FFF

Founders Favourite Flannel

USED – this is NOT a new item.

One owner from new. 14 years old.

The sleeve is ripped, the collars turn up and won’t stay down fully, the buttons come undone easily – I think due to age the material has loosened and they don’t quite hold the same. Originally from BURTON London, can’t recall the exact price paid but it was around £30, that was mid-range back in 2010 when the shirt was purchased.

The shirt was used initially as a going out shirt and frequented many a bar back when wearing your dad’s clothes on a night out to get into bars at 17 was just going out of fashion. Hence the purchase. In 2010 I was 17 and desperately needed a decent shirt to increase the likelihood of not getting ID’d at the door and turned away.

9 years later, the shirt was ill fitting due to becoming a larger Homo Sapien than I once was when I was 17. But I just could never throw it out, I just liked it too much and believed it still had life in it yet. And so circa 2019, now acting as a casual day wear shirt, this flannel made the cut and found it’s way on a flight to Turkey to visit a future mother-in-law. The shirt did not return. Once back in the UK it was a few months before it occurred to me it was missing. I did a deep check of the wardrobe. Nothing. At that point I considered it gone forever via an unknown source like things sometimes do.

2022 came around and I was in Turkey again. At the last known place for this very flannel shirt. I’d been back here before since it was missing, and it just never occurred to me the shirt could be here. In truth, with no contact for three years, I’d let it slip into a distant memory at this point. But there it was, the wardrobe door was open and hung amongst my mother-in-law’s partner’s clothes was my shirt.

I was so shocked that I almost couldn't believe it was mine. So much so I questioned my mother-in-law who said it had been worn frequently for work by her partner and ‘he loves that shirt, it’s his favourite’. (The said partner was a manager for large mines in Turkey)

I checked the label. English. Which was a dead giveaway that it was clearly mine that had been miss-placed and then adopted by another. I paraded the label and made it clear this flannel shirt will be repossessed & repatriated. I then wore it on remaining days of my time in country to hit home what I had said. [Reference final image in the product imagery]

Since then it’s held a steady place in my collection of flannel shirts.

This is not a story about a flannel shirt, but a story about value. It is, without doubt, my favourite shirt. I don’t know why, it just is. I suppose it could be because it has been around the longest and earned its title.

Nothing could matter so much that has been owned for a less amount of time. The price reflects what I would realistically accept to let it go for. The cost, is the price for me to let go of something I really like, despite the fact that it has no value to someone else. Or does it, because that in itself, gives it value?

*Disclaimer*

The shirt will continue to be in use and the milage may increase.

Delivery will be by hand, by me, to anywhere in the world [within reason, central Amazonian addresses may be accepted but nowhere in Birmingham please].

No returns. Come on...

Thanks for reading,

Joe – Founder oğlum