Hast is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year! 10 years of shirts, fashion, encounters, commitments, authenticity and style. 10 years alongside you, too, as you help the brand grow with us. To mark the milestone, Hast looks back on the key moments of recent years with Samy, Emmanuel and Thomas, the brand’s three founders. They took part in a Q&A. An emotional look back at 10 years of Hast, and on to many more years to come!
Hello to the three of you. To start with, why did you found Hast 10 years ago, and with what ambitions?
The three of us started the Hast adventure ten years ago. Originally, Hast was a single-product brand focused on the shirt. For us, the shirt is the cornerstone of the male wardrobe, and back then we couldn’t find a model that met our expectations. The middle ground was missing: between high-end brands with very high price tags, and fast-fashion retailers offering garments mostly in poor-quality fabrics with poorly executed cuts.
Hast was founded with the desire to create a quality shirt at a fair, accessible price, with no middlemen. Right from the start, we adopted a transparent, honest dialogue with our early customers. In fact, they were at the very heart of our development, offering advice we gladly followed to design a range tailored to their tastes and needs.
We hear a lot about eco-responsibility today, but ten years ago it was a much more pioneering concept. Why did you choose to embark on a more ethical and sustainable production journey?
It is clear that the fashion industry isn’t always the most exemplary when it comes to sustainability. When creating Hast, we wanted to make clothes as responsibly as possible, with an eco-conscious approach woven into our DNA: 100% natural or recycled materials, fabrics and tailoring crafted primarily in Europe, always in service of style, while strictly avoiding greenwashing. From the outset, we focused on the traceability of our garments, from fabric sourcing to production sites. We were one of the first French brands to offer compostable packaging and to embrace upcycling, with our collection of boxer shorts crafted from recycled fabrics.
Today, we remain true to this approach: 95% of our production is based in the European Union using natural fibres and fabrics from the finest mills. Year after year, we increase the share of certified responsible materials (GOTS) in our collections and strive to minimise CO2 emissions by manufacturing as close to demand as possible using increasingly responsible methods. To find out more, our carbon footprint report can be downloaded from the website.
In the beginning was the shirt... Why start the adventure with this specific piece?
For us, it’s the foundational piece of the wardrobe, the one around which we build a look. We wanted to free the shirt from its purely formal heritage and turn it into a piece suited to everyday style. We felt the shirt was too often associated with a uniform, almost a cliché, worn only to the office or for special occasions. We launched Hast with a collection of ten “formal” shirts, in a thoroughly relaxed, modern spirit. Fun fact: the first Hast white poplin shirt is still available on our site (it has barely changed since, and we’re still just as proud of it!)
The Hast collections quickly expanded into a complete menswear wardrobe. What made you want to broaden your range?
For five years, we developed our shirtmaking expertise to offer increasingly high-end pieces. The desire to expand our collection grew gradually, following requests from our customers. More and more of them loved the brand, identified with its positioning and shared its values. We then felt legitimate in creating new pieces to dress men from head to toe. We would never have taken the plunge if we hadn’t sensed a genuine need. We have never wanted to make a garment “just for the sake of making a garment”. We believe in mindful production that makes sense for us, but above all for the men we dress. That is why customer feedback is still essential to moving us forward today: we regularly send out surveys and take every comment on board.
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What is the brand’s spirit today?
Hast is a wardrobe designed to stand the test of time, both authentic and naturally sharp. The shirt is naturally its cornerstone, but it is paired with other desirable pieces, such as the jacket, pleated trousers or our iconic work jacket. At Hast, we want to give men back a taste for fine garments in everyday life. We want to prove that formal style doesn’t have to mean boring, and that a simple, accessible look is far from ordinary. We offer a wardrobe that combines rigour and noble materials with meticulously crafted cuts, in colours that remain luminous and timeless.
To mark our 10th anniversary, we have just published a new version of our brand platform. It outlines even more clearly our identity, direction, values and the world we wish to continue building. We redesigned our logo, penned a new manifesto and defined a more distinctive artistic direction, which is already reflected in our new autumn-winter collection.
Hast turns 10 this year… Emmanuel, how would you sum up Hast in 10 key dates?
There have been so many key moments for the brand that it isn’t an easy task. If I had to pick just 10…
1/ The first collection of ten formal shirts in two-ply poplin: simple, sharp, accessible.
2/ The first shirt sold to a customer outside our circle of family and friends. I remember the exact date: 10 September 2012.
3/ A feature in “Comme un camion” that led to our first sold-out stock.
4/ Our first office.
5/ An article in GQ, where Hast was named “best shirt on French television”.
6/ The moment the team started to grow with our first intern, Louise.
7/ Naturally, our first boutique on Rue d’Aboukir, in March 2016.
8/ The moment our collection expanded with jackets, trousers, overshirts, T-shirts…
9/ Reaching the milestone of 10 employees, above all a human journey.
10/ Signing leases for two new shops in Paris and Lyon.
I’ll stop there, but there are so many more…
Thomas, could you share an anecdote about the brand?
I always look back fondly on our first shoot in late 2012 at the Musée de la Chemiserie et de l'Élégance Masculine in Argenton-sur-Creuse, in the Indre department! The team warmly welcomed us and let us take photos in this unique French venue.
Samy, let’s continue with our quick top 10 game… What are 10 things that inspire you every day?
1/ Cooking, pastry, the great contemporary chefs: Alain Ducasse, Pierre Gagnaire, Anne-Sophie Pic, Jacques Genin’s creations…
2/ Music, from 60s rock to 2000s electronic music!
3/ Paris
4/ Sport. The drive to push boundaries and share team moments is a real passion.
5/ Japan
6/ My parents, my family, my daughter.
7/ My wife; after working as a lawyer in a major firm, she is now launching her own business.
8/ In cinema, I love the aesthetics of films by Guy Ritchie and Wes Anderson. They have a tone, music, language and style that I find truly inspiring for our collections.
9/ The Hast team day to day
10/ And of course, the art of clothing, tailoring, vintage…
What do you wish for Hast on its anniversary and for the 10 years to come?
Just as over the past ten years, we hope Hast will always stay true to its values of honesty, authenticity and uncompromising standards. And perhaps over the next 10 years, 10 new shops!
In the coming months, Hast is releasing an anniversary capsule collection. Could you tell us more about the project?
For our 10th anniversary, we decided to think big and treat our customers. The idea behind this capsule is to release 10 ultra-premium pieces in a limited edition of 100 copies. These numbered pieces will, as always, be sold at a fair price. We can’t wait to tell you more…
See you in the first quarter of 2023!
Here’s to the next 10 years!
