Everyone knows that homemade & homegrown things are the best. Bread, tomatoes, cheese – whatever it may be. Things that have had personal time and effort put into them are always far superior to the commercial alternative. Maybe it’s a placebo, maybe it’s not, but the more hours you spend nurturing a commodity, the stronger your bond with it is going to be. It’s about loving and trusting the process, and accepting the quirks and mishaps that might happen along the way.
This homegrown attachment isn’t just exclusive to foodstuffs, it’s something you can experience with clothing brands too, and that’s why we feel so strongly about Mellow Clo.
We’ve watched Mellow slowly develop over the years, beginning life as an Instagram page printing the occasional T-shirt, and now becoming a fully fledged clothing brand stocked in a variety of retailers. It’s been a pleasure to observe the process, not just because of our shared hometown, but because the brand truly lives and breathes what it’s about.
Mellow Clo’s journey, from what we can remember, began at the tail end of 2020. No doubt influenced by post-Covid gorpcore mania, the brand started printing tastefully designed tees designed to push their wearer back towards nature. Unmistakably stylised graphics detailing mushrooms, rambling clubs and mountains quickly made their way onto the chests of Manchester’s rapidly growing outdoor-inclined population.
Instead of simply sitting and watching this community engage with their products, right from the beginning, Mellow made a point to cultivate a relationship with it. The hosting of early access pop-up shops in Manchester’s city centre and Liverpool’s Laces Out festival allowed the brand to truly understand what their consumer desired and enjoyed.
Besides clothing for the outdoors, their customer wanted to see and hear stories about the outdoors, leading them to coin a series titled ‘Mellow Expeditions,’ where a member of their community would recount one of their recent outdoor excursions and provide accompanying imagery. The series worked as a conduit for people across the globe to share experiences, knowledge and recommendations about the outdoors, pulling Mellow’s already tight-knit community even closer.
Partnerships with Common Ground and involvement with community hikes & bouldering events meant Mellow’s name and product were spreading like wildfire around the North West, with t-shirt sell-outs becoming a regularity as opposed to a rarity.
The culmination of creative designs and a highly-engaged community would see Mellow unveil their first complete collection in 2023, titled the ‘Everday Collection‘. The collection marked a monumental step up in production for the brand, featuring technical trousers, tees, hats & hoodies and utilising the brand’s mountain range logo.
Spurred on by the ‘Everyday Collection‘ Mellow Clo’s product would begin to gain serious traction, and profits have been continually used to improve and expand the brand’s offerings ever since. Now in 2025, Mellow Clo produces jackets, fleeces, shirts, trousers and shorts. It has deservedly become a genuinely rounded & respected outdoor brand, and this is largely thanks to their emphasis on community.
As with all brands, Mellow has humans behind it, but unlike all brands, you can tell that the ones behind Mellow practice what they preach. They really are going climbing, pitching tents and ascending hills on the weekend, and they really do care about the gear they make to accompany that. It’s a brand we’ve got a great deal of respect for, and that’s because they’ve got a great deal of respect for their consumer. Mellow isn’t selling gear to people they’ve got no clue about – they interact with their customer on a daily basis, and genuinely care where they are and what they’re up to.
The clothing has been designed to celebrate the outdoors, and that’s the only thing they’re inspired by. The brand has an incredibly natural relationship with the natural world, and that’s why their clothing makes so much sense. Mellow Clo’s journey is by no means over, and we’re intrigued to see where the coming years take them; the only guarantee is it’ll be somewhere outdoors.
We’re not the only one’s that admire the brand, SEVEN STORE do too, and that’s why they’re stocking heaps of Mellow Clo at the moment. It’s been a hard task, but we’ve whittled down our favourite items to the selects below.
Shop Mellow Clo from SEVEN STORE.
