The Gloves Are Off: Interview with Cole McBride of Bare Knuckles
Cole and I chat about Boston Terriers, sentimental vintage, and his journey to owning one of the most buzzy up-and-coming brands out
If you’re a guy who even casually pays attention to the ebbs and flows of the 21st century menswear universe, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the name Cole McBride. And if you haven’t, you’ve almost certainly seen his work. Between having his fingerprints all over the west coast vintage landscape to establishing a quickly growing contemporary menswear brand, Cole’s star is rising expeditiously.
Along with friend and business partner Jacob Keller, Cole co-founded the quickly-beloved label Bare Knuckles, and his infectious enthusiasm has helped skyrocket the brand to the cult status it now enjoys among style-conscious guys (and gals). Their offerings span a wide range, including several cuts of denim, vintage workwear-inspired jackets, seriously cozy knits, and their hugely successful basics line. They’ve since added a third team member, jack-of-all-trades Jonathan, and most recently they’ve dipped their toes into the worlds of eyewear and fragrance.
Even as Bare Knuckles’s repertoire has expanded, their brand identity has become more and more dialed-in. BK sits somewhere between polished and gritty, edgy and refined; their products are clearly highly thought-out, but still feel coarse, raw, in a way that makes them exciting to wear.
Cole and Jacob also founded Hellmart, which later merged with Suite Zero to become Kissing Booth, one of the premier vintage destinations in Portland and arguably the west coast. Cole recently announced that he was stepping away from part-ownership of Kissing Booth, which was the impetus for this conversation. Cole and I hopped on a call and shot the shit about the joys and struggles of being Boston Terrier dads, some of his thought processes behind the decisions required of him as a brand owner, and what’s next after leaving Kissing Booth.
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Before we hopped on, Cole pinged me to let me know he was finishing up some tamales and he needed a few extra minutes…
Andrew: How were the tamales?
Cole: They were good man. They’re from Trader Joe’s, so they’re just some refrigerated ones, but they hit. Some people don’t really like Trader Joe’s because it’s not a massive grocery store where you can find everything, but you can totally make solid meals out of your Trader Joe’s trips.
Andrew: Trader Joe’s has some bangers for sure! Okay, before I ask about clothes, I’m legally obligated to mention that we’re both Boston Terrier owners. My guy’s name is Spuds, he’s meandering around here somewhere. Your Boston’s name is Tripp, right? How’s he doing?
Cole: He’s good - he’s just being annoying, staring at me and whining until I pet him.
Andrew: Has he gotten into any mischief or anything lately?
Cole: Not recently. He’s just weird; I don’t know what tendencies your Boston Terrier has, but Tripp’s really just an odd dog. He doesn’t really like when people touch him, but he does want to cuddle at night. He doesn’t really care too much about other dogs but he’s down to play, he’s super food motivated. He listens really well and walks off leash…
Andrew: Wow - I can definitely relate to the food motivation, but Spuds is a nightmare off leash.
Cole: He’s 10, and I’ve had him since he was like 6 months old, so I’ve had him his whole life, and he’s kind of always just been awkward and weird. But he’s so cute, and he’s very handsome. I love having my little guy around.
Andrew: Give him a good scratch for me. Alright, moving into clothes-related stuff: starting chronologically, before you got started with Bare Knuckles etc, you’ve always been rocking cool vintage. Was vintage your entry into the world of clothes and style?
Cole: From a younger age, when I was 15 or 16, I was always thrifting. I wasn’t really picking up cool shit that I would like wearing today, but I was grabbing stuff I thought was cool at the time. Old jerseys, snapbacks, stuff like that. Then when I graduated high school, I got a job at an OG streetwear retailer called Compound. I worked there for a year and then I moved on to a spot call Machus, which is a menswear retailer in Portland. They carry brands like Off-White, Rick [Owens] Mr. Completely, stuff like that. Jacob was the manager at the time, and I quickly worked my way up to where Jacob and I were kind of running the show there. And then Justin, the owner, took us to Paris for fashion week, and we started making connections with people that way. So that was kind of my first major introduction to the route that I wanted to take - my understanding of clothing really developed when I started buying and working with vendors.
Andrew: Quite the journey! I was going to ask about how you and Jacob met, so you beat me to the punch there. I assume Machus was where you two really discovered that you’re work well together as business partners?
