After Party meets: Helen Kirkum

After Party meets: Helen Kirkum

Hi, I’m Chekii Harling, and welcome to After Party – the show where I interview sustainable brand founders in their natural habitats. In this episode I’m joined by the footwear designer, artist and upcycled trainer queen Helen Kirkum. Helen grew up in the South West of England, leaving to study for her BA in footwear at Northampton University, a course she discovered when visiting graduate fashion week. Having grasped the art of making shoes using traditional techniques, Helen enrolled on the MA Footwear course at the RCA, and worked at adidas for a year in Germany post graduating. A couturier of the feet, since 2016 Helen has been building her business centered around the 3 pillars of planet, process and play, cherishing imperfections and creating modern artifacts that are loved by sneaker heads and art collectors alike. Have you ever wondered what happens to your old shoes when you recycle them at a clothing bank? The lucky ones might make it to Helen’s studio, collaged into new footwear fabrics, a feat of design made possible by her studio’s relationship with the clothing charity traid. When it comes to Helen Kirkum’s approach to waste no sole is left unturned, and she has more recently been making new materials out of sneaker tongues and shoelaces. In 2021, she became a recipient of the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN scheme, which supports new fashion talent through funding and bespoke mentoring. Her September 2022 presentation at London Fashion Week was poetically titled ‘Palimpest,’ meaning ‘something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.’ Her work reminds us that second-hand materials are embedded with memories, mystery and unknown paths travelled. As her brand puts it: this is ‘History in Remaking.’ In 2024, the brand created pieces for adidas, was shortlisted for a British Fashion Award as Accessories Designer of the Year and was Birkenstock’s first artist in residence at their Shoreditch-based creative studio. When she isn’t saving odd shoes from landfill, Helen can be found running community workshops, making upcycled homes for the plants in her studio and being an all-round good egg. Welcome to the After Party, Helen Kirkum! You grew up in the South West of England. How do you think your upbringing has informed the way you create today? I wasn’t in a super creative town, so I think I had to find ways to express my creativity. I’ve always been a studious person, and always enjoyed doing well, I was head girl at school. I’ve always had this leadership geek thing, I like understanding how things are made. My dad was a design engineer and my mum made clothes when me and my sister were growing up, which we always had to model, she would sell them at craft fairs. I think I’ve always had this balance in the house between technical design and thrifty, crafty energy…there was always a sewing machine in the house. What did you make as a kid? We used to make perfumes out of rose petals and sell them to our neighbours for 20p. I was very arty, I liked to paint a lot. For my GCSEs me and a couple of my friends petitioned for the tutors to let us do an extra GCSE, so our teacher Mr Taylor, who I absolutely loved, taught an after-school resistant materials GCSE. That was the vibe of my childhood. I was doing CAD, and I made a 3D-printed whistle, and then in textiles I was making wall hangings. I always tried to push my creativity through as many different avenues as I could. You studied your BA at Northampton, a course that you discovered at Graduate Fashion Week? I did. And I’ve just become a Graduate Fashion Week ambassador, so it’s a nice full-circle moment. I stumbled across Northampton, which had a footwear course, I hadn’t even considered that shoes were something you could make. I just remember seeing these bronze brogues; they were so pointy and shiny, and encompassed everything that I’m interested in. It’s resistant materials, physics, maths, textiles, product design, and it’s art. So many things merged in a perfectly formed little object. How was Northampton? The city is the home of British footwear design. You had all these factories that were steeped in tradition and craftsmanship – Church’s factory, Cheaney’s and Greensons. A lot of footwear unis are closing their courses, which is really sad, and we are definitely losing the craftsmanship of footwear. So I do find it important to advocate for it. In Northampton, it was all about longevity of products and creating things that last out of good quality materials. The sneaker industry is all about newness, it’s fast-paced – how quickly can we churn through these products? There’s such a disconnect between the two industries for me. I’m interested in taking that idea of longevity and craftsmanship and putting that into the sneaker design world. Let’s have a look at one of your early sneakers… This was my final BA at Northampton, and I had the opportunity to work with the Grenson factory, which was awesome because I love seeing how things are made on a big scale. In 2014 there wasn’t really a boom in the sneaker industry and Grenson had made this Vibram sole. The welted stitch around the side is the technique used to combine the sole and the upper. It’s a more handcrafted approach. At the time I was using materials like reflective mesh and neoprene which were new for the factory. They kind of hated those materials. I also worked with the tannery in Northampton to create textures on the leather, which were handpainted. Even then, I was always interested in manipulating materials instead of just accepting them as they are. This combination of traditional techniques, like the tannery, with the modern twist of acrylic paint was quite symbolic of my practice. I was drawn to imperfection, the left and the right shoes are not the same. “This project was called ‘How to accidentally, on purpose, make a mess,’ That really sums up my ethos in life.” – Helen Kirkum How was Northampton in general? I loved being in a campus uni and having all those factories nearby with support from the industry was invaluable. I applied for and won the Footwear Student of the Year Award with this collection, that was my first real taste of something bigger than just being a good student at Northampton. What did you hope to get out of your MA at the RCA? A few students from the year above me had gone to the RCA, and I really respected their work. So, seeing them go inspired me to apply. Winning the Footwear Student of the Year award gave me the funding to do the MA, which was perfect timing. When I was at RCA, I had learned how to make shoes really well, but I wanted to figure out how to unmake them. A technician once told me, “You don’t want to make trainers; that’s not a real shoe.” That stuck with me. What defines a “real” shoe? Everyone’s wearing sneakers now, so it was an interesting tension. Shoes have a real purpose; they’re not just an accessory like other items of clothing. I started playing around with sneakers, deconstructing them because I didn’t know how they were made. Typically, you make a shoe from a flat pattern, but