Old School and Fieldbar: South African brands winning abroad

Which South African brands are going global?

Old School, a Stellenbosch leisurewear brand that now runs Liverpool FC’s official retail in South Africa and has announced a UK schools division, and Fieldbar, a Cape Town cooler box stocked by Harrods in London. Neither is an obvious export.

Both built a crowd at home before they signed partners or retailers overseas.

How did Old School grow?

With a Springbok shirt nobody else was making. Brothers Daneel and Stef Steinmann wanted vintage-style shirts to support the Springboks at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, couldn’t find any, and made their own in a Stellenbosch University dorm room, Daily Investor reported in April 2026, republishing Bloomberg.

The first shirts used the Springbok without a licence. “We just put a Springbok on there, we launched the product and we sold it,” Daneel Steinmann told Bloomberg. In 2021 “Old School Rugby Jerseys” became Old School, according to the brand’s own about page.

The breakout came at the next Rugby World Cup, in 2023, when Old School sold R4 million of team shirts in a single day. “That was almost how much we did in the previous year, and we did it in a day,” Steinmann said.

On the eve of its Stellenbosch flagship opening in 2024, SA Rugby sued Old School for copyright infringement. They settled out of court and became partners. “We realized we can’t use someone’s IP if you don’t pay for it,” Steinmann said, calling it a big turning point. Old School launched official Springbok off-field merchandise with SA Rugby in November 2024, according to Daily Investor.

By April 2026, the Bloomberg report counted:

• People: more than 250 staff across head office, warehouse and retail.
• Stores: over 20 standalone stores, kiosks and pop-ups in South Africa, on Bloomberg’s count.
• Schools: work with 100 South African schools on athleisure for alumni and parents. Through a SuperSport Schools range, 5% of every school jersey sold goes back to the school.
• Partners at home: Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana.
• Partners abroad: Manchester City, NBA teams and Liverpool FC. The Liverpool deal, reported by Bizcommunity in January 2026, is a five-year agreement to run the club’s official retail operation in South Africa, online and in standalone stores. Bloomberg adds Tottenham Hotspur and the LIV Golf team Southern Guards GC from March 2026.
• New markets: a partnership with Schools’ Sports, announced in late March 2026, to roll out a UK schools division, and a registered business in India, starting with a tribute range for AB de Villiers.

In July 2026 Old School bought the licensing division of Provantage Sport, Daily Investor reported. The article names no price.

Steinmann declined to say whether the company is profitable, saying earnings are reinvested.

How did Fieldbar get into Harrods?

Through a design people noticed and a trade show in Paris. Fieldbar was founded by chartered accountant Lee Hartman and industrial designer Corban Warrington, News24 Business reported in April 2026. Hartman had sold a software business to Telkom, and in January 2018 he found Warrington, then 23, through a LinkedIn message, News24 reported in May 2026. Fieldbar was set up in 2020 and launched in November 2021, so the idea came before the company.

Their starting point was that cooler boxes looked neglected. “There was nothing out there that’s premium,” Warrington told News24. So Fieldbar made one you’d want to be seen with. Getting it manufacturing-ready took almost two years, and before production Fieldbar ran a Facebook survey where about 800 people voted on their favourite design. Many asked where they could buy one, and Hartman said that feedback told the founders to go ahead, according to How We Made It in Africa in October 2024.

It is also built to be repaired. A Drinks Box has 58 parts, the Gin Trunk 135 and the Mini Bar 82, all designed to be removed and repaired or replaced, according to Fieldbar’s sustainability page.

The first 240 boxes were hand-assembled and hand-painted by five people in a small house in Observatory, Cape Town, during lockdown in 2021. The website went live at 23:00 and was sold out by 07:00, with a couple of thousand people on the waiting list, according to Hartman.

