Buyer’s Blurb – FW23 Universal Works Part 1

Hello, and welcome to the very first Buyer’s Blurb. Now I could easily write a whole schpiel and let Chat GPT do its thing, but I figure it’ll be a lot more fun to read this from a genuine first-person perspective – if you can make out my bad grammar and my incoherent ramblings.

Donnell and I have been buying together just over 8 years, and for the most part, the ship has always stayed true to its course. This FW23 season is no different, but I wanted to touch upon some of my (Vince) personal favourites of the collection.

As the buyer, I’m a little biased, I’m that guy who goes a little bit out of that comfort zone, whether it’s the fit of a garment, textile, or pattern. People often say to me,“you can wear it, I can’t.” and to me, that’s a load of horseshit. Anyone can wear anything, it just takes a little bit of gusto to wear it –  granted it helps to have complimentary pieces to help pull it off.

See!? I’m already going off track, alright let’s talk about Universal Works first drop.

Universal Works is the brand that we love and that we love to work with. It helps that we’re two proverbial families who share the same passions even outside of the garment world. If you’re a fan of the shop you’ll notice our buys are pretty consistent, standard silhouettes like the Bakers Jacket, Cardigan, Military Chino etc. These are all popular cuts that will never go out of style and translate well for a wide scope of people.

I will say that David and Stephanie of Universal Works pick some of the best fabrics in the industry. This season the selection of Harris Tweed is outstanding, classic grey, beautiful rich indigo, and banging pink! To be clear, we looked at this collection in January 2023, months before the Barbie trailer was released. Not to mention UW finished sampling the collection a couple of months before January. Anyway, the Easy Overshirt in Harris Tweed Pink and the matching Bucket Hat definitely was on my list to take home.

Throughout the collection, you’ll see pink, but in the wool fleece it’s a soft muted pink that’s much easier to wear. In addition to pink, we have the Montenero and Flower Fleece Cardigan and Zip Gilet two amazing prints on signature pieces. This range of cardigans and gilet are definitely statement pieces that would be great to layer with. If you already have a strong collection of solid basics its always more fun to add more colour and pattern to your wardrobe.

Pinks, florals, and animal prints are my favourites for this FW23 collection. Check out the whole collection here.