I was interested in whether I could start building it in 3D. Why make it flat when it’s a 3D object? For me, it’s about layering colour, texture, and shape. What about your materials? The materials I collect inform everything. Unlike typical shoe-making, where you pick a color and find the matching material, I look at what I have available and build based on what I find. This is an organic way of working, using the materials in an authentic way. Alongside the sneaker leathers, I work with things like sneaker tongues and laces that I pick up in recycling centres to create new fabrics from these waste streams. Here’s a bag we made from shoelaces. I started creating organic, sculptural shapes and wanted to explore how I could scale these techniques using post-consumer waste. That’s where we developed our collage sneaker leather, which we can cut to make shoes. What other waste streams are you working with? The lace waste stream, the sneaker tongues, and then we had a lot of hardware components which are really cool like this Air Max one, all made from virgin plastic. We developed these charm kits where you can basically jazz up your shoe without adding extra waste. That’s a good segway into your sourcing process. You work with TRAID and their single shoe bundles. At the RCA, I hijacked a textiles trip to the TRAID warehouse which is in Wembley. I was expecting they might have a few old shoes that I could just take back, but then when I got there they had mountains of single shoes, because if you donate your shoes and you don’t tie the laces together that’s where they end up. They had a lot of singles, and I thought ‘this is a raw material that I could utilize.’ We clean them, deconstruct everything down to its component pieces and then build the material. Were you shocked at the amount of waste there was? It was quite stark that this is just one warehouse in North London, and there are so many all over the UK, it was the realisation that we’re throwing a lot of stuff away. What advice would you give to people listening to this that want to recycle their shoes as ethically as possible? If you donate them to a charity shop, or a charity bin, definitely secure them together as a pair, but also only donate them if they’re actually good quality. The best thing you can do is repair and look after your shoes for as long as you can. A lot of local cobblers do sneaker repairs as well because they’ve realised it’s a big market. A lot of people don’t see the point in repairing things… It’s not our fault; it’s how society has made us care about fashion. It’s very fast-paced, it’s cheap, repairs can be expensive, and I think that buying good-quality products can also be expensive. We have been pushed into a system where it’s easier to throw something away than look after a product. We’ve got to encourage a new way of thinking. How do we consume things in a different way? How can we take ownership of the things that we own? What does your sourcing process look like now? traid is our main source for ready-to-wear. We also work with the Salvation Army and sometimes Royal Trinity Hospice. On the collaboration side of things, we’ll work with deadstock from brands – like ASICS – we worked with their faulty returns. We took the customer returns and deconstructed them, and then embellished them to make a new shoe. On the topic of big brands, you worked at Adidas for a year before starting your own brand It was an amazing experience being in-house at such a global brand and really understanding the scale of the industry. I went from being extremely artsy and faffing about with shoelaces at the Royal College of Art to this very structured way of working, but there was definitely something within me that felt like what I had started with my MA wasn’t finished. I said to myself I’d give it a year and see how it goes, and that was 9 years ago. What advice do you have for designers wanting to do something similar? There’s a lot of waste out there to use, so never be discouraged in thinking ‘it’s done.’ I think being curious and letting the material guide you, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just get started and let it evolve. Every year, I get a bit more confident with what I’m doing, but I don’t have all the answers. When I started my brand, I knew how to make things; I didn’t know how to run a business. I’ve made so many mistakes along the way, but it’s part of the process. “I don’t like the word sustainability, but in the [sustainable] fashion industry, we all have a common goal to save the planet. There’s less competition, and it feels more friendly.” – Helen Kirkum Let’s talk about this whole idea of past lives. Your September 2022 collection at London Fashion Week was titled ‘Pamlimpsest’ I first heard the word while studying at the RCA. One of the PHD students, Ellen, had a project around how shoes carry meaning and lives within them, and I thought that was so beautiful and really inspiring. I also discovered that palimpsest was an ancient scroll made of leather. You would write on the scroll, and then you’d leave it out in the sun for the sun to bleach the writing off before using it again. It would have all these layers of meaning and memories on the leather skin. Pamlimpsest has multiple meanings that resonated with me. It’s really poetic; it reminds me of the repair shop. With our bespoke sneakers, we often take people’s old shoes and redesign them. It’s incredibly emotional and personal because a customer might send us their wedding shoes, or their first-ever basketball shoes. We had a customer recently who gave us their tennis shoes that they’d won a competition in. Shoes take you on a physical journey throughout your life. “Shoes have such sentimental value…it’s beautiful that we can take all those memories and combine them back together.” – Helen Kirkum Tell us about your most recent adidas collaboration… This was a really cool project for me, particularly coming from working in-house at adidas. We put our own spin on a shoe they already produce called the Avryn, featuring deadstock adidas labels. The other cool thing we did was added this flash around the edge – this is something they would usually cut off in the factory with a sharp knife. I was in the adidas factory. The ladies in the factory were doing it so perfectly. When I said ‘can you do it a bit wonky,’ they were horrified! What do you love about things being slightly imperfect, slightly wonky? Imperfection is human. I think that sometimes with sneakers, especially when they are so shiny on the shelf, they are devoid of any act of making. If you’ve got stitches there and the left and right are different, it feels like a human touched it. “These days, everything is so cookie-cutter and processed. It’s nice to have something that’s a bit more personalised.” – Helen Kirkum Last year you were Birkenstock’s first artist-in-residence… I love Birkenstock because of the quality of materials, and they are all made in Europe; their factory is in Germany, so it was really exciting to investigate a different product. I did a lot of workshops down in their space in Shoreditch, and it was a nice opportunity