Mark Bollman was doing Made in America before Made in America was cool.
Which is actually a pretty silly way to start an article pulling back the bespoke, herringbone curtains on Bollman's relationship to his brand, Ball and Buck. Because Mark Bollman really doesn't give a shit about being cool.
If there is one word that describes Bollman, Ball and Buck, and his ever-expanding Made-in-America pop-up marketplace, American Field, it's authenticity.
"Here's what 'field testing' means for Bollman: He brings everything he sells somewhere rugged and just beats the living shit out of it."
Bollman just spent the better part of a week at the Nine Quarter Circle Ranch in Montana, an annual ritual retreat he's partaken in since he was a kid. He rode horses in the mountains of Big Sky, fishing whenever the urge or the geography struck. After, he hopped on his BMW adventure motorbike for a five-day tour through Red Lodge, MT.
Montana is where Bollman fell in love with the outdoors, with camping and riding, fishing and fending for yourself, armed only with the gear you've brought to get you through.
"Ball and Buck is a lifestyle brand built for the sporting gentleman," Bollman told me from the road. "Just like a chef who visits the farms his food comes from and eats the food he cooks to make the absolute best menu, it's critical that I partake in the lifestyle that Ball and Buck represents. As the designer, creative director and leader of this company, if I didn't love the lifestyle of this brand, and live it as often as humanly possible, there would be no brand."
After covering Ball and Buck for years now, what has resonated most with me about Bollman's brand, about who he is as a person, is that while so many company founders like to claim those two things are one and the same, for Bollman it rings true.
Now more than ever, consumers crave a connection with what they're buying, with the lifestyle it evokes or the mill or pair of hands where it originated. Fast fashion is falling out of favor–or at least being looked at more skeptically than seasons past–being replaced instead with an emphasis on quality, durability and that satisfying feeling that comes with knowing you've just acquired something that will only get better with age.
Bollman is focused on products he feels will last. It's why brands like Dickies, Allen Edmunds and New Balance have collaborated on products such as camo-clad 574s or limited edition walnut Buck Knives.
And it's why American Field, the pop-up market Ball and Buck sets up annually at Boston's Innovation and Design Building – going down this weekend, Sept. 12 and 13 – continues to grow both in size and scope. It's expanded to Brooklyn and now Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, and Bollman tells me Nashville, San Francisco and Portland, OR, could be next.
This year's Boston event will see live music, food trucks and beer from Narragansett. It'll also host more than 80 local brands, from Brooklyn Boulders to Greycork, Randolph Engineering to P.F. Flyers, as well as a couple national heavyweights in GQ magazine (their media partner) and Tesla Motors, proving, as PR rep Maggie Dow relayed to me, "that #madeinUSA brands can come in all sizes."
For the newbies, it's a chance to grow their audience, gain exposure and meet a ton of likeminded brands and founders.
"So far it's connected us with other local makers and artisans and those connections are always very valuable," said Boston Bag founder Marie Thompson, who's debuting her products at American Field for the first time. "Being a small American Made company, with a product line newly on the scene, the struggle is getting our name out there! We're so excited to be at American Field this year to be amongst fellow makers and meet people passionate about the American Made movement."
Bollman went to Babson College, and between apartment-dwelling in various cities has a full-time residence in Peru, MA, a little wedge of a town in Berkshire County with a population not more than 1,000 people. Not by accident, it's fairly equidistant between there, Newbury Street and Brooklyn, where Ball and Buck has a design warehouse and showroom. I asked Bollman about this expansion, as a brand founder whose roots are so synonymous with Boston. His response: "There's no place in the world like the Garment District in New York City."
Pop into the Newbury Street location sometime, and if you're lucky enough to catch Bollman, get him talking about the products you see curated in front of you, be it a watch strap or the supple and distinct Upland Jacket. He knows each and every one intimately, down to the stitching. (Seriously, he's pointed out stitching to me on shirts, jackets and boots on more than one occasion.)
When an apparel company says their products are "field tested," it's tough to decipher what that means. But here's what that means for Bollman: He brings everything he sells somewhere rugged and just beats the living shit out of it.
And not just to Montana. His house in Peru doubles as a Ball and Buck proving ground, where boots are dragged through brooks and shirts become familiar with the kick of a shotgun butt. I've accompanied him on a fishing trip to Newport, RI, where he invited a couple media members to demo their new line of angler shirts and sunglasses made in collaboration with Massachusetts company Randolph Engineering. All the while, Bollman was watching, taking mental notes.
American Field's growth to D.C. and Atlanta is evidence that Bollman is on to something – its sights down south and out west indicative they're not stopping there. Not everything is better off for Made in America, but there's a growing set of young consumers keen to shop local whenever possible, be it for their heads of lettuce or their handmade fishing nets.
Wherever American Field goes, Bollman's roots remain firmly planted in Boston, in Massachusetts and Brooklyn, and above all, the good old U-S-of-A.
"America has always been a place that makes things," Bollman told me, back in Boston after his Montana trip. "It's the foundation that this country was built upon and the best way to ensure our longterm success. For me, Made in the USA isn't just some passing trend, it's a way of life."
