It started with a smelly shirt.
In 2017, Wen, our founder, lost his mom. He needed to be somewhere completely different, so he packed a backpack with a few clothes and flew to Iceland.
Within days, some of those clothes started to smell. while others stayed perfectly fresh. Same backpack, same trip, same person wearing them. Why would one shirt turn unbearable after a single wear while another still felt fine?
He couldn't let the question go. Why do clothes smell, and do they really have to? A couple of years later, that one curiosity had grown into a mission, a company, and a reason to keep going. It's still the question HercLéon builds upon.
LESS WASHING
Most clothes get tossed in the wash because they smell, not because they're dirty. We engineer ours to be worn again, and again, before they need to be washed. We think your weekends were not meant to be spent at the machine.
Less waste
We believe in a wardrobe of things you love and reach for over a closet full of stuff you just own. We make a small number of products meant to last, so you can buy less and keep it longer, helping reduce waste in the planet.
Lighter life
You shouldn't have to think about your clothes, your sheets, or anything you own.
Our products are made with that in mind, so they handle their job without asking for your attention.
Fewer than five people. On purpose.
The whole company fits in one small room, and that's exactly how we want it.
Most apparel brands answer to shareholders, and every choice gets filtered through one question: what's best for the stock price? Wen spent everything he had to buy ours out. No investors, no quarterly earnings call, no private jets. Just a tiny team, the products, and the people who wear them.
Being small shows. We can be slower to reply and slower to ship than the giants, and we're at peace with that, because almost every dollar goes back into making the products better rather than into looking bigger. The same few hands that answer your email are the ones who obsessed over the shirt you're wearing. We think you can feel the difference.
Countries with customers
Hercleon lovers
Days Wen wore one shirt
Countries we've tested in
I grew up in Africa, where we didn't have much, and looking back we had more than enough. Life was simple and full, and protecting that feeling is the thing I've spent my whole adult life chasing.
I've worn our shirts and slept on our sheets nearly every day since 2018. For all practical purposes I'm homeless. I live out of the HercPack we make, with almost everything I own in one backpack, which means our products get tested in the worst version of their own job, every single day.
When you buy something from us, you're not funding a lifestyle. You're funding the next decade of someone working out how to make your life a little lighter and a little freer.
— Wen Muenyi, Founder
2020
That time we were on Shark Tank
In Season 12, Wen walked into the Tank and pitched HercLéon the only way he could, honestly. It went better than we ever expected, Mark Cuban called it the 'Best pitch ever', which was pretty awesome. The part we're most proud of, though, is what came after: years of making the products better, one generation at a time.
The work that came after
All those years of trying to get it right turned into this: a small line of essentials made to last and made to be lived in. How much better could life feel if the things you use every day were truly built for freedom?
Start here.
HercShirt
This is where it all started. One question on a trip to Iceland in 2017 turned into an obsession that took almost a decade to answer. Version after version, test after test, worn through jungles, deserts, and long stretches with no washing machine in sight, until the shirt finally did what no shirt had done before. Everything we've made since traces back to this one.
hercsocks
Socks came next because feet have the toughest job in the wardrobe, and because our customers kept asking. They went through the same long process as the shirt, refined until fewer pairs could honestly do the work of many. Today they're also how we introduce people to the brand, the first thing many customers ever try.
Hercunderwear
Once the shirt worked, this was the most requested next step, and the most demanding one. Underwear faces the hardest conditions of anything you wear, so it took longer to get right than we expected. It was tested the same way everything here is tested: on the road, in real life, by the person who built it.
jax sheets
Bed sheets were never really designed with men in mind, so our founder made his own. He knew exactly what he needed: sheets that could handle sweat, heat, and heavy use, and still feel fresh night after night. That's how Jax Sheets became the first bed sheets made for men, by a man who was tired of settling.