to bring the community together. Let’s talk about what I’m wearing today… So, my good friend Kirsty Elles, her brand is just called Ells, and basically she made this jacket for us. It’s a workwear jacket made from upcycled sneakers, and even the arms are laced on with shoelaces. Tell us about the bags you recently developed? It’s a big bucket cross-body bag. We developed the material because it was one of our waste streams. A lot of leather shoes have a mesh tongue lining that we didn’t have a place for. We created a quilting technique and let the material inform the design. What would this work for? Something squishy, practical and comfy. On the soles of your shoes, you have an infographic… My thinking was, if you know absolutely nothing about the brand, and you pick this up on a shelf, how can you know something more? So the infographic goes through Wembley, where we collect the materials, then to North Greenwich to the studio and then to Porto, where our ready-to-wear shoes are made. It’s about connecting people closer to what they own. “Imperfection is human. When sneakers are so shiny on the shelf, they are devoid of any act of making.” – Helen Kirkum What’s the factory like? We have an incredible Family-run factory out there, and Diogo, who is our point of contact out there, is very considerate of what we do. The most important thing for us to do is to find good partners that respect our process and will give it a go because it’s complicated and we don’t have a big budget, so for a lot of factories, it’s a cold, hard no. I think when you find people who believe in the vision and can see the growth of the business, that’s been fundamental to us getting off the ground. What do you enjoy about teaching workshops? I think in our society, we don’t get that many opportunities to create something physical with our hands. I’m interested in helping people discover their creativity through different materials. I love teaching workshops; it’s one of our goals for the brand to have more workshops in the studio this year. When you were starting in this space, was there anyone that you really looked up to or who helped you on your journey? Christopher Raeburn was always on my moodboards when I was at uni; he was trailblazing this kind of upcycling movement long before anyone else and has been a really good support to me, you know, throughout my career, which I really appreciate. Orsola de Castro [https://orsola.substack.com] is also an incredible supporter of what I do. I think you find your tribe and people who understand what you’re trying to do, and you latch on to them for dear life. I do believe this industry can be supportive if you find the right people, and I know that people look up to me, so it’s how I can support the younger generation, too. And you’ve previously received support from the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN scheme? The scheme supports new designers in the UK, and I was really fortunate to be awarded NEWGEN funding three years in a row. It helps you get on the London Fashion Week scene and be discovered by buyers and press. Last year, you were nominated for Accessories Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. Congratulations! How was it? What did you wear? Well, actually, I was very stressed with what to wear! I’m not that good at looking smart, I’m quite a casual girly. Obviously, I was very excited to be nominated amongst some other amazing designers as well for Accessories Designer of the Year. Even though we didn’t win, it felt amazing to be on that global stage by creating a product in a completely different way, showcasing that it can be possible and that it can be scaled as well. I’m so very grateful for the opportunity to be shortlisted, and I wore a Ganni suit, which has been my go-to event outfit. Any picture of me that you’ll see on my Instagram, I’ve probably got that suit on. I was wearing it last night at the Graduate Fashion Week event. I will get good use out of this suit! I wore a corset top by Bethany Williams and my own shoes (obviously). Another full circle moment…I interviewed you for my magazine TRASHMag, and I asked you where you would like to be in 5 years’ time, this was about 5 years ago now! You said: “If I can continue to grow at the speed I am currently, to collaborate, work with and learn from as many people as possible, to get some shoes out there on people’s feet, and to deliver a message that goes deeper than one pair of shoes and to inspire some people to think differently about footwear and consumption, that’s all I can ask for.” How does it feel hearing that back? When you’re in it and you just keep going and going you don’t realise all the things that you’ve achieved. Creating the ready-to-wear sneakers came out of lockdown because that was the only chance I had to slow down and stop, that’s when we started creating our own line of products rather than always collaborating with brands. To have a ‘real’ shoe that people buy and own is very cool and I feel really proud of that. It’s nice to hear that back. To be honest, I think my answer would probably be the same now, yeah, for the next five exactly, just like, to just keep going. “In the early days I didn’t understand how to use my voice to create change in this industry but now I do.” – Helen Kirkum What advice would you give yourself 5 years ago? Have a day off! This industry can promote a very hardcore way of working, and I think do it at your own pace. There’s no rush to grow, no rush to create products, do things thoughtfully and trust your gut. There can be so much noise, people’s opinions on what to do, where to spend money, listen but reflect on it and see what really resonates with you and follow that path because at the end of the day, you are the one with the ideas and a creative conscience that’s driving it. People go so hard in this industry, and then they burn out, and that’s the end of their brand. Sometimes I have to remind myself, ‘No one forced me to do this; it was my idea.’ Remember the reasons you are doing it in the first place. I know there’s not an average day for a small business-owner, but what are you up to for the rest of the day? I usually come into the studio and cleanse the space with my Palo Santo incense to get some good energy in the space, get my coffee and get going. I always try to mix up my day with business admin and being creative. I actually rearranged the studio to move the machines into a more central place in the studio to remind me that making is the core of this studio. I think it’s very easy to spend the whole day on my laptop and then be like, Oh, whoops, I haven’t actually done anything creative all day. If in theory the world were to end tomorrow, what would you be wearing to the After Party? I would wear my Ganni suit because it is comfy as well. I think I have two modes, either the suit and my own trainers or a tracksuit. I’m quite a homebody, and I have my organic basics tracksuits, which I absolutely love, and my hair in a messy bun, just chill out and put a face pack on. *After the recording of this interview, Helen announced (late last year, after 9 years of Helen Kirkum’s Studio) she would be closing her brand to start a new chapter as Director of Materials within the Creative Direction team at adidas. Get full access to After Party at afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe [https://afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

