Inder Bedi spent 18 years building Matt and Nat from a university business plan into a global vegan accessories label carried in hundreds of stores. Then he left. The brand had become a machine focused on numbers and offshore production rather than the creative mindset that started it all. After a sabbatical filled with carpentry, Tai Chi, and motorcycling, Inder came back to the industry with a different set of rules: Manufacture locally in Montreal, build products from waste materials, and guarantee everything for life. His new company, Bedi Studios, makes premium outerwear and accessories designed to never end up in a landfill. Here, Inder breaks down what he learned across both chapters—from bootstrapping a concept nobody understood to making the economics of “buy less, buy better” actually work.
On the university business plan that launched an 18-year career:
Matt and Nat is based on a business plan I wrote when I was completing my undergrad at Concordia in Montreal. It was my last year, and I had plans to go to law school. I had to take this course called Entrepreneurship just to complete all the credits, and I actually tried dropping it. For whatever reason it didn’t appeal to me. I don’t come from a family of entrepreneurs, so there was none of that going on.
But for this course, we had to start to make a real business and go to banks and try to get funding for it. And nobody wanted to fund it. One bank manager told me—I’ll never forget—he said, “If you want a loan for a car, no problem. But your business? No. Good luck.” After I graduated, I worked part-time for an engineering firm taking care of their marketing, and anything that I would make from there, I would put into Matt and Nat.
Having said that, the advantage of not getting funded was I had to be very, very savvy with every dollar that I had and made sure it went a long way. So that was a good life lesson.
I saw vegan fashion as an opportunity. There was a gentleman in the UK who had a brand called Vegetarian Shoes, basically making vegan uppers for Doc Martens. I went to see him in Brighton. He gave me some insight in terms of where to get materials from. The best vegan materials at the time were made in Italy and Spain, and that’s where I started sourcing for my bag designs.
On why he walked away at the height of his success:
That little voice that told me in university that there might be something here, explore it a little bit further, is the same voice when I was turning 40 that said it’s time to move on to something else. I felt like Matt and Nat became a big machine. We were no longer producing locally; we were producing overseas. I had this yearning to get back to local production, to get my hands into things again.
I took on a business partner seven years in, and we made a decision together to go overseas. For the brand, it was great. We cut our costs substantially, and we were able to open more doors and attract a wider consumer base. But for myself, it started becoming a company that was more focused on numbers and economics and less about design and being innovative. I think over time that weighed on me.
When I left, I wasn’t 100% sure I would stay in this industry. I felt a bit jaded. At Matt and Nat, I was on a plane every two and a half, three weeks—my carry-on would just stay in the corner and things would just get swapped out. So the idea of not having to do something for a couple of weeks or a month was alien to me, but very appealing. I jumped on a motorcycle, took my carpentry course, did Tai Chi—all these things I hadn’t been able to do since my 20s.
I’m very appreciative. It’s a rare thing that people get to do in their lives where you can walk away from a career and have the opportunity to say, “Where do I want to go from here?”
On turning airline seats and dirty seatbelts into a first collection:
I started slowly exploring what sustainability could look like in the future. I had this idea: Could we create things with waste materials that already exist? I was able to get my hands on Air Canada leather seats—basically seats that they chuck out when they refurbish the interior of the plane. Back in the day, Air Canada business seats were this black leather, and they would just get rid of it. So I cleaned it all up and looked to see if I could actually make anything from it.
Then one of the issues I’d seen a lot in bags is that straps tend to fall apart. So I thought, what could I use that would actually last and could possibly come from waste? People have been making bags out of seatbelts for literally decades, but nobody had really done it in a way that felt elevated. Because at the end of the day, it’s a dirty seatbelt. So I thought, can I create tooling, can I do something that would make a seatbelt actually look like an elevated part of a bag?
The first collection was a line of duffel bags and backpacks made out of recycled airline seats with seatbelts for the straps. I decided that, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it all locally in Montreal. I’m going to use, as much as possible, materials that already exist. And I’m going to guarantee everything for life to ensure that it doesn’t end up in a landfill, that it goes against fast fashion, that it really ties into where I see sustainable design going.
On the cost-per-decade argument for premium pricing:
Jackets, outerwear—that’s the biggest category I do. I took an interest in really doing something that I felt would be utilitarian and have an interesting aesthetic. I also discovered this fabric from Italy made out of post-consumer waste—fishing nets, carpets, whatever else. To this day, we still use materials for our outerwear that are made from post-consumer waste. Premium materials.
I often give an example: Somebody goes out and buys a winter coat for $250, $300 that lasts a season, maybe two. And they do that every year or two. Versus buying one of my coats in the $800 to $900 range, but guaranteed for life. I always tell customers, you should get, at the minimum, a decade out of this. What somebody will spend in a decade for winter coats versus having something that’s made locally, is premium, more comfortable, and keeps you warmer—it ends up costing less in the long run.
There’s that expression: I can’t afford to buy cheap. That’s what we do, where we’re often educating our customers on how, yes, you’re spending more, sometimes double or even more, but you’re getting a better product that’s going to cost you less over time.
On building a brand one consumer at a time:
At Matt and Nat, we really built that brand as a wholesale business. We had thousands of customers all over the world. But there’s a disconnect between you and the end consumer—you’re really working with reps and buyers of stores. At Bedi Studios, the focus is working directly with the end consumer. We have the store here in Montreal, we have our ecomm, but we also do a lot of artisanal shows in Toronto, Chicago, Ottawa, and Vancouver. To participate in those shows, you have to make local, either in Canada or the US. It’s easier to build a community that way, because most of our communication is with the end consumer. We’re literally building this brand one consumer at a time.
For lifetime value, it’s really about expanding into other categories. I started offering a raincoat, which could be worn four seasons instead of two. I also do bags and knits. I would love to get into footwear one day. And beyond selling in Canada, we ship to the US, we ship to Europe, and we’re looking at opening up in certain markets in Asia like Japan. I might not have a set of niche customers that understand my brand all over North America, but I can definitely find pockets of them in Scandinavia, in Japan, in parts of the US and Canada. It’s really taking that global approach. You can still offer a lifetime guarantee and build a business that makes economic sense.
Hear more from Inder on Shopify Masters, including why he now prefers upcycled leather over the vegan leather he helped pioneer, what he tells university students who criticize fast fashion, and how his Second Life trade-in program created a dedicated customer base that buys only secondhand.
