Tom Routh: At the Root of Innovation | Hypebeast

Interview with Tom Routh

What’s going on Tom, hope things are going well. I understand that prior to creating FYI Design you spent 5 years over at Arc’teryx. Could you give us a little background information about yourself prior to Arc’teryx?

Hey Eugene, everything is going great, thanks. Yeah, prior to Arc’ I had my own label called CirqueWorks, and was designing and manufacturing technical backpacks in-house. My interest in technical backpacks initially came from the need for a purpose built pack for backcountry snowboarding and then expanded into mountaineering and full-size backpacking packs. Prior to that I spent a bunch of years snowboarding all over the world, both competing and taking backcountry adventure trips. I started to study design, pattern-making and sewing as a means to improve the gear I was using.

While making the move from CirqueWorks to Arc’teryx, did you need to effectively diversify your skill set to become more well-rounded? There were requirements in developing not only backpack offerings but apparel and softgoods as well?

Yes, exactly. I was pretty much a pack specialist prior to working for Arc’. It was a huge challenge as I was tasked with developing a complete snowsports range including outerwear and thermal layers as well as packs. It’s a totally different set of skills with only a little crossover… different machines, materials, construction processes etc. When patterning packs you can shape the bag into anything you want, and fit issues are limited to the suspension and lumbar that comes into contact with the body. With apparel you are patterning the fit with the body inside, as well as developing the range of movement for the activity of the end user. It’s totally different from a design perspective. A pack generally serves utilitarian purposes, where a jacket becomes part of a person’s personal identity. You have a different relationship with the product. From a design perspective it’s a different set of challenges.

For the first design cycle at Arc’ I had about 18 months to develop 37 different products and that time frame had to include my apparel learning curve. It took about 6 months to get up to speed on everything, another 6 months working on new technologies and R&D and the last 6 months working crazy hours to get the line ready. At that time, designers at Arc’ were responsible for patterning and had to be able to build a perfect prototype themselves. The industry doesn’t generally work that way, usually you have a team of people with the designer drawing pictures, a pattern-maker developing patterns, a product manager dealing with sourcing issues and data capture and sample sewers to build the prototypes. At that time we did everything, all the way into production. This approach insured the integrity of the designer’s intent, which is why so much great product was achieved at Arc’teryx. I pulled a lot of all-nighters and my life was totally consumed by the project during that time. A lot of new tech was developed out of the efforts put forth and some that are still cutting-edge today. I had a huge advantage in that the Arc’ design studio was on top of the factory (Arc’ owns their own manufacturing facility), so anything was possible. I could run downstairs and work directly with specific operators and I could train them directly to commercialize new processes. It was a unique situation in the industry.