After Party meets: Rosette Ale

Welcome to After Party – the show where I interview sustainable brand founders in their natural habitats. In this episode, I’m joined by Rosette, the Founder of Revival London – a self-confessed ‘thrift queen’ with the mission to make slow fashion sexy. Born in Ghana and now based in London, Rosette’s work is subtly inspired by West African silhouettes combined with the energy of 1990s R&B girl groups. She was business-minded from a young age, with her journey as a designer beginning with her thrifting garments and reworking them to sell to her friends in the school playground. This became a way for her to craft an original look for herself, after she realised that her part-time wage in retail wasn’t going to deliver the wardrobe of her dreams. With creativity calling her name, Rosette pivoted after studying Maths and Management, pivoting to work in fashion merchandising and e-commerce. Now she splits her time between Revival and working freelance as a content creator and social media analyst. Last year, she showed at Lagos Fashion Week and was a guest on ITV news, while also collaborating on projects with Levi’s, eBay and TikTok. When she isn’t showing her followers how to transform a pair of jeans from Vinted into a cute bag, Rosette can be found advocating for greater representation in the fashion industry or partying in a bejewelled one-piece at Notting Hill Carnival. Welcome to the After Party, Rosette! You grew up in Ghana with your dad. What was it like growing up there? Ghana was amazing. I had a really fun childhood, spending time with my friends, playing, and being in the sun. I loved playing football with the boys and eating good food, all of that good stuff. How would you describe the way that Ghanaian people dress? There’s no one way that Ghanaian people dress. I feel like the core thing is the cultural dress and traditional attire. There’s the kente fabric, which is really for the royals and is worn for special occasions. Every single colour means something different in Ghana. Red and black are about mourning and grief, and purple represents royalty. I feel like that’s where I draw my inspiration from. I love colour. “This industry is really messed up…it’s about taking a step back and thinking about what is going on behind the scenes?” When did you first start to be interested in making and the way that people dress? I think it’s when I moved to London because I was quite young growing up in Ghana. I moved here [to London] when I was, like, 10, 11, and then I got into cross stitching in year six. There was this new world that I was stepping into, using my hands to create, and then going into school and doing textiles and just taking it to that next level. I got my first sewing machine, and it was a trajectory from then onwards. What was the first item you made? I remember making this pair of shorts with an African print. How did Revival start? In sixth form college, I started getting into vintage clothing and thrifting, and I found myself wanting to customise the stuff that I bought. Things didn’t fit me perfectly, so I’d take them in. I started learning from YouTube and got my first little £50 John Lewis sewing machine. Vintage was blowing up, and people were customising stuff more and more on social media. I wanted to try and see what I could do to make things my own and make things unique. The Rana Plaza Disaster happened in 2013, when this factory collapsed, and it was breaking news across the whole world. For people who don’t know what Rana Plaza is, it was in Bangladesh, wasn’t it? It was a factory in Bangladesh, which was really badly structured and, like, the workers complained about, you know, the building actually falling apart, and there was nothing done. So then it actually collapsed, and over a thousand people died, and loads of people were injured. It was a massive turning point in the fashion industry, and I think that’s when Fashion Revolution was founded. They are all about advocating for ethical consumption and ethical production, so that was a big moment for me because I was just getting into fashion. I was like, “Oh, this industry is actually really messed up!” It was about taking a step back and thinking about what is actually going on behind the scenes. I wanted to create something [with Revival] that was stylish, sexy and fun while being based on sustainable and ethical practices. “I started with my own wardrobe, looking at what I could repurpose from there.” What does your sourcing process look like? I used to partner with this textile sorting factory called L&B Textiles. They got loads of dead stock materials from Levi’s, Lee Jeans - lots of different manufacturers, but they’ve changed their whole business model, so they’ve left me in the dust. Now I’m working with charity retailers, like TRAID. I’ve just been to their warehouse in Alberton to source materials from there, and I’m working with community donations as well. What was it like when you went to TRAID? Were you shocked? They have a huge facility where there are hundreds and thousands of garments being repurposed. Seeing it live, I was like ‘wow!’ They have such an efficient system in place and machines going, it’s a whole world. Hundreds and hundreds of tons of clothing come through there, but it’s going back into the shops. It’s getting repurposed and resold, so that’s good. What drew you to denim? In my thrifting days, I sourced a lot of denim. There were £1 jeans markets going on. I just found myself really drawn to denim and vintage pieces like Levi’s. I had lots of these pieces in my wardrobe already, and I wasn’t wearing all of them at the same time. How many pairs of jeans can you wear at once? I started with my own wardrobe, looking at what I could repurpose from there. “I want to see what I can do beyond denim.” For listeners who don’t know about denim’s impact on the environment, it’s a really intensive production process… I think it takes around 2,000 litres to create a pair of jeans! From growing cotton to the dyeing process. There’s a lot of water and energy that goes into making a pair of jeans. So to be able to repurpose and bring pieces back into circulation is actually really, really impactful. Let’s talk about your process. Do you start by sketching? Or do you let the material guide you? It’s a bit of back and forth. I sometimes start with sketching and with my moodboard and research, and then design pieces that I wanna create, and then go and find the materials. Or sometimes I would actually have stuff already that’s available that I’ve already got in my wardrobe. “I create looks that draw on the different aspects of a girl group dynamic.” And you work with local female artisans to make some of your pieces? Yeah, I worked with TN Tailors and a few other local makers who have their own businesses. They are self-employed, so