The two News24 pieces give most of the hard numbers we could find:

• Output: 150 000 cooler boxes a year and 180 people. News24 Business named Fieldbar its fastest-growing company in April 2026, with growth of 1 600% and revenue of R134 million in 2024.
• Growth rate: it topped the News24 and Statista list of South Africa’s fastest-growing firms by revenue growth between 2021 and 2024, with compound annual growth of almost 162%.
• Fans: a Fieldbar fan club on Facebook has over 20 000 members.
• Growth in people: Bizcommunity described Fieldbar as employing more than 30 people in December 2022. News24 counted 180 in 2026.
• Harrods: Harrods started stocking Fieldbar in August 2022 and had re-ordered for the December season, Bizcommunity reported. At a trade show in Paris, Harrods buyers “kept asking how it was made”, a founder told News24, and being made in Cape Town mattered to them. Fieldbar also set up warehouses in the UK and the Netherlands. Fieldbar says it is the hero category for Harrods’ cooler boxes.
• Reach: over 200 stores across Australia, Europe, the UK and the US, including Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Williams-Sonoma and Anthropologie. About 30% of group revenue is earned overseas, with plans to grow, particularly in the US.
• Price: the 10-litre box sold for around R2 700 in April 2026, with a five-year warranty.
• Backing: Invenfin, Remgro’s venture capital arm, holds a stake, and three angel investors still sit on the board.

What is public beyond the numbers is the buzz: in November 2023 one buyer posted that they “succumbed to the peer pressure and bought one”, IOL reported, when a drinks box cost from about R2 100.

That buzz keeps producing collaborations. A content creator’s tweet led to a Maxhosa Africa collaboration in 2024, and a Weylandts collection followed in 2026.

What do Old School and Fieldbar have in common?

Both followed the same order:

• Fans first. Each started with a story people at home wanted to be part of: Springbok pride for Old School, and a better-looking cooler box for Fieldbar.
• A product people show off. A shirt is worn in public, and a cooler box goes wherever friends gather. Every buyer advertises to the next.
• A look you can spot. You can tell an Old School shirt or a Fieldbar box from the far side of a braai. Bootlegger does the same with its neon wall lyric, as we covered in what it takes to build a coffee brand.
• Famous partners and retailers last. Liverpool, Manchester City and Harrods arrived once the home crowd was in place. Old School’s Liverpool deal brings the club’s official shop to South African fans, so what travelled was the brand’s credibility as a retailer.

	Old School	Fieldbar
Founded	2019, Stellenbosch	Idea in 2018, launched in 2021, Cape Town
Home proof	R4 million of shirts in one day (2023)	About 800 people voted in a Facebook design survey before production; the first 240 boxes sold out overnight after a waiting list of a couple of thousand (2021)
Moves abroad	Manchester City licensing, Liverpool FC retail in South Africa, a UK schools partnership (announced 2026)	Harrods (from August 2022), Fortnum & Mason, Williams-Sonoma and Anthropologie, in over 200 stores abroad
Share of sales abroad	Not disclosed	About 30% of revenue (2026)

The last row is the one to remember. Even with more than 200 stores abroad, only about three in ten Fieldbar revenue came from overseas in 2026.

How do you know your brand is ready to expand abroad?

Measure it at home and in the new market before you spend abroad. One great sales day shows momentum at home. It doesn’t show whether buyers in another country would choose you. Here is the travel check:

1. Measure the home crowd. Survey category buyers at home and record unaided awareness and preference against your closest rivals. For Old School, that would mean other leisurewear brands.
2. Check that preference keeps up with awareness. Divide preference by awareness. If many people know you and few prefer you, fix that at home first; here is how to find where your funnel leaks.
3. Take a baseline in the new country. Same questions, same category, local competitors. Expect low awareness. The point is to see where you start, and whether the people who do know you already prefer you.
4. Test the story cheaply. Fieldbar’s Facebook survey checked demand before it paid for production, and its waiting list checked it again before launch: an Instagram account and a website taking email addresses drew a couple of thousand sign-ups before the first 240 boxes went on sale. Abroad, one stockist or one trade show can do the same job.
5. Re-measure monthly and compare markets. Spend more once awareness and preference in the new country are moving by more than the margin of error. If they flatline, the home story may not translate.

If the board asks why brand spend should come before the export plan, start with investing in your brand.

Where does Wink fit, and where doesn’t it?

Wink, the brand tracking platform, covers steps one, two, three and five. It surveys real category buyers every month in South Africa, the US, the UK and Australia, and compares your brand with up to five competitors. A tracker is one category in one country, so a second country is a second tracker.

Results arrive monthly as a three-month rolling average, with the margin of error on every number. The first rolling headline lands in month four, so start the new-country baseline before the launch spend, and expect a 12-month minimum term.

Wink doesn’t measure licensing value, retailer interest or export sales; those come from your own sales data and partners.

If you are weighing a move into the UK, US or Australia, book a demo to see what a home-and-away baseline looks like for your category.