Cole: It’s funny, too - Jacob had his YouTube channel, and I actually designed a t-shirt for him. So that’s kind of an ongoing joke we have. It was like Michael Jordan jumping from the free-throw line and it said “Always Fresh Apparel” on it, and it was super fucking shitty but it was really funny. So we were loosely in touch even before I started at Machus, but when I started there was when we met properly. But regarding working well together, yeah, a buy would come in, and we would sit down and look at the product and discuss what we would do differently and how we would have done it.
Andrew: Got it - so that was the gateway for you guys to start thinking about the design aspect of things.
Cole: Yeah. And after we did that for a while, we both knew we wanted to make our own clothes, so we figured why don’t we just hop in it together. He wanted someone who would kind of push him into it, and I was super eager to get into it, so it was a good matchup. He was pretty calculated and I was like let’s just go for it.
Andrew: Very cool that Bare Knuckles was the result of a stars-aligned, yin-yang situation where you guys filled in those personality gaps for each other. Diving deeper into BK and some of your design choices: a lot of your pieces clearly reflect your love of vintage workwear, but some items like the crushed nylon set and the Alexandra knit are a little bit more of a curveball or a left turn from a design perspective. How do you decide whether an item will be a little more “straightforward” versus being a little more “out there?”
Cole: I think where Bare Knuckles fits as a brand, and what our ethos is, is that we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. But we want to elevate things, and put some chrome on the 22s. Like for the crushed nylon set, it has a lot of details that imitate an old rancher jacket, but obviously with a unique spin on it. We don’t play around with nylon that much so we thought it would be interesting to try our hand at it. We try to look at things as: would we wear it, and then how can we add our own twist to some of our favorite pieces that might already be out there. Another emphasis for a lot of our fits, especially early on, was cropped and boxy.
Andrew: Funny that you mentioned the cropped and boxy fit - my first purchase from you guys way back was the red and black striped denim jacket. And at the time, I wasn’t doing the whole tucked in t-shirt, pants all the way up to the waist kind of style. So that jacket was cropped enough that I was like “this is crazy,” and you guys were kind enough to let me exchange it for a hoodie and something else because it was so out of my comfort zone.
Cole: Yeah, that jacket was reeeaally cropped. If I were to remake it I would add 2 inches or so to it.
Andrew: I was bummed to email you guys and ask for an exchange because it was really cool, but I was thinking “damn, I’m going to have to change my whole style around to make this work.”
Cole: I hear you, haha.
Andrew: I was scrolling through the brand’s TikTok in preparation for this, and I saw the one where you mentioned that the Alexandra knit was your favorite BK piece of 2023. Is that your favorite Bare Knuckles piece overall, or has something dethroned it?
Cole: The Alexandra is a really beautiful knit, and we’re working on a black colorway as well. Besides that, we have a new denim silhouette called the Arthur. The wash is perfect and the fit is imitating a 1950s Levi’s big E model 550Z, which is the widest fit Levi’s did at the time, but in 2024, it’s not that baggy compared to what else is out there. So you really can wear it with anything and it just looks like a handsome pair of blue jeans.
Andrew: I just pulled up your IG and found them, and I really like the shape of them. I’ve always been a little scared of flared denim, which you guys make, but these look super approachable to someone like me.
Cole: Yeah, they’re a straight leg from the knee down, which is really nice. It’s just a really easygoing pant that you can throw on anytime and the wash is really awesome. We also have a new t-shirt silhouette coming out called the Lounge Tee that I really love as well.
Andrew: Not really a question, but I’m also very excited for the colored Basics collection too. Huge fan of that yellow.
Cole: We worked long and hard on the development of that coloring and fading. It’s really difficult and expensive to nail those colors, but when the basics line did extremely well we decided to do a deep dive into color exploration. And that stuff is releasing next week on the 13th. The orange is my personal favorite.
Andrew: Oh sweet! I had to make sure to mention those. They’re really gorgeous. One more two-part BK question - it really seems like people respond in a big way when you guys take us behind the scenes and talk about the sample process. Do you have something that’s stuck in sample hell that you want to get out into the world but it hasn’t happened yet? And then have you ever ordered samples of something and then thought, ‘ this is not good, what were we thinking?’
Cole: Yes to both. For the first part, we’ve been working on an updated denim jacket silhouette that we keep revisiting all the time, and I can’t figure out exactly what I want to change about it. But we are going to move forward with that soon and put out a great denim jacket, there are still just some subtle changes that drive me crazy.
Andrew: I’m sure dealing with those little details is a big part of the design process.