they take on small projects for me when I have a pop-up and I need a small batch of products. You were at Lagos Fashion Week last year… Yeah, October 2024. I was looking at what I could do to showcase my brand and take it on an international level. They have a green access program, which is for smaller designers who are doing things in a more sustainable way, so I applied for that, and they said they’d like to have me on board. I showcased three looks during their showcase, which was phenomenal. It was such a good time. Such a highlight. I wanna also touch on your inspiration. You’re really inspired by 90s R&B I’m obsessed! From a young age I was drawn to 90s and early 2000s. It was a very expressive and fun era, and a good time for girl bands. I create looks from different personalities that draw on the different aspects of a girl group dynamic. I love that. What are some of your favourite R&B groups? The classics - Destiny’s Child and TLC are definitely a bit of me. You fuse that with West African silhouettes. How do you feel like that comes through? Being half Nigerian and half Ghanaian, there are a lot of bold and vibrant silhouettes and very large shapes when it comes to design. For example, the puff sleeve being very large and taking up space. That’s the energy I wanna bring and fuse together with the 90s vibe. “Have a really clear vision of what you want your brand to say to the world.” In Ghana, there’s the Kantamonto market where a lot of [western] secondhand clothing ends up. How do you feel about being half-Ghanaian and working with waste? It’s one of the largest secondhand markets in the world, and there’s so much that gets shipped overseas. It’s unfortunate that over the years, the garments have become lower quality. The sellers aren’t able to sell as much as they get from the bales that they buy. That resonates with me as someone who’s Ghanaian and has lived in Ghana as well. You can see the impact and how it affects the local beaches and the landscapes, so it’s close to home. Being in this space, it feels like I’m doing something really impactful and close to the heart as well. You’ve worked with adidas, TikTok, Depop, Levi’s, and eBay and also Fashion Revolution. What have been some of your most memorable brand partnerships? It’s been such an honour to work with all these brands. When you list them, I’m like, oh, wow. I did that. Levi’s was a really exciting one for me because they’re a denim brand. They’re the OGs in the game, and they were on my vision board for a partnership for years. We did a four-part content series customising denim to show customers and the average person how to level up their Levi’s. We did applique, stencilling and spray painting with fabric paint. I added some pearls and jewels to embellish a jacket and reworked a pair of jeans into a bag, which was one of the top collabs. “You don’t have to have loads of money to shop more sustainably.” Is there anyone else you’d love to work with that you haven’t yet? Pangaia would be a really cool one to explore because they’re such OGs in the sustainable space. Reworking some of their colourful pieces would be really fun to do. So moving away from denim? Yeah, I want to branch out and see what I can do beyond denim - that’s definitely something that’s been on my mind. Let’s have a look at some of your pieces… This is what I call our ‘Midaxi Dress.’ It’s made from all the remnants of other pieces that I’ve created. We try to be a zero-waste brand, so anything I cut off when I’m making other pieces, I keep them in a huge bag and then patch them all together to make another piece. This piece is very labour-intensive, but I’m very proud of it, and people are loving this so far. You’ve kind of become known for these puff-sleeved tops that you’re also wearing today These are made from a pair of jeans, and the sleeves come from the legs of the jeans. The upper body bit comes from the jeans’ waistband area - they’ve become a really hot Revival piece. Why is that important to you? What would you say to someone who said that sustainable fashion can’t be sexy? When I started Revival, I wanted to build a brand that was sexy and stylish, but that was also sustainable and ethical. Ten years ago, that meant beige and neutrals, the capsule wardrobe. That was not for me; I saw a gap to make it fun. People want to look good, but also feel good and do good as well. Alongside your brand, you’re also an influencer under Thrift Queen Lola. How did the content creation arm of your business come about? I started out blogging, back when people had website blogs, covering fashion events, doing personal style pictures and posts, and then Instagram started blowing up. So I transitioned onto there, and then from upcycling my own stuff, it grew, and then Revival evolved from there. You were business-minded at school, thrifting pieces that you then went on to customise. I just wanted to make some extra money. I didn’t have much to start with, so I wanted to make something and have fun with it as well. Alongside your brand, you do freelance content creation. How do you balance the two? As a creative, you can’t really rely on one thing; you have to have your hand in different pies to be able to pay the bills. In terms of managing them, everything is in my calendar. I’m organised and very strict with my time management, so I think that definitely helps me in terms of juggling different things at the same time. “You can see how it affects the local beaches and the landscapes, so it’s close to home.” You show your followers how to upcycle pieces into something else, like transforming a pair of jeans into a cute bag. Do you enjoy educating people? Definitely. When I started Revival, I wanted there to be an educational arm to the brand because I didn’t wanna just sell products. In sustainable fashion we have to shift people’s mindsets. I want to run workshops and show people online how to revamp their wardrobes. The content side of things is so much fun and people really resonate with it. People love the idea of trying something new and learning a new skill. You’ve said that there aren’t enough black and brown designers in sustainability. Why do you think that is and what do you think needs to change for more to enter the space? I think the space has shifted quite a bit since I’ve been running my business, there’s definitely been a huge shift with more people being shown in the limelight who are Black and Brown. I think when I started, it was very whitewashed with high disposable income, sustainable fashion has become more accessible. People are able to tap into it from a secondhand angle as well. You don’t have to have loads of money to be able to shop more sustainably. I’m part of a small collective of Black and Brown women in the space as well, who champion each other and share opportunities. What’s the collective and what’s the mission? It’s a group of Black and Brown people in the sustainable fashion space. Women, should I say. We just have a WhatsApp group, literally just sharing content, opportunities that we see that are relevant for each other. There aren’t a lot of us, so we have to keep each other