#ShootingTheBreeze with Sidney Hiscox
Welcome to the fourth in our irregular series where we chat to outdoor industry professionals: Shooting the breeze. We’re hoping to start conversations, help people coming into the industry and share interesting advice and thoughts which come up.
This time it’s the turn of Sidney Hiscox – Co-founder of Fera, who has a fairly astonishing tale of running a marathon in North Korea. #asyoudo
What quick advice would you have for someone looking to combine a love of the outdoors or sport with their working life?
If you truly love the outdoors then do it. If you have the chance, everyone should we be working in the field of their passion (no pun intended, I swear). Sure, there may be days that make you loathe it, and question if you have ruined your love by making it into work, but there are also those days when you realise how amazingly fun it is that you have combined your love with work and you get to do it every day. Just make sure that latter occasion outweighs the former.
What do you feel is the biggest issue facing the sector in next 5 years?
I do believe we are heading in a great direction, and I don’t think that is just an optimistic outlook. Sustainability is at the forefront of most conversations, companies are working out how to promote the outdoors for all, and one of the outcomes of the pandemic for many seems to be a reconnection with nature.
The biggest issues I see are external to what the industry is doing internally. From a small business perspective, political and economic issues can really rock the boat for us. Whether that is a supply chain issue - where we don’t have the resources or finances to easily out manoeuvre, or even a small economic downturn which, as a small, new brand we are the first to feel. Despite this, I feel positive about the next 5 years.
What’s the one thing you always pack for an adventure?
A hipflask of whisky because it is right for every occasion. Has your tent just blown over the side of the cliff? Have a tot of whisky for your sorrows. Got a bit cold because you only wore a t-shirt and a gale force blizzard has rolled in? Don’t you worry, a dram of whisky will warm your cockles. Just caught the fish of your life and want to celebrate? Forget a tot, a nip or a shot, have the whole flask, it’s party time.
Has working in the outdoors or sports ever killed your buzz? How do you stop it becoming just another job?
It seems wonderfully obvious in hindsight, but if you love the outdoors, make sure you realise starting your own outdoor brand means you are going to be spending a whole lot more time at a desk than in the great outdoors! It’s important to make sure you make time to get out into the wild.
I think another aspect, again thinking about the fashion side of the industry, is that you can definitely fall into an echo chamber of looking at the same people/things/brands/lifestyles, and social media definitely doesn’t help this. It can really dull your creativity and kill your buzz so it’s important to remind yourself of your brand’s values and your own values and creativity. Stay true to what you are chasing.
And finally, tell us something Outside Of Ordinary about yourself?
I ran a marathon in North Korea with 9 toes…or more accurately tried to, they stopped me before I could finish. I had lost my big toe in an accident that will remain unexplained due to its stupidity and at the time I was fascinated by North Korea. I had missed the London marathon sign up by 5 minutes so the next logical location was the Hermit Kingdom.
Cue a montage of training that would have shocked Rocky, largely due to the complete lack of training, and I suddenly found myself on the start line of the North Korean marathon, in a huge stadium they claimed they had hosted the Olympics in.
My right shoe had been fitted with a fake toe to run on so I can’t really use that as an excuse but with 10km to go I was seriously flagging. The professionals had all finished and the organisers had already packed up the water stations when they put a line of soldiers across the road and directed those of us limping at the back into the stadium and over the finish line.
I should have kept my mouth shut because they gave me a certificate saying I finished the whole marathon in 3 hours 45 minutes.
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