expense of the brand’s scale or identity. “YMC is definitely not lacking depth and history, it’s more about structuring that and honing in on certain areas,” says Toda-Nation. “We’ve still got that 20%, but with the other bit it’s a more mature, adult version of the brand. I’m trying to give it a slightly more grown up feeling about it, but still with that element of playness.”
Commercial success may not have come quickly, but it’s harder to create brand equity retrospectively than to clean up the balance sheet. “What we’ve done over time is build brand equity. So on paper, there wasn’t much in terms of revenue, but the brand name was bigger than the turnover. That’s where our opportunity lies, in unlocking that,” says Collins. “There are always going to be tough times, and it’s about hanging in and enjoying it. It’s easy to want to throw the towel in — and I’ve been through it more than once — but what helps you through those difficult times is if you love it.”