going. You’ve also worked on the fashion minority report with ASOS That is a learning and development platform run by Daniel Peters who is a brand and marketing specialist. He founded it to help underrepresented communities in the creative and fashion space. I was on their scale-up program, and we had a showcase at the ASOS head office and got to network with incredible people. It was a great opportunity. What advice do you have for young designers who want to set up their own brand? I’d say go for it! Look at what angle you want to take it in, whether upcycling or using considered materials and hone in on one area. Have a really clear vision of what you want your brand to achieve and what you want to say to the world. I think that allows you to flourish because if you don’t have a clear vision, then you’re just going to want to cater to everyone. I’ve had to sit myself down and realise that I can’t meet everyone’s needs. You have to focus on what works for you and what your vision is, and then grow from there. I hope that’s helpful advice. If, in theory, the world were to end tomorrow, what would you be wearing to the After Party? Chekii - dramatic! I would be wearing a reworked dress of some sort - combining different pre-loved materials, denim, jersey and that choker necklace. Get full access to After Party at afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe [https://afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

After Party meets: Emma Blythe

Welcome to After Party – the show where I interview sustainable brand founders in their natural habitats. In this episode, I’m joined by the London-based menswear designer and artist Emma Blythe. As a child growing up in the US, Emma first experimented with fashion by making outfits for the Tooth Fairy. She studied fashion design at Marist College in New York before completing a graduate diploma at Central Saint Martins and an MA in Menswear at the Royal College of Art. Here, Emma started to unpick the masculine wardrobe and the way that we gender clothing, one deadstock suit at a time. To Emma, upcycling is more than just sustainability – it’s a form of visual storytelling and a way to dismantle old narratives. By reconstructing garments loaded with history, Emma asks: Can we strip away the past to build a more hopeful future? Through research, couture techniques, and performance, Emma rewrites these male stories by reworking pieces that traditionally belonged to the masculine wardrobe, using male-coded materials like deadstock suits and second-hand ties. She also reworks materials from her own past. In her collection titled Progression, garments reconstructed from her past collection symbolised that “we don’t always have to make something new to move things forward.” When they aren’t designing under their namesake label, Emma can be found making costumes for music videos, working on film commissions, crafting a new line of denim accessories, and dreaming up imaginary product collaborations, such as a Prada x Tesco meal deal sandwich bag with their partner Chun. Welcome to the After Party, Emma Blythe! This series is all about upcycling, so I wanted to start by asking you, what does upcycling mean to you? Upcycling is a combination of recycling, mending and creation. It’s recreating something completely new from what it was originally used for. When did designing with the planet in mind become important to you? I grew up outside of a city and was outside a lot. It’s always been something that’s been important to me. I’ve never been a fast fashion shopper, it’s about making garments that are well-made and meant to last. Interestingly, you say you’ve never shopped fast fashion because I feel like a lot of people go through a transition where they used to shop fast fashion and now they don’t. What were you wearing when you were younger? I got a lot of hand-me-downs from older cousins and older siblings when I was a kid. My mom had a massive influence on the way that I see fashion and clothing. She worked in fashion, but she was more on the business side; she was a merchandiser and a buyer. She loved a good bit of tailoring. It annoyed me when I was younger, when I wanted something from H&M when I was like 13, my mom would be like, “This is made terribly – we’re not getting that for you.” At the time, you’re like “Mom, I just want the cute top!” But she really instilled in me to inspect what you’re getting, to look at what you’re buying, that’s something that I still do today. What was your upbringing like? You grew up in the US… Very outdoorsy, my family is in the Northeast corner. So a lot of farms, a lot of mountains, very suburban. At the time I hated it, I wanted to move to New York and work in fashion and never come home. I was spending every single day outside. You’d get home from school, chuck your backpack inside, and then go back outside until you had to come in at night. Lots of winter sports. I think that had a massive impact on the way that I view sustainability. “My Mom was a fashion buyer and merchandiser – she’d say we’re not getting that for you, it’s made terribly!” How did your journey with making evolve? I was always creating something, sewing, and drawing. My older siblings did a lot of drawing too. My grandmother, she was an artist and she was the one who taught me how to sew originally, that was really special. There was always a ton of art supplies that we could play with, and we’d make an absolute mess. She slowly started to teach me how to sew. The first fully finished garment that I made was a dress from an old vintage dress pattern. My mom would try and teach me how to knit if she had the patience for it, which she didn’t normally have; it was an evolving interest. I was always geared towards some version of working in fashion. What kind of art did your grandma create? She was a watercolour painter, she was really into architecture and gardens. There’s always been a very creative mindset in my family. There’s an amazing story about you making a dress for the Tooth Fairy… I was very slow to grow up and I was just really interested in fairy tales, the tooth fairy, she was my girl. My mom was always redecorating the home, and she always had fabric samples for different projects. I would use them to make robes with little ribbons; my Mom still has one of them at home. “In London, I became more experimental with my ideas.” How did you express your creative side at school? I studied at Marist College in New York, and it was very uncreative. I really didn’t enjoy my time there, but looking back, it was really beneficial. It was very commercial-based. Would this sell in a department store? Yes or no, that’s it. It was very technical skills-based, too, sewing 100 samples of how to do a zipper, 100 samples of how to sew a pocket, which at the time was miserable. But it really taught me how to make clothing well. When I moved to London for the more creative side, I was shocked because I didn’t really think that I was that good at making clothing because everyone else on my course in New York was really good at it. In London, I became more experimental with my ideas. I had the basis to