San Portablo: Cult fashion brand brings hope and pride back to former Steel Town

Stephen Price

An entrepreneur from Port Talbot has shared how his redundancy amid the area’s steel crisis inspired him to create one of Wales’ most exciting new clothing brands, and to bring hope and employment back to the proud, skilled and close-knit community.

With a love of fashion and all things Port Talbot and Wales, Nigel Hunt dreamed up San Portablo as part of a cunning plan to turn the tide against negative perceptions of the area.

With news report after news report focusing on what Port Talbot has lost, and the obvious economic deprivation that has ensued, Nigel felt there was no option but to do something constructive, something that could shift the focus to what Port Talbot has, not what it hasn’t — namely a strong, close-knit and fiercely proud community, and one with a great deal of transferable skills.

A marriage of local and wider Welsh culture and fashion was born, and San Portablo is its name.

From humble beginnings at Nigel’s home in Aberafan less than a decade ago, the brand has its own store in Aberafan Shopping Centre, and sells to their ever-growing customer base across the world online.

As the company looks to cap off almost a decade of growth and, more importantly, hope and inspiration for other small businesses and young entrepreneurs in the area, Nigel is ready to take the brand to the next stage.

Enter one of its most exciting brand campaigns yet, inspired by some of Wales’ most important cultural images.

To date, we’ve had an homage to Twin Town and the work of one of Nigel’s favourite Welsh artists, Kevin Sinnott.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by SanPortablo1901 (@sanportablo)

With Nigel more fired up than ever, new lines are being added constantly, and the cool, clean aesthetic with its cheeky Welsh touch aims to offer clothing built to last, and to outlast trends.

And behind the fire? A determination to keep showing the next generation of Port Talbot that they too have hope, and all really is not lost. Perhaps, even, this might just be the beginning.

Looking back to the early days of the brand, Nigel told Nation Cymru: “In 2016 there was a steel crisis and I got dismissed from my job for life which meant I had no redundancy package.

“It was probably the lowest I felt in my adult life. I could have been 46 and on the employment scrap heap.
I had to do something urgently to pay the bills.

“I read an ancient poet in Middlesex University called Ovid. He said that fear gives you wings, and that was true for me.

“I had to pay a mortgage, bank loan, credit cards, overdraft and provide for the family, I had to do something that I enjoyed and that what I was good at.

“I had been a clothing bootlegger and I had a successful shop in the early nineties. I had good people around me and I was encouraged to have a go at clothing again.”

Guerrilla clothing

Bravely, Nigel spent his last wage packet on a run of t-shirts for the Euros 2016 in France. It was the first tournament Cymru had qualified for in his lifetime, and they defiantly created a design with Wales in mind.

Nigel went out to Bordeaux, Paris and Lyon in France and sold t-shirts on the streets of cities Cymru played in.

Vice TV filmed him out there and made a documentary on the early days of the brand born out of the steel crisis, and he used the opportunity to change the perception of Port Talbot which, at the time, even locals had begun to call Port Toilet, Port Tablet, Port Thunderdome and worse.

Many of us in Wales are guilty of overlooking the sheer beauty around us, and the brand is proof that everywhere in Wales can be aspirational.

Nigel said: “San Portablo grew out of the love, the place and the vibe we have here — the beach, the mountains the community, the sports clubs, bars, clubs, fashion, humour, buildings, culture — we wanted to celebrate it and showcase how much we mattered.

“Ten years later we are stronger than ever.”

As for what sets San Portablo apart from other clothing brands, he said: “We are Welsh, urban and proud of it.

“San Portablo has worked with local street artists, models, photographers, DJs, bands, film makers, skaters, musicians, rappers, comedians, poets, schools, sports clubs, festivals.

“We take opportunities when they come our way: The Euros, Banksy’s Season’s Greetings, In it Together Festival, Aberafan Shopping Centre, Cardiff Airport, Shunk Fest, Afan Ales. All these have been celebrated by San Portablo.

“We have created around a hundred designs that have targeted Welsh dressers, punks, skaters, trendies, b-boys and girls, and just ordinary people that come to the shopping centre.

