You know those Tricker's collabs everyone's so tired of? Blame it on Kenneth MacKenzie. The 6876 founder was one of the first to work with them back in 2001, beating Junya Watanabe to the punch by eight years. Like most things MacKenzie's done, he did it because it made sense at the time.

"We wanted to do shoes. I was wearing tricker's at the time and I thought, why don't we just speak to Tricker's?" So they did just that, working out a deal that allowed them to be sold at the same price of regular Tricker's, something which Tricker's hadn't done before at this point. They were a little more creative than most retailers today are with the collaboration, making several shoe types before eventually stopping the collaboration due to the inbuilt restrictions of Tricker's. "We couldn't do much more with it because of this heaviness of the shoe."

A former graphics and fashion student, Kenneth MacKenzie's first job was at Duffer of St George, where he worked for five years as a sales director. In 1995 he and fellow Duffer Alumni Chris Houghton left the company and launched 6876. The brand name comes from the 1968 French student riots and the 1976 emergence of punk respectively, forming 6876. As you would expect from a company naming itself after two, to put it lightly, rebellious periods, there's always been a slight obstinance about the brand. Whether it be doing collaborations with Tricker's years before it's popular or refusing to re-release products in popular colours (they did a yellow jacket in 2005 and didn't re-release it last year when the world and their dog made a yellow raincoat) there's an rebuttal of all trends that makes the brand attractive to their followers.

"It's not interesting following what should be or what is fashionable," says Kenneth. "You can sit down and say 'I'm gonna do a collection a bit like that' but in the end everyone will say 'that just looks like your stuff'. You can't do what you can't do. You've got your own mentality of design and, for better or worse, you better just accept it. Other people can be commercial and follow trends, but 6876 is my thing. And it's been really hard work. So if I'm not gonna do it the way I want, then there's no point doing it. Your view of designing is just you." It's this dogged approach that's helped the brand through some rough ups and downs.