be able to actually make it and not need to outsource, I could just do it myself. How was studying at CSM a contrast to New York? I was shell-shocked for sure. I definitely went through a bit of a personality crisis there. I spent a lot of time rediscovering what I wanted to do. It also really showed me the side of the industry that isn’t about the work, that’s more about the social and cultural aspects of working in the industry. In New York, if you work really hard, you’re good. Here, there’s a lot more nuance. That one year at CSM was just a quick one-year course, full of international students; there were like 15 different countries represented within a course of 30. It was a really interesting mix of people from all kinds of different backgrounds who were trying to take that next step. “That’s when I got into antique materials and non-fashion materials like upholstery.” What did your work look like at the time? Oh so bad! I was unsure what I was doing creatively because I wasn’t given that chance to explore that when I was doing my BA, so I wanted to do everything. It was still menswear and that is when I got into using antique materials, and non-fashion materials, like upholstery. It was when I was first exploring what I wanted to do in terms of materials and texture, and colour. Where did you source the antique materials at the time? At home. When I went back for holiday breaks, I collected everything I could and shoved it into a suitcase because everything in London is so expensive, even if it’s second-hand. I’d get everything I could from antique stores and deadstock fabric warehouses. There are a lot of textile mills where I’m from, alongside fabric that my mom had in the house that wasn’t getting touched. “It was an MA in fashion, but ‘fashion’ at the RCA is a very loose term.” Then you went to the RCA for your MA. How was that experience? I know it was lockdown… I loved it for the first four months; we had lots of people from different backgrounds. There were people in my course doing architecture and fine art. It was an MA in fashion, but at the RCA, fashion is a very loose term. There were people who did writing as opposed to making garments. You could do whatever you wanted to do. I loved it because it allowed me to continue on that trajectory of experimentation. Then lockdown came and I actually did a lot of it in my flat or back at home in my parents’ home in the US via Zoom. So it was a really different experience, but it gave me time to figure out what I wanted to do. I did a lot of academic research and writing, which I never thought I would do. But that became the basis of my entire project and what I’m still doing now. “The film featured two men helping each other into a suit, which is something you would never normally see.” What was your final project? It was called Fashioning Acts of Masculinity… I had done menswear for my BA and my time at CSM. So it had been five years. I was doing menswear and interning and working in menswear, and I was just getting so sick of creating for men’s wants and needs. Coming from the US and the political background at the time, there was a lot of male toxicity going on. I started to research why this is happening and started looking at how fashion has influenced that in the past. Once you figure that out, you can start to tweak it and adjust fashion to positively influence the male experience. My final collection was all about creating garments that men had to ask for help to get dressed in, it was about instigating behaviours that they would never have to engage in normally, asking for help from someone else and instigating male-to-male touch, exploring the vulnerability that they don’t normally experience within their own wardrobe. There was a performance piece at the end where I worked with two choreographers and dancers to show that experience. How do you think these ideas manifest visually? In working with suits and shirts – garments that traditionally ‘belong’ to men? The collections I’m working on wouldn’t make sense if they were made from new ‘cut and sew’ materials. It needs to be pieces that people recognise as male items. That’s where a lot of the tailoring and the shirts come in; it’s a method of linguistics without needing to explicitly communicate it. The first piece looked like a traditional men’s suit when it’s fully put on, but it wraps around the body in a way that he genuinely can lock into it, so it was a huge technical challenge to figure out how to make that. When I’m creating womenswear, I’m not trying to make garments that are more difficult and more uncomfortable for women, but it’s using those male-coded Western items. It’s showing how these can be changed to show the way we relate to each other and behave within our own environments. You think about clothing and fashion in such an academic way, which I love I got that from the RCA, I definitely didn’t think of it that way before. Lockdown helped it because it was sort of forced me to sit and think, which I maybe wouldn’t have done if I was in a normal university setting. I think I would have been so busy with everything else that I would have just done something more straightforward. Whereas I was really able to get into the research. My older sibling has done a lot of feminist research on how history would be different if it was told from the women’s perspective, so they had a lot of resources for me to look at. Let’s have a look at the hero suit from the collection… This is from the original RCA collection and I reused it in my Progression collection on a womenswear model for the shoot. This is where the whole tie obsession came from! So this was the piece that was hard for the men to get in? Yeah, there was a lot of wrapping, and this was the main concept piece and the first iteration of what I now call the wrap suit. It looks as if it’s just a normal traditional men’s suit and then it unwraps and spirals twice around the body. [In the film] you see two men helping each other into a suit which is something you would never normally see. Inside there’s all these different silk ties, it was lockdown, so it was about figuring out how to use what I had. I’ve since made this again in a different material for a woman’s body. When people loan it or borrow it, it’s nice to see it done up in a bunch of different ways. This is a big question, but how do you think that fashion as a practice can help to rebuild gender boundaries? I think any sort of discussion around gender and gender behaviours is important but it’s important to remember the intersectionality that comes with it. It’s never just one thing, and there’s always class, culture, location and age which will have an impact on what is considered a gender norm, but I think fashion sits really nicely within all of that. Fashion is a way to express yourself and a way of communicating the groups you want to be a part of. It impacts the way we experience life as individuals and as groups, so by creating with intention, you can start to alter that as well. Do you feel like deconstruction is a big part of that? I think it’s a good start, but we’ve done a lot of deconstructing already. I