“We have celebrated our dialect words you hear in our area like Shunk, Landed, Tidy, Lush, Tamping, Sound, Edda, Sorted, and really tapped into what makes us, and wider-Wales, unique and something to celebrate.”

To reflect San Portablo’s position as a cultural hub for Port Talbot and the surrounding area, Nigel has worked consistently with up-and-coming as well as highly-acclaimed street artists.

And the innovation is infectious — with San Portablo at the forefront of a creative renaissance in the area. For Nigel, it’s the ability to help others realise their potential that is key to keeping his passion alive.

He said: “Some of the street artists that we have worked with are now full time artists like Jenks, THEW, ADAS, SoK, and Bims. The street artist and graffiti scene in Port Talbot is getting really colourful.

“Also, the comedian Sandro Ford is flying, we have supported Sandro since 2016. We are also watching EmmJ Model Agency rising up and flourishing. We watched and helped Roo Lewis create the Port Talbot UFO investigation club photo book — which has been a phenomenal success.

“The Drunk Poets Society in Afan Ales keeps creating and getting artists to write verse.

“The In it Together Festival has been a brilliant success over the last four years in Old Park Farm Margam.

“Port Talbot is rebranding itself in further difficult times with the demise of the steel industry, and San Portablo is a driving force behind the creativity.”

And at all times, what matters primarily is that the clothes look good. The growth over the last ten years is testament to their quality and lasting-power, with buyers coming back again and again. Ultimately, behind the corporate social responsibility lies a business, and a genuine love of seeing people wear San Portablo’s designs.

Nigel shared: “The clothing we sell is top quality, fair trade, organic, trendy. A very Welsh street fashion.

“We don’t look to London, we look at Station Road, Port Talbot, Tenby, Wind Street, Porthcawl, Cardiff Womanby Street, Neath’s Parade, Maesteg’s Commercial Street.

“We want to be the top brand in these kind of places that we do our photo shoots in, using Welsh Photographers, models, artists, locations. That is what you get from San Portablo.

“And why not, eh? Welsh Culture matters.”

As for what’s been the highlight of it all, Nigel told Nation Cymru: “Beyond seeing our designs out there, being bought organically and worn by people locally and from far away, it’s got to be all the cultural confidence that I have mentioned above.

“Banksy, who is arguably the most successful artist on Planet Earth, doing the optical illusion masterpiece ‘Season’s Greetings’ in Taibach was a sensation to be savoured.

“The first In It Together Festival in 2022 when it was as if we had hired a Flash Mob to wear our threads — that was incredible, it made us emotional to see it.

“We had over fifty designs being worn and literally thousands were wearing our brand. It really was a breakout weekend for us.

“Also, the emergence of San Portablo Arts and the Film Festival is opening up so many possibilities.

“The Film Festival has the potential to become bigger than the clothing brand, and I can’t wait to put it on again 2026.

“Also, the advertisement film we did with Morgan Woolcock and Helen John was another project that filled us with pride and gratification.”

“More recently, however, the photo shoot we did with Roo Lewis as a tribute to the iconic Welsh Painting by Kevin Sinnott ‘Running Away with the Hairdresser’ was crazy cool.

“It took place outside the Station Hotel, Caerau, Maesteg. The models Reuben Thomas and Taya Fox were outstanding.

“There was a moment in Caerau when they were both Voguing in front of the camera when I thought we are now going to another level.

“There is no other street brand in the UK that is doing this cool sh*t. We’ve got fresh ideas that we are working on right now and we are going to pull them off.

“It feels like this is a new beginning.”

Community is everything for Nigel, and he envisages a renaissance for Port Talbot and the wider area that could serve as a model for the rest of Wales. He hopes the movement can inspire the younger generation to achieve their dreams on their own soil, in their own land.

As for what’s next for the brand?

In Nigel’s typical, punchy delivery, he said simply:

“More creativity.

“More designs.

“More fashion shows.

“More Photoshoots.

“The Film Festival

“We are going to do a series of short films.

“It’s time to move up through the gears.”

Time indeed. Tidy butt!

Check out San Portablo’s latest designs here.