Introducing: Portal
Portal is the new performance brand by Barrie Bloor, Colin Meredith, John Roberts, and Patrick Stangbye.
Focusing on three activities – running, cycling, and hiking – their first collection features garments for outdoor movement – from running shorts to soft shell pants, from POLARTEC Alpha jackets to cycling bibs.
For the launch of their first collection, we sat down with Patrick an John to talk about their identity as a brand, the value of movement, and how Portal can be a gateway to outdoor activity.
Patrick Stangbye and John Roberts
APR MAG: Where and how do you find balance?
Patrick: It’s tough to find a general answer to this. I run a lot of the same trails, week after week. The runs are always different, I am never in the exact same shape or mental state, the trail never looks exactly the same. Of course you can create rules for yourself when aiming for balance, but as soon as something shifts in your life, these rules might not apply anymore. Maybe it’s more of a mentality thing. The reason why we’re doing what we’re doing is because we really believe in movement as part of our lifestyle. Of course, you can also overdo it and then you probably won’t find balance, but I would argue that people who include movement in their everyday life are closer to balance than people who don’t. Of course, that’s not a definite answer from my end, I also struggle with balance.
John: I feel at most peace when I’m out on my own – on a run or a ride in the forest. I’m an introvert and I get energy from being by myself. I can also enjoy being around people, but it takes energy. I recharge when I’m by myself. There’s this one piece of advice someone gave me because I’ve got a family with a young boy and it’s: Don’t fight what’s happening. When you have a kid, you’d think that you’re going to carry on living the same lifestyle, doing the same stuff – but you can’t do it all, so just don’t fight it. I apply that to a lot of things. If I’m busy at work, I don’t try to fight it. I just ride it because I know it’s going to be a wave. If there’s family stuff going on, I don’t fight that. Sometimes that means I run a bit less than I’d like. Maybe I sometimes don’t spend as much time with my family as I like. Everything comes in ebbs and flows, I guess.
APR MAG: Next to your individual aspects, you were both mentioning movement. What is it about movement that makes it so special?
Patrick: I think we’re basically made to move. I have better ideas when walking than when I’m sitting in front of a screen, it’s also about being outside. We are an outdoor brand and we make a clear distinction between indoor and outdoor. For us, outdoor is anything that happens outside of a building. It can totally be in an urban environment. Just being outside is positive. Of course, having access to nature has a positive impact – that’s how we used to live, right? People even say having wooden furniture in your house has a positive effect. For me, it’s obvious that we are meant to be close to nature. If that’s riding, walking, running, camping or even cooking outside – close to nature or in a park, is highly beneficial. It doesn’t have to be a mountain top.
APR MAG: Do you think nature is so important to you because you grew up in Norway, in a certain environment, or is it something that’s inherent to us as human beings?
Patrick: Of course, growing up with nature in Norway is a privilege, but I think it goes for everyone. Big cities can be super hectic, their pace is insane, it’s not natural for us as human beings. Being able to escape this rush and going to a park to follow the seasons, understanding what is going on around you and how the world has its own cycle – that’s important for us to experience. Of course, some are more fortunate than others, growing up closer to nature, but I think it’s beneficial to anyone no matter where they live. There even is a lot of nature in bigger cities like Berlin, I have run trails in the middle of the city. Sometimes you just need to be a little adventurous and try to see what you can find.
APR MAG: How is that for you in London, John?
John: It’s not too bad, actually. I live on the outskirts of London, just on the edge of Epping Forest where we shot the first campaign. You can go out and do a 100km gravel ride. It’s pretty good, wherever you go. I think London is actually quite green.
Next to what Patrick said with movement and nature, I think the idea of moving in nature forces a sense of presence, you don’t think about anything else then. This allows you to learn more about yourself and really understand what you’re thinking. Everyone talks about having ideas while you’re out running. Combining these two things, the sense of being outside in nature while moving, there’s a human draw to that. It feels good, it’s instinctive and I think it adds an extra dimension to being present. You don’t think about anything else apart from what you’re doing in this specific moment.
APR MAG: Your name involves aspects of movement, but also an aspect of transition. What does Portal as a brand stand for?
Patrick: I think it’s important to have a name with meaning. Many words or names can be controversial today, depending on where you are and who you talk to. We don’t need to get into politics now, but we see that everything today is either/or. People are either on one side or the other, there’s no in between anymore. It was important for us to find a name that was foundational and connected to positive attributes. We think that the activities we make garments for, running, riding, hiking, serve as a portal. They are transporting you physically, emotionally and intellectually. It is non directional and open, and of course it can be individual. The name resembles the intention we have for our project.
John: We see the brand as a gateway, as a portal and a facilitator to outdoor activity. That’s how we look at our products and our communication. We want the brand itself to be a portal to this lifestyle that we’re building.
APR MAG: What is this lifestyle that you’re building as a brand? We see garments for various activities, for cycling, for running, we see accessories. How would you describe this lifestyle?
