Shaun Barker runs his own fashion business now!
Football and fashion have always engaged in a sizzling synergy — thieving styles from one another as the decades have gone by. The evolution of the football kit has gone from a garment worn on match days to becoming commonplace as a fashion item.
During his time as a player, Shaun Barker wore mostly unoffensive strips. Block colours with a smattering of stripes here and there, maybe a collar for extra pizzazz. Such was the often militaristic way of football in Barker’s heyday — the whole team turning up for a game in club tracksuits or actual suits — and such was the need to fit in with the group, that seldom did individuality shine through.
Barker never minded that, though, colouring within the lines but still finding a way to put his artistic flair on proceedings.
“You have to be brave in football to be yourself,” says Barker. “It’s like being at school. So much winding up. A lot of footballers congregated to be part of the bigger group rather than smaller groups, so you have to be a certain type of person to accept it.
“My nickname at Rotherham was ‘Alternative’, because I didn’t conform to what many people probably expected of a footballer. Don’t get me wrong, they liked me for it, but they gave me stick too. And I was just as bad for it. Anytime somebody wore anything a bit different, I’d give them a bit of stick as well.
“I just used to find it strange that, out of a group of 30 lads, 28 would like the same music, fashion, fragrances, drinks, television shows and so on.”
Barker is now taking that free-spirited approach to his new fashion brand With The Gods, which he has set up with partner Bec. The 38-year-old hopes to capture all those aspects of his youth, twisting them for a modern audience and with a dense layer of football at its core.
The brand is preparing for its relaunch. Initially set up originally in 2012 when Barker suffered a career-threatening knee problem, before being discontinued in 2015 due to cost issues, he is ready to go again, having learnt from that first experience.
“It started with a mate of mine,
Paul McGregor (the former Nottingham Forest player turned singer). He’s my best mate’s brother,” Barker tells
The Athletic. “We felt there was a gap in the market for having a fashion brand but aimed at football clubs and fans. You often see really bad merch and football shirts, and you don’t really have much choice if you don’t want to wear the shirt.
“The idea here is you don’t have to sacrifice how you look and feel and the pride you want to don in your outfit and still worship your club. That was the vibe, really.”
That goes hand in hand with the strapline for the brand: “Worship without sacrifice”.
Barker wanted to tap into that connection when producing the name, strapline and even the designs, some of which fuse club legends and iconic moments in time.
Part of that comes across in one particular design, centred around former Derby defender Igor Stimac with his face in sepia with “Igod” written across the T-shirt.
Fans will be able to get their hands on such designs and more from Barker’s online shop, as well as in the Derby County megastore.
“We wanted the name to resonate with fans. You look at sayings that are involved in football and, having played football, it had a more internal vibe as well — the connection with the fans and the players,” Barker says. “Football is like religion. You talk about it being a religion. And branding needs emotion and a connection to you, but also people that are going to buy into the brand.
“It always felt ethereal, too. Footballers feel beyond fans, they seem like gods. You talk about (Diego) Maradona and it’s the Hand of God, it’s beyond the realms of normal humans and human life.
“I wanted to keep all of that iconography but I wanted something that made a connection as well. So rather than just worshipping players as gods, you’re part of it. You’re with the gods. And also, it sounded cool.”
That attire follows the former Derby captain away from the match days too with a varied approach to fashion — from the 1980s era he grew up in — to music to art to other fashion labels and designers.
“I’ve always been creative and enjoyed fashion. My best mate was a fashion designer. I was always directed a bit by fashion and the role of fashion in society, in things like music and so on,” says Barker.
“Music has always been a big part of my life. In my days at Rotherham, you can imagine somebody with a Ziggy Stardust haircut at 16 years old. People in Yorkshire looking and thinking, ‘What are you doing?’ At that point I was in the only town in the country where the mullet was still in fashion.
“I’d be wearing punk gear, long jumpers, bondage trousers — a bit crazy. But I’ve always been interested in fashion and its relationship with music. So you’ll see lots of references to albums, to fonts and designs to album covers.”
It would be impossible to not mention the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Barker’s plans. But the former Rotherham and Blackpool defender, who
spent almost three years out of the game with a serious knee injury, is used to setbacks and always tries to find a silver lining.
He is someone comfortable in his own company. Projects get him by.
During the first lockdown, Barker acquainted himself with Photoshop. It was a frustrating and tedious task for a man who confesses to not being particularly tech-savvy. Nevertheless, if he was going to keep costs down for his new venture and maintain total creative freedom with the designs, part of the deal was learning to if not master, then at least be competent with the software.
“It was a process… I needed to learn how to do it all,” says Barker. “That’s how I spent a big part of lockdown. And I’m talking simple things like trying to share files online. I had to learn a lot. I started using Photoshop, I started following a few online tutorials and stuff like that. I’m such a basic person. I like to
do. I don’t read instructions — that’s all Bec. That’s why, until I was 37, I’d never touched Photoshop. Tried once and it went straight over my head…
“I’m a busy guy, so I’m always doing stuff. I’ve got a job at Burton Albion which I love, I’ve got a jam company I’m working on, I’ve got With The Gods. I always wanted to start it back up again. After a couple of years and Paul going his own way I thought, ‘I can’t leave this any more’.
“Lockdown, for me, was about sorting priorities, as it has been for a lot of people. Family has always been top of my list by a country mile. Playing football was always about providing for my family. I loved doing it but my goal was to make as much as I could, be as successful as I could, so I could provide for my family.”
Some nine years on from his company’s original launch, Barker has been taking lessons from the first time around and applying them to the relaunch. Learning to create the designs himself was part of that curve to help limit spending, become competitive and make a profit worthwhile.
The plan is to use earth-positive materials and local producers to create the garments. But, of course, that itself comes with a premium on the costs. Overheads had to be slashed somewhere and Barker and Bec decided to shoulder the extra responsibility to keep the ship afloat.
“By the time I’ve paid for the screen print, the T-shirts, the labels, the designer….all these things, you’re not sustainable. You look at the big companies that are doing it for pretty much pennies. You’re trying to do it on small numbers and trying to get the customer to engage and believe that paying the extra little bit is worth it because it’s a small company.
“The first time, it didn’t go particularly wrong, it was just the longevity wasn’t there with our process of going into club shops. We didn’t earn enough money per T-shirt for example and… it was more a finance thing.
“This time, it’s about bringing the costs down with everything. If I don’t have to pay for this or that because
I can now do it, we haven’t really got any overheads. So it’s a big difference.”
The relaunch is right around the corner. Barker isn’t nervous, he is excited. Having put small amounts of money into several ventures in the past, be it a tea room, the jam company and now this fashion brand, he likes to use the money he has made from football to scratch other itches.
A pandemic has assured fans haven’t been able to be with each other in stadiums for almost a year now, but with Barker launching his fashion brand you may soon be with the gods.
(Photos: Getty Images)
