Why Brunt Workwear stays focused on workers, not fashion

The history of American workwear brands that have also been embraced as fashion brands spans generations. Levi Strauss patented its rivet-enforced denim pants for laborers in 1873, and Carhartt introduced its sturdy bib overalls in 1889. More so than Levi’s, Carhartt still champions its popularity with hammer-swingers, but the brand has leaned into decidedly non-workwear lines, too, with popular products for pets and kids.

But Eric Girouard, founder and CEO of Brunt Workwear, the 5-year-old DTC brand, is doing everything he can to not become a fashion brand. And that stems from his upbringing in Bristol, Connecticut.

“I grew up roofing and landscaping when I was 14 [and] 15,” Girouard told Retail Brew. “All my childhood buddies went into the trades right out of high school.”

Girouard took a different route, working for fashion brands including Rue La La and M.Gemi, which features Italian-made shoes and handbags, but he remained close with those boyhood friends.

And they let him know they had little use for fancy loafers.

“‘You should start a brand for us,’” Girouard recalled his buddies saying. “And I was like, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ And they were like, ‘I don’t know, something that we could at least use. We don’t care about Italian shoes or all this stuff.’”

Boots on the ground: Brunt launched in September 2020 with workboots, each line named for trade workers, including some of Girouard’s childhood pals. The namesake for the Marin boot, for example, is Matt Marin, who Girouard has known since nursery school and today is a union foreman carpenter. Marin’s story is featured on the boot’s product page and in a video on Brunt’s YouTube channel.

Today, along with boots, Brunt includes a head-to-toe apparel line. The company, whose headquarters are outside of Boston, has in recent months inked partnerships with two sports franchises in Massachusetts: The Boston Bruins and New England Patriots.

True to form, along with sponsoring the teams, Brunt sponsors the crews of employees who maintain the facilities where they play. With the Bruins, for example, Brunt is sponsoring and outfitting the crew known as the “Bull Gang,” which maintains the rink at its venue, TD Garden, as well as transforming the rink into a basketball court for the Boston Celtics, who share the venue, and a stage for concerts and other performances.

Ditto for the Patriots, where along with the team, Brunt is the official partner for Gillette Stadium and its field crew, which it also is outfitting with work boots and apparel.

The brand also is sponsoring a Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy and chose him not just for his feats on skates but for his ties to a trade: His father, also named Charlie, runs McAvoy Plumbing & Heating, a century-old, multigenerational family business.

The brand is active on social media, where along with these partnerships, it highlights trade workers talking shop while outfitted in its products. It also produces a podcast, Bucket Talk, named for work crews’ custom of taking a break on overturned buckets, that features workers jawboning about their crafts and trades.

Work in progress: In 2024, Brunt launched a wholesale program, and today its products are sold in 850 stores, and wholesale accounts for 20% of its revenues, per Girouard.

With retail, too, Girouard said rather than fashion-oriented stores, the brand targets workwear-focused retailers.

“We’re in Blain’s Farm & Fleet in the middle of the country,” Girouard said. “We’re in Franks [Shoes] in Pittsburgh, which is the boot store if you’re in Pittsburgh you go to get your work boots from.”

The retail strategy is yet another way, along with only using “real-deal workers” rather than models on its e-commerce site, that Girouard said Brunt’s marketing focuses on making functional products for workers, not fashion statements for hipsters.

“Heritage brands have left this customer behind—a lot of them have moved into the fashion space for growth,” Girouard said. From the beginning, he determined Brunt “had to be incredibly authentic..”

“It had to look like my buddies look, talk like they talked, [and] hang out in the places they hung out.”