John: For us, it’s outdoor and movement. People who run, people who ride, people who hike, people that are active outdoors. You could be a runner, a cyclist, or a hiker and define yourself like this, but I think there’s a lot of people who don’t want to be labeled like that, even though they might be doing these activities. For us, it’s not about positioning ourselves as a running or a cycling brand. We are positioned as an outdoors movement brand and we’re trying to facilitate this lifestyle through our products.
APR MAG: You often mention Portal being a collective. Could you give a short introduction on your team and the starting process?
Patrick: We are four people, it’s John, Barry, Colin, and myself. We started this project about two years ago. We knew that we wanted to do the same things – some of us have had a similar idea for a very long time, some for a shorter period. We started building on what our project could be and how it could look like and it’s been very collaborative ever since. We share responsibilities within the current framework of what we are doing, but like John said, we are just doing our first steps, we’re just launching. For this season, this might mean that John also has to go to our warehouse, which is nothing but a bigger garage, to count and ship garments.
A lot of things are work in progress, they’re constantly changing, but all of us follow the same timeline. We often touch on the things that happen within what we are doing. Some people have more responsibility than others – we have various skill sets within our team – but we all are contributing to the different aspects of Portal. That’s the beauty of being a smaller team. We are accountable for everything, but we love it. We can make decisions quickly. Most things we are able to do internally and for the few things we can’t, we have a wide network of people who can support. So far, it’s been working very well.
APR MAG: In your collection, we see mainly muted, earthy colourways. What has been your inspiration for choosing this color palette?
Patrick: Our colours are connected to our identity as a brand. We talk about being in nature, being surrounded by nature or being outside. If you were inside most of the time, going to the gym, you’d find a lot of industrial appliances, but we enjoy being outside, riding bikes or running trails. It’s almost natural that we use grey and brown because we see are so used to seeing these colours outside. It’s about not creating too much of a contrast with our environment, even though we will also introduce brighter colours in the future. Our colours mirror how we dress ourselves. We spend so much time with these activities that we wanted our clothes, and therefore our colours, to be an extension of how we dress everyday.
APR MAG: So, is it somehow about becoming one with nature through colours?
Patrick: That might be a bit too abstract. We play with versatility. It comes down to what people like to wear. It’s easier to combine an every day wardrobe with garments for these activities if the colours are aligned. It’s all about creating a system of garments that work well together and that we are used to from our everyday wardrobe. It would become very difficult if you wanted to include a pink short.
John: From a product perspective, we’ve always wanted to make products that become core to you. Something you can easily reach for and that works with your existing clothing. It shouldn’t be difficult to wear and colour is a key part of that. From a functionality and fit perspective, the garments should feel good so you’ll reach for them time and time again. Within our colour palette, we don’t want colours that are too challenging, we don’t want to cause too much friction. We want colours that help people in seeing our garments as their go-to product. That’s something that we’ve really focused on, on all our products. How it works, how it feels and how it looks. Colour is definitely a key part of that as well.
APR MAG: We see more and more performance brands tapping into the fashion sphere. How do you see this development and are there also difficulties that come with it?
Patrick: For us, it’s important that we put performance first, we are a performance brand building serious solutions for movement. All decisions related to products are made based on performance. We want the product to work for our customers in those activities. Performance doesn’t necessarily equal racing, though. Of course, we understand this space and people can also see us within this space, but we are making performance products first. Starting about two years ago, now launching in 2025, we don’t have any heritage as a brand. It is a modern project. That was very important for us when we started. It does work in a contemporary context but the word fashion, for me, is about a cycle, about trends. We see a lot of things happening in functional clothing that are trend based. Portal didn’t start from this intuition. I won’t say it’s bad to start a project within the fashion space, but it’s not our identity. There’s a lot of interesting things happening in functional fashion since they’re taking inspiration from sports, reimagining it for the every day. For us, being aware of our time, we are making products specifically for these activities. If someone wants to use our products in their everyday, which is usually what happens, that’s absolutely fine. Of course, it works with a functional, movement based lifestyle. We will never make a t-shirt based on how it looks, that’s not who we are. For us, it’s all about making a t-shirt that works and feels well while moving.
APR MAG: We’ve already mentioned the transition and movement aspect of Portal. What’s next to come?
John: We’ve only just started and the first season is a good representation of how our products will continue to grow. We’re focusing on three activities – run, ride, hike – as core activities of the brand. We’ve launched with a foundational wardrobe of products. Every product has a clear use case and need within this wardrobe that we’re building. That’s going to continue for as long as we will be running the brand. For now, we will continue in this same direction and continue to build products that we feel are needed for this customer and lifestyle and fit within our brand and our concept. We’ve got some really exciting stuff coming. In Paris, you’ve seen our Fall/Winter 25 collection. We just started working on Fall/Winter 26, somehow working on four seasons at the moment, which is cool. I guess we’ve started how we mean to go on.
APR MAG: Thank you very much.
Picture of Patrick: Patrick Stangbye
Picture of John: John Roberts
All other pictures: Portal
