A chilled weekend jaunt to one of the UAE’s lavish beach clubs is rarely a bad idea. Chasing the sunlight while feeling good and looking even better is all part of what makes the ‘good life’, well, so darn good. But it wasn’t always that way. “Around the pool, women tend to look great, but men often do not,” explains Adam Brown, founder stylish swimwear brand Orlebar Brown.
“Well, that’s what I noticed when I went on holiday to celebrate a friends 40th birthday in Rajasthan in 2005.” He recalls the pivotal moment in his life, when the men were all wearing brightly patterned, baggy boxer short styles, briefs or board shorts, and all looked rather style-less. It was the moment that first inspired Orlebar Brown, and now—nearly fifteen years later—the brand has notably changed the swimwear game for style-conscious gents all over the world, particularly in the UAE.
Identifying that the principles of tailoring could be adapted into the swimwear, Orlebar Brown gained popularity for the impeccable look and feel of its swim shorts collections, before branching out into a whole range of refined casual gear. “‘Swim’ remains our hero to this day, but we are seeing a growth in other areas now, for example, shirts are our fastest growing category this year, and trousers are also on the way up,” Brown tells Esquire Middle East.
If there was clear indication that Orlebar Brown’s value set has hit a note with shoppers then that is clearly it. With nearly 50 stores worldwide—including the newly opened store in Dubai’s Atlantis The Royal—and 200 wholesale accounts globally, Orlebar Brown’s stylish resortwear empire has never looked so good. So what is driving its success?
“There are opportunities in menswear to tell richer stories, and I think that’s what a brand like Orlebar Brown does really well,” says Brown. These ‘stories’, he explains, manifest themselves in the vast range of prints that are on offer on the brand’s products—whether they are rich, vibrant photographic prints or more considered prints with more intricate detailing—they allow you a more expansive tool box to express yourself than you might have seen on a beach 10 years ago.
“If you go into a department store, you will always get plenty of standard two or three-colour shorts, or angular and geometric patterns, whereas we put a lot of effort into sourcing, redeveloping and evolving our prints to make them something that is more personal,” he says.
“I love photographic prints, because they immediately take a customer to a place where they can feel something; where they can feel summer, and hear the music playing in the background,” says Brown. This is evident in the latest Cruise 2023 collection (see above) from the brand, entitled ‘Space’. Notsomuch the celestial-chasing kind, the collection instead celebrates open space, where you can find your own sense of calm that gives you the freedom to do what you want.
The new collection fits neatly within the ethos of what Adam Brown formulated that day around the pool in Rajasthan—a refined, considered approach to downtime, where you can revel in feeling like the best version of yourself. It’s an approach that ultimately best expressed by Brown himself: “we want to create pieces so that people can feel like the holiday version of themselves.”
Orlebar Brown stores in Dubai are located in Atlantis The Royal, Mandarin Oriental Jumeriah, The Mall of Emirates, Dubai Mall; and Galleria Mall Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi.
