What happens when women take charge of fashion brands?
Smart, resourceful, community-led design. While it’s true that female creative directors are still depressingly thin in the luxury brand space, there are plenty of talented independent female designers in London who are making the most of the hyper-local creation process and reaping the sustainable benefits, too.
Phoebe English
For a small-scale brand that produces clothes from waste materials, it never made sense for Phoebe English not to work locally. ‘I started our business with handmade textiles,’ she says. ‘With our alternative fabric supply network, we specialize in using materials that other people wouldn’t consider using.’
Along with freelance seamstresses and sampling units, English uses waste from digital printing companies, bridal studios and other designers to create label designs in Deptford. The team uses everything from off-cuts and excess to faulty fabrics, all in very different quantities and sizes. ‘We describe this as a responsive design process; We respond to the waste we collect. To do this, use what actually exists rather than purchasing new materials or resources. ‘Because there’s already so much,’ he continues, adding that the team creates designs to accommodate whatever they can get their hands on, whether it’s 500m of fabric or small triangles that need to be reworked into patchwork. ‘As a small and agile studio, working this way is within our capabilities.’
The clothes can be tracked until they leave the studio for their new homes. ‘We can’t really have any control over how far away our client can be, but we can try to have some influence on how far objects travel before this stage.’
£180 – £600, phoebeenglish.com
Kipper Club
Former fashion editor and Instagram influencer Sarah Corbett-Winder launched suiting brand Kipper Club in October and already has a collaboration with cult fashion brand Aligne under her smart belt. The brand, whose dubious moniker comes from the name given to female tailors on Savile Row because they always worked in pairs, deals exclusively in suits, which Corbett-Winder has no plans to make anywhere outside London.
‘I wanted to support the local community, but I also found the idea of doing it abroad quite overwhelming,’ he says. ‘The other morning I packed a packed lunch, got in the car, drove to the factory and was back at my desk at 10am.’ Besides the convenience, he also loves the friendliness of working locally. ‘I am a people’s person; I need a little more than flying once a year. To be honest, I never thought of doing this abroad. It becomes a bit like family.’
Local production also allows Corbett-Winder to be more reactive; He releases two main collections a year and has seasonal extras in mind, like a red velvet suit for Christmas. ‘I’m so impatient and I love being able to go and do it now. ‘If it had been abroad, I would have had a hard time, I would have had to move.’
£130 – £380, kipper.club
Edeline Lee
Although Canadian-British Edeline Lee has worked and studied in fashion’s most beloved cities, she chose London to launch her eponymous brand. ‘I would find a job in New York, work for a while, miss it and come back,’ she says. ‘As a young independent designer, London is one of the most welcoming cities. Here you can grow a little slower because the market is smaller, and that can be a blessing for a young designer; It allows you to make mistakes and learn what you’re doing with the craft.’
Lee has his own manufacturing unit in Limehouse, east London, which he set up after the factory he used was closed. ‘I was able to hire these staff and start my own business. ‘I like to touch everything and examine it myself before it fades’. This level of detail also means it is the only one of the top four brands approved by the Good On You app to show on time at London Fashion Week. ‘You can control everything, you can monitor everything, you don’t waste anything. ‘Being our size and paying only UK rates is a big part of running a business ethically.’
Many staff walk to the studio, which meant they were close enough to safely collect their work during the pandemic and work on it in isolation at home. ‘My work would be a lot less rich if I didn’t know everyone who worked on it,’ Lee continues. ‘I think clothes will lose their meaning in a sense. We can tell who sewed what by looking at the items; Even if shared, we can see which parts belong to whom.’
£100 – £3,240, edelinelee.com
Hey Pioneers!
Founded by friends Clara Francis and Tania Hindmarch, O Pioneers emerged organically when the duo began making clothes they couldn’t find elsewhere. ‘We buy a lot of vintage items but there was always something wrong with it. “So we thought, ‘Why don’t we make the perfect dress?'” says Clara. ‘Every time I wore the sample people would chase me down the street and ask where it came from.’
They use Liberty print fabrics for their custom dresses, skirts, trousers and even reversible vests. ‘Everything is made in London except the knitting, which depends on where the knitters are,’ explains Tania, whose mother is one of the team who follow vintage patterns and share tips in the private O Pioneers WhatsApp group. ‘We have a mix of London-based tailors who do small jobs for us independently from home, and we have four or five manufacturers scattered across north and east London.’
Manufacturing in London is part of the brand’s slow fashion approach; It allows him to work with a local pattern cutter and visit manufacturers in person with rolls of dead Liberty fabric stashed in the trunk of their car. ‘It’s a really nice way of working because we know it all,’ continues Tania. ‘It seems quite unthinkable not to work this way.’
£25 – £495, opioneers.co.uk
Fanfare Tag
As a former high street fashion brand buyer, Fanfare Label’s Esther Knight knows the pitfalls of producing faster. ‘You are responsible for everything; We negotiate prices, choose fabrics and deal with all suppliers,’ she explains. ‘I was witnessing bad behavior and unethical processes when things weren’t done right.’ Five years ago she moved to Vivienne Westwood, where she ‘learned from the best about fashion’s environmental impact’ before setting up her own sustainable label.
Using materials salvaged from landfill through UK-based recycling facilities and charity shop warehouses, the brand focuses on upcycling clothing, something that wouldn’t be possible without working locally from its east London base. ‘Having everything close to the studio not only means we save on CO2 emissions, but also allows us to work with local freelance artisans, producers and female founders. Managing a circular business model is much easier when it’s on your doorstep.’ Fanfare Label also sources organic fabrics from Europe, as well as recycled wool from Scotland.
What Knight is particularly passionate about is denim. A Design Your Own Jeans service has been launched at Liberty, where customers bring in a pair of old jeans and undergo a 20-minute design consultation before their denim is sent to a local supplier to be reworked with embroidery or patchwork. ‘So much goes into a pair of jeans, we don’t want them to go to landfill.’
£55 – £235, fanfarelabel.com
Keep Swimming Wild
Their brand may be all about celebrating wild swimming and marine conservation, but Natalie Glaze and Zanna Van Dijk run their sustainable, size-inclusive swimwear brand from London. ‘We talked to a few other factories in Portugal and Bali,’ says Glaze. ‘But we wanted it to be a sustainable brand, so it was very important to make it as close to home as possible in a small factory.’ Neither has a manufacturing background, so the proximity also made logistical sense. ‘Factory language is almost like another language. Very impressive. It was much easier to be able to talk to people face to face and have them physically show us.’
As a sustainable brand (Stay Wild also has B-Corp status), not having to order large quantities was also a plus point in choosing capital. ‘At other factories we spoke to, the minimum order quantity was too high and we didn’t want to produce hundreds of thousands of parts.’ And now, thanks to social media, it is recognized by its customers as a London brand. ‘In some other brands, you cannot see every scene and every behind-the-scenes detail. People tell us they love it when we shoot something on a good day or on the clipper. In fact, if the factory were too far away it would not be possible to film the process.’
£28 – £180, shoptaywildswim.com