Clothing designed to earn its place.
You can tell a lot about a piece of clothing by what happens after you buy it. It becomes the jacket by the door, or the pants you pack first. Maybe even the shirt you wear so often it’s becoming a concern in family photos!
That’s the kind of favorite we like to make. Comfortable, well-made pieces that look good, settle into your life, and give you plenty of reasons to keep them.
Some things don’t need reinventing.
A good field jacket. Your go-to jeans. The sweater that goes with half your closet. There’s a reason certain clothes stick around.
We start with those familiar classics and look for ways to make them more useful today. Like using a fabric that’s softer. Or we might add a little stretch where it makes sense. The point is to make a good thing better. Make something you can wear through the day without wishing you’d chosen something else. Sometimes that means knowing when to leave it alone.
Same work clothes. Very different workday.
Purnell started with something our co-founder Brent noticed while working in wind energy: wind technicians were doing a new kind of job in clothes made for your granddad’s kind of work. Climbing turbines called for a few adjustments.
The job description had changed. The wardrobe hadn’t got the memo.
Our first clothes were made for those technicians. We started with tried-and-true workwear classics that already did plenty of things well, added what the job called for, and left the good parts alone.
The more we worked on those clothes, the more the approach made sense for everyday life, too. Start with something proven. Make it more comfortable and useful for the person wearing it. No need to start from scratch every time someone needs a shirt.
So we brought that thinking into everyday clothing. You don’t have to climb a turbine to appreciate the difference.
A family name. A familiar idea.
Purnell is named after Brent’s grandmother Francis Purnell. As an artist, she believed the best tools become an extension of your hands. They work so well you take them for granted -- you don't even notice you're using them, you’re just thinking about what you’re doing. Kind of like those scissors you’ve had since 1973. The new ones you bought came in very impressive packaging. You used the old ones to open them.
Clothes have a job to do, too: help you feel comfortable, look like yourself, and let you get on with whatever you have planned. As a family business, that’s what we want for the clothes we make. They become such a familiar part of your life that you forget you’re wearing Purnell. We call that a win.
Just be sure to check the label when a friend asks.