Cole: For sure. And as far as the second part, sampling is a blessing and a curse because you work really hard trying to execute this idea, and then you get the sample in and you either think “wow, I’m the best designer in the world, I’m a fucking god” or “I should hang it up and call it quits.”
Andrew: Ha! It’s like when you put together a fit in your head while you’re taking a shower, and then you dry off and put it on and go “what the hell was I thinking…?”
Cole: Right! It happens all the time, but as our voice gets clearer and clearer, it has slowly become more about little details that need to change rather than the whole design being just completely wack. And even things we don’t use can be revisited and used for inspiration down the line.
Andrew: Switching gears into vintage. I’ve followed you long enough that I saw when you were just a guy vending at pop ups, and then, correct me if I’m wrong, you and Jacob started Hellmart.
Cole: Yeah, Jacob and I already had BK, so we just thought - people know us as a duo, so let’s do this too. And then a year or so later, we merged Hellmart with Suite Zero, which was our friends Gabe, Mike, and Payton. So we joined forces to open Kissing Booth, and over the last few years it became what it is now. It’s a great representation of what we all love to collect.
Andrew: Before I cap things off by asking about your departure from Kissing Booth: it’s definitely apparent that Bare Knuckles and Kissing Booth are their own entities, but you can also see some Venn diagram overlap in some of the design language and branding. Does one business inspire the other, and vice versa?
Cole: Yeah, running Bare Knuckles helps us learn some insider info on trends and what people are shopping for. If we’re selling denim really well for BK, we should stock up on Levi’s for Kissing Booth, etc. And then since BK is so heavily vintage-inspired, it’s really easy to use vintage that we’ve sourced as a base to then build Bare Knuckles designs from.
Andrew: One more quick two-parter on the vintage side: do you have a most treasured vintage item, for whatever reason, and then do you have a “one that got away” that you regret selling or not buying?
Cole: I have a little collection of the stuff that I’m hanging onto that are special to me. I have a green bomber jacket I wear all the time that’s sentimental to me, and some shitty $5 vintage tees that are really special to me and fit me really well.
Andrew: Those are the best ones - when you know no one is gonna be clamoring to buy this from me for $500, but it’s my favorite for my own reasons.
Cole: Exactly. And for the second part, there’s a lot that gets away, but I just don’t let myself think about it. I’m content - I have so much clothing, and it’s a big majority of what I collect, so I’ll always be satisfied. Plus I’ll always be buying, so there could always be another change to get something that I missed out on.
Andrew: That’s such a good mindset. So getting to your recent news about stepping away from Kissing Booth. Did you make that decision because Bare Knuckles is getting so big that you had to fully focus your efforts there? Or is something else in the works?
Cole: The first one. Bare Knuckles takes 100% of my time, and I was spending a lot of time working the floor at KB which eats my day up. So it got to a point where I just couldn’t be splitting time between the two, and I wanted to offer the rest of the Kissing Booth guys the chance to buy my share back and we amicably parted ways. Those guys are like my best friends so I’m happy it’s in their hands.
Andrew: It’s cool to hear that you stepped away for a positive reason - owning a successful brand that takes up your time is a good problem to have.
Cole: Absolutely. It’s bittersweet because I am passionate about Kissing Booth and worked extremely hard to get it where it is, but I need to focus on taking this brand to the next level. It’s all good things - I love staying busy and I feel very fortunate.
Andrew: Last question to close things out: on the rare occasion that Cole gets a day off, what are you getting into? Any unexpected hobbies? I love your Instagram stories about your little strawberry garden and Tripp demanding a daily strawberry sacrifice.
Cole: Haha! I’m really outgoing and always looking to hang out with friends. I love hitting some of the outdoor swimming spots in Portland, I swim all the time. I love playing sports, I’m a big Liverpool and Oregon State fan so I watch a lot of both types of football. I collect records so I’m always spinning those and chilling with Tripp.
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If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Cole and Bare Knuckles are only getting started. If you haven’t gotten your hands on a BK piece yet - run, don’t walk. You won’t be sorry.
Huge thanks to Cole for taking the time to share some insider knowledge with me (and anyone reading this).
The new flavors of Bare Knuckles basics release this Friday, 9/13. The Arthur denim is also set to release later this month. BK is on Instagram here, and Cole’s personal IG where he shares more fun behind-the-scenes snapshots is here. Kissing Booth’s website is here and their IG is here.
Thanks as always for tuning in!
Good shit !