The story of Fibre Royale

 

When Mark Twain famously quipped 'there is no such thing as an original idea', he was making the point that when we create we are in fact reimagining the shards and strands of all that has gone before us and moulding them into a shape we can call our own. After all, inspiration has to come from somewhere.

 

At Triumph & Disaster we love nothing more than bouncing off old concepts, glancing up against rare ideas, challenging the status quo, stealing glimpses and crafting it all into a format that at its essence is unique, fresh, new.

 

When we conceptualised Fibre Royale we were at our plagiarising best. We wanted a stronger formulation for longer hair, something that was natural but strong and effective that would balance our existing portfolio of Coltrane Clay (matte textured finish) and Ponsonby Pomade (wet slick look).

 

Like the other products in the range we wanted Fibre Royale to calm the scalp and protect the hair as much as possible, whilst delivering killer shape and style.

 

Roll call an industry favourite, Argan Oil. Well documented and widely used, its benefits are many and varied such as tensile strength, flex and rich in wonder nutrients.

 

With all our products we try to centre them geographically through our South Pacific indigenous flora and fauna. Native plants, roots, polysaccharide chains, seed extracts and green science combine to create a heritage we call our 'backyard'.

 

 

 For Fibre Royale this means the Kawakawa plant and New Zealand beeswax, two natural ingredients with a proven track record of efficacy and effectiveness essential to the performance of Fibre Royale.

 

 

 

The Fibre Royale tins are 100% bespoke to T&D and were designed by us, for our products. In retrospect we spent way too much time and money, but seeing them shelf still delivers a sense of immense pride in what we have created and their quality reflects the level of care and great 'clean science' that went into developing our range.

 

The Fibre Royale tin is British racing green, matched by eye to a classic e type jag that sat motionless in a mechanics garage next door to our old office. The team would walk past and gaze in periodically, nothing ever seemed to happen in regards to getting the car road worthy, but the colour really popped and made us dream all the same. 

  

Finally, 'Fibre Royale' the name, derives from a lazy Saturday afternoon spent watching Quentin Tarantino's classic - Pulp Fiction - and hearing the immortal lines between Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield;

 

VINCENT…You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

JULES They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
VINCENT No, man, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
JULES What'd they call it?
VINCENT They call it Royale with Cheese.
JULES (repeating) Royale with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Mac?
VINCENT Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.

  

Coming from the bottom of the world, being a bit isolated, we do things a little differently here as well, so this line always resonated, it highlights the appreciation for all our differences and nuisances, it was through playing around with this idea that we stumbled across 'Fibre Royale', it's a fibre but it's royale, so it's the same but it's different, like in France. Ok so the logics a bit of a stretch but we still think it just sounds great, so thank you Quentin.

 

Of course, at the base of all this there is a fundamental ethos, a core belief system. The T&D ethos is founded on the belief that our skin is an amazing organ, therefore our role is simply to facilitate our skin to health. We believe in ashes to ashes, so keeping things as natural as possible, because what comes from the earth goes back into it and we believe in life, so we don't test on animals other than ourselves. But most of all we believe in rituals, good regimes that give us the space to take pause, to gather ourselves, to clear our minds, to breathe. Our products are all designed with the 'ritual' in mind. The process, the performance. That is our role, to make great products, that improve people's lives.

  
Fibre Royale, they call it something different in France.