Block-Bilt: Website link-Never seen these jackets. Anyone?

[Superfluous]

Maybe BK making for SB? Match made in heaven!

 

[handymike]

If I'm wrong, and the mysterious "private" registrar of Block "-" Bilt is a different company than the "BlockBilt" owners...We could easily see the SB folks back in court on the other side of a TM lawsuit
I doubt it's that complicated.

 

[Bunyip]

Look up the Whois on Block-bilt.com.

http://whois.domaintools.com/blockbilt.com

Wow! Your right. The info is there.

 

[Bunyip]

that is the wrong website, the one we talk about is block-bilt.com.

No. He has the right one. Check it out.

 

[Bunyip]

Simmons Bilt, formerly Alexander Leathers, rebranding as Block Bilt?

I would imagine they must be staying seperate. Have an untarnished brand in the stable. Run them both, gradually Block Bilt buys out SB and it looks a lot cleaner etc.

 

[Rudie]

Interesting. The pricing as well as the designs are very different from AL/SB's. It seems that the re-branding didn't work out or was just a short-term solution to get over the trial fiasco until they could start from the ground up. This is what they should have done from the beginning. Make their own designs instead of stealing Aero's patterns. With AL/SB they could never really break into the high-end market price wise. Block Bilt charge more than Aero and £300 more than AL/SB. So keeping the new brand separate from AL/SB is imperative.

 

[Bunyip]

I wonder when the actual site launched?

 

[Capesofwrath]

It may well be a separate company with different designs and possibly even operating from a different base. Although that seems unlikely since the manufacturing expertise and skilled machinists are in one place. But the owner of SB has other interests and could run those companies for different markets. From what I can see SB does most of its business making jackets for other companies. Like its recent collaboration with Barbour for their very expensive Triumph branded jackets, and for stores it has arrangements with. Mostly in Germany I think. Its website and individual customers probably account for a fairly small part of its business. So if this is a standalone business selling different and more expensive jackets for a different market it might make sense to keep the businesses separate. Or at least the marketing of them even if the jackets were made in the same place.

As to the stuff above about untarnished brands. Most of their customers on the website would not have clue what that was about, and their business partners are business people who know how business works….

 

[walterwhyte]

http://whois.domaintools.com/block-bilt.com
Doesn't look like it is SB

 

[Sloan1874]

Anyone notice that Block and BK use exactly the same style of union number label?

https://www.facebook.com/billkelsom...0.1456049393./959389497424675/?type=3&theater

http://www.block-bilt.com/site/product.php?id=speedster

That seems quite a coincidence. The pricing and stitching also seems very much in line with BK's.

 

[AdeeC]

Reminds me of money laundering. Could this be brand laundering?

 

[Bunyip]

http://whois.domaintools.com/block-bilt.com
Doesn't look like it is SB

Well. It's changed from a couple of hours ago where it clearly said steve@simmonsbilt as contact. It actually said that a couple of times. It really doesn't bother me either way. I just find it interesting.
With the BK link....it's all too confusing for a simple Aussie like me. Those tags look identical Sloan, well spotted. Could this be the big collaboration that BK alluded to a couple of years ago? Who knows...it will be interesting to watch.

 

[walterwhyte]

Well. It's changed from a couple of hours ago where it clearly said steve@simmonsbilt as contact. It actually said that a couple of times. It really doesn't bother me either way. I just find it interesting.
With the BK link....it's all too confusing for a simple Aussie like me. Those tags look identical Sloan, well spotted. Could this be the big collaboration that BK alluded to a couple of years ago? Who knows...it will be interesting to watch.

The active site and domain is Block-Bilt with a hyphen. Simmons Bilt seem to own the domain Block Bilt ( Un-hyphenated) possibly they got word about this new company and attempted to block them using that domain?
As mentioned previously the products from Block Bilt show no resemblance to SB at all.

 

[Carlos840]

Anyone notice that Block and BK use exactly the same style of union number label?

https://www.facebook.com/billkelsom...0.1456049393./959389497424675/?type=3&theater

http://www.block-bilt.com/site/product.php?id=speedster

That seems quite a coincidence. The pricing and stitching also seems very much in line with BK's.

What about the shawl collar though? The Block Bilt "The American" has a shawl collar that is an absolute mess!
Both shape and stitching a very very poor.
I would think that BK would be able to make a better job than that, their own shawl collars are very good.

Also, the Block Bilt doesn't have backing buttons on the inside facing, thing that BK does...

So either they lowered their standards on purpose or it's not them.

 

[Bunyip]

The active site and domain is Block-Bilt with a hyphen. Simmons Bilt seem to own the domain Block Bilt ( Un-hyphenated) possibly they got word about this new company and attempted to block them using that domain?
As mentioned previously the products from Block Bilt show no resemblance to SB at all.

Aahh. You could well be right. It wouldn't be the first time today I was wrong. This world of leather is full of mysteries and personalities....it really is quite a trip.

 

[Sloan1874]

I agree, my first thought was "this has a BK look to it!"
The website, the leather, the pictures, it's all very familiar...

Has anybody else noticed how off the shawl collar on The American is? It almost looks square! Pretty sure BK would not get that this wrong.

Not sure how i feel about these Block Bilt, no mention of where the leather is from, or where the jackets are made, no phone number, just a generic "we want to pay homage and make some jackets like they used to..."
Also, googling "Hiroshi Watanabe leather" brings 0 results.

I think the collar is of a vintage style - which kind of backs up my belief that not everything made during the Golden Era is, er, golden. It kind of reminds me of the AL Top Notch:

 

[jacketjunkie]

I googled the designers name + designer. There's s visual designer living in the US with that name. Maybe that's him. The jackets don't look interesting at all to me, to say the least. Collars and cuffs look botched to me on every single one of them.

 

[handymike]

I think the designs are fine. Better than original SB ones, but they'd do better homage to the brand if they made this:

or this:

 

[Edward]

For now, all we can do is speculate, I guess. I think a lot of us have thought it might be Selkirk because we're jumping on the 'Bilt' name. It all does look much more like BK, though - and it was BK which created a lot of speculation about a new UK owner / partner. 'BlockBilt' would seem an odd choice of brand in a niche market that already has a 'SimmondsBilt', but then BK chose to name one of their jackets the 'Aeronaut', so who knows?

 

[tmitchell59]

The site, the jackets, the photographs do make me think of BK. I like the MC jacket. I wrote an email inquiry on that jacket. See what the reply says.