Written by Menswear Style in Interviews on the 31st March 2022

Bee Inspired Clothing is a contemporary menswear brand based in Glasgow who pride themselves on unique and relevant design concepts and have a rapidly increasing product offering. Bee Inspired was created in summer 2013 by ex-professional footballers Mark Corcoran and Steven Robb, targeting discerning fashion-conscious customers looking for stylish clothing that is uniquely designed and manufactured to the highest quality. Worn by some of the highest profile actors, sportsmen and musicians in the UK, this has allowed the brand to expand and develop much faster than they could have imagined.

In a recent episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interviewed Steven Robb & Mark Corcoran, Co-Founders of Bee Inspired about their background being professional footballers and how observing the menswear styles in the dressing room gave them a unique insight into men's everyday wear. Our host Peter Brooker and the co-founders talked about bootstrapping the brand, creating relationships with manufacturers, mixing streetwear with sportswear, gym style trends, and the importance of repeat customers.

“A group of us would often meet up for coffee after training to discuss ideas for what we were going to do after football. We knew football wasn’t going to last forever, especially playing in Scotland. There's not that opportunity to just retire when you're finished playing that you get in the English Premiership. I was based in Bangkok, playing football there for three years, and I started making friends with suppliers. On my days off I would look at markets and do research into potential business ideas. We decided to start our own brand with £300 each. We made four designs of t-shirts, and because I was friends with the manufacturer, I was able to get low production numbers. We set up a website ourselves and we just started promoting them on Facebook and Twitter. We were still in decent shape then, so we were the models to begin with. For the first few years we reinvested anything we sold straight back into the business. Our orders quite quickly increased to 100 pieces of a style, and we were still playing semi pro football, so we still had a bit of income coming in.”

This is a shortened transcribed edit of episode 162 of the MenswearStyle Podcast with Steven Robb & Mark Corcoran, Co-Founders of beeinspiredclothing.com. You can listen to the full version on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast player.

We sit down with ex professional footballers Steven Robb and Mark Corcoran of Bee Inspired Clothing to talk about Football and their Designer Streetwear Brand.