The Man Who Didn't Show Up

Inside the quietly defiant world of Thom Barnett and Mamnick — a brand built on British grit, outsider principles, and the ability to vanish from every industry dinner list at once.

By Reuben Drake | Photography by Craig Fleming: somewhere north of Bakewell

There’s a point, halfway up the Snake Pass, where your phone loses signal. Thom Barnett doesn’t notice. He’s too busy stuffing a packet of jelly babies into the pocket of a jacket he designed himself — black, no logos, made within ten miles of his house.

“This is the only meeting I’ve got this week,” he says, gesturing toward a lay-by and a cloud that looks like it’s thinking about raining.

It’s not posturing. The founder of Mamnick, a stubbornly British brand that makes everything from stainless steel bracelets to cycling jerseys and Japanese selvedge overshirts - really doesn’t do meetings anymore. Or press, for that matter.

“I’ve not been cancelled,” he says, deadpan. “Just ignored by people who clap at all the same things.”

Mamnick was never supposed to be a fashion brand. And if it is one, it’s an uncomfortable fit - like a tailor-made jacket worn to a Toby Carvery. Launched over a decade ago, it grew out of Barnett’s frustration with trend-chasing brands that outsourced production and faked provenance.

“They’d bang on about heritage,” he says, “then print it all in Portugal, run the ads in New York, and have some guy in East London pretend he’d just discovered fly-fishing.”

Instead, Barnett did the unfashionable thing. He started small. Made things in Sheffield. Used proper cloth. Told stories. He didn’t launch a "drop" - he opened a shop. He didn’t collab with influencers - he wrote about rivers and tench and his Grandad's fruitcake.

The result? A low-level cult following and a wardrobe full of quietly excellent pieces that wear in, not out.

Some call it northern Patagonia. Others say it’s what Nigel Cabourn would do if he lived above a chip shop. Barnett just shrugs.

“I make the stuff I want to wear,” he says. “Then I go yomping in it.”

“The real campaign is a bloke wearing the same shirt for six years.”

Ask around and people in the industry know of Mamnick - but not always for the right reasons. There are murmurs of political mischief. A refusal to “play the game.” One buyer allegedly called Barnett “uncooperative in a romantic way.”

“I think I’ve just got a suspicious face,” he says. “And I didn’t go to Central Saint Martins.”

He’s known for mocking corporate campaigns via what he calls anti-campaigns - dry, sometimes surreal takes on modern marketing. One recent post featured a vigilante called The Peel, foiling crimes in Sheffield with a banana and a Mamnick jacket. Another simply read:
“Our jacket is made in the UK and costs £165. Theirs is made in Portugal and costs £595. Now tell us who’s taking the piss.”

“I just think most of it’s bollocks,” he says, “and if you can’t laugh at bollocks, you’ll end up covered in it.”

Barnett’s outsider streak is most obviously personified by Stanley Malkin — a deadpan, illustrated character he invented to quietly parody outdoor culture. Stanley is over-prepared, underwhelmed, and obsessively geared-up.

He lives above a chippy. He once took a folding chair up Kinder Scout. He has a hydration vest for short walks.

“He’s not based on me,” Barnett insists. “But I do own the same fleece.”

Stanley has quietly become a cult figure, the kind of character who says everything about the Mamnick universe without saying much at all.

“He just gets on with it,” says Barnett. “That’s the point.”

These days, Barnett splits his time between designing collections, raising two sons (one newborn), running the shop, and occasionally riding out into Derbyshire to clear his head.

“I don’t know how people have time for long meetings about authenticity,” he says. “I’m just trying to get everything done before the school run.”

Family is baked into Mamnick’s identity, not in a marketing way, but in a “my kid designed the beans graphic on that mug” way.

“I want to build something they’ll be proud of,” he says. “Even if they don’t know what a ‘technical fleece’ is yet.”

There’s a paradox at the heart of Mamnick. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t network. It never applies for awards. But its customer base is loyal to the point of near-obsession. Many pieces sell out before they’re even posted. One of the bracelets had to be ordered by DM.

So how does that work?

“People know the real thing when they see it,” says Barnett. “Eventually.”
He pauses.
“Also, I reply to everyone who messages. That helps.”