AVRE Friday Briefing #47

This week is a little different.

Rather than updates from the workshop or notes on what’s coming next, we wanted to share a moment from much closer to the beginning.

Outside James Holland’s favourite pub, The Horseshoe Inn at Ebbesborne Wake, James talks about why AVRE started in the first place — not as a brand, but as an idea that grew out of wearing, loving, and ultimately wearing out a single Second World War jacket.

That jacket was an original M1941 Arctic Field Jacket. Genuine. Rare. Made in its thousands, yet astonishing in its quality. After more than 80 years, it finally began to thin at the shoulders, the collar, the cuffs — the places life wears first.

And that raised a simple question:

Why can’t something like this be made again, properly?

Not quickly. Not cheaply. Not outsourced and compromised.

But researched to the last degree. Made with care. Built from the right materials, by the right people, with the intention that it might last for generations — just as the original had.

That question became the seed of AVRE.

What followed wasn’t speed, scale, or seasonality — but patience. One jacket at a time. Sometimes only one or two a year. Time spent researching, sourcing, and assembling something that feels considered rather than consumed.

James still has the original jacket. It hangs in his wardrobe, worn hard, not discarded — a reminder of what’s possible when things are made properly, and why AVRE exists at all.

There are exciting things coming. James is famously terrible at keeping secrets. But for now, this felt like the right thing to share: a reminder that AVRE didn’t start with a product plan, but with affection, frustration, and a refusal to accept that quality had to be sacrificed to modernity.

If you’re part of our mailing list, you’ll hear about what comes next when the time is right. And if you’re already here — thank you. It genuinely means a great deal to all of us.