think what people need now is like the reconstructing phase. I talk a lot about ‘positive pathways forward’, because I think we can sit and rip past behaviours apart but it’s about finding how we are moving forward and what we are doing about it. It’s deconstructing old pieces in terms of the actual methods of what I’m doing, but I’m reconstructing them in a more thoughtful way. You’ve used fabrics from your previous pieces and remade them for new collections. You said ‘‘I’d like to show that we don’t always have to do something new and to move things forward…’ I had done my time at RCA, but I didn’t really have the money to do another collection. But you need to keep making, showing your work and being productive. I took the collection and reshot it on a womenwear model to see how the energy changes. There was a lot of harvesting from the old stuff, like belt buckles from the first collection. I had been really precious about my work, but it was just sitting there, and I needed a belt buckle, so I ripped it off from the previous collection for the new one. What does your process look like from start to finish? I think it’s more streamlined now. I know which design details I want to keep, like the wrapping and lacing. I was making a lot of stuff that needed to fit a lot of different bodies, especially since they were made in lockdown, when I had no fit models. I really liked the way that ended up looking. It also ties into sustainability by creating garments that can grow and change with either the same person, or if their body changes, they can give it to someone else. “I had a ton of buttons left over, so I got these second-hand boots from the Princess May Carboot sale and just got glueing!” Where do you source your materials? A lot of shopping around, going to different vintage stores, antique markets, and car boot sales. My partner’s wardrobe, if he doesn’t wear something, I’ll just take it. It’s a lot of finding whatever I can use and seeing what ideas come from the pieces. Sometimes I’ll be like, ‘I need to make a top,’ but most of the time it’s about finding pieces and thinking ‘I could make this out of that,’ it’s very unclear what I’m doing until I’ve done it. Where are some of your favourite places to find fabric? Home. London is really expensive for anything. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but I don’t often find [the fabrics] that speak to me personally. Suits and shirts you can get in any charity shop or car boot sale, but the standout materials – like the upholstery you’re wearing now – I find a lot of that when I go back home. When you’re out of the city, there aren’t as many people looking for stuff…it sits and waits for me until I go home. What does your workload look like? Is it on a more bespoke basis? I try to do a mix. None of it would ever be wholesale just because of the nature of working with limited materials. I could never make more than five of anything, but I’ve also done some custom pieces for musicians and their music videos, where they’ll reach out and want something specific. Like the button boots! The last women’s wear collection that I did, I just needed shoes. So instead of buying or loaning shoes from someone else, I just figured I had a ton of buttons left over. I got these second-hand boots from the Princess May Carboot sale and just got glueing. Let’s talk about what I’m wearing… That corset is actually one of the first women’s pieces I made. After the RCA, I worked with my friend Sophie Tamala, who was my stylist for that collection. As a thank you for all the help she gave me throughout, I made her a corset out of the upholstery material left and gave it to her for her birthday. Then people kept reaching out to me asking for it for shoots, and I had to keep asking for it back, so I made another one. So this is the second version of the corset that I had originally made for my friend as a thank you. Did you find the material at home? Yeah, it was from an old upholstery shop back home. There was maybe only 5 metres of it, so I was able to make two corsets, and I tried to make a pair of trousers, but they didn’t work out. Alongside your namesake label you’ve started a denim brand… That happened by accident, to be honest. My partner who I run the brand with, his dad is a vintage denim collector and reseller. There were a lot of leftover jeans that he couldn’t sell because they weren’t the right brand name or they were damaged. Chan was keeping them in our studio, and they were taking up space. I just wanted a bag for myself. I was going to Paris Fashion Week to do some video content because I was working for a magazine at the time, and I just wanted a bag that I could fit a bunch of my stuff in. I thought, ‘Why don’t we just use the denim to make the bag?’ I wanted something silly that I wouldn’t normally buy, so we came up with the idea of making this really big flower-shaped bag. Shall we have a look at it? This is her, the flower puff bag. She’s really, really big and holds a lot. We just made it for me, and that was literally supposed to be kind of the end of it. I brought it to Paris Fashion Week with me, and a lot of the people on the design team for the brand that I was shooting for started asking about it and taking pictures of it. And then when you’re walking in and out of shows obviously [photographers] are there. People kept asking for photos of the bag, and I was messaging Chun like, ‘We need to put this on Instagram so people know this is us.’ We didn’t have a brand name, there was no intention to ever make another one, but it kind of became its own thing. We slowly started broadening the range, so we have mama and baby, we did blue and black versions of every bag, and it naturally progressed. The bows were added because we did a white version for a friend’s wedding, and then people wanted that. We do some small accessories as well, like hats and hair scrunchies. And shoes! These were again because we needed shoes for a photo shoot that we did. These DIY little boots again don’t fit me, but I would wear them if they did. It’s been fun, and we don’t do more than we want to because it’s still a side gig. Chun is a graphic designer and 3D modeller on his own, but he does have a background in textiles, which is why we started doing this. It’s made to order. If someone reaches out and wants one, we’ll make one. It’s more of a creative outlet for the two of us as opposed to being something that we’re like stressing out about because we’ve got our own things to stress out about. Amazing, I love them. You’ve touched on the photoshoots and the work you do outside of the brand. What does that look like? From doing the film for my own projects at the RCA, I slowly started doing more film projects for other people that I knew and a lot of video content for magazines. I’d join the shoots and do a moving image version of whatever the editorial or cover shoot was, which was fun because I got to meet a lot of people working on a lot of different sets, which is very different from working in a studio. I still do that from time to time, but it’s project-based, rather than a long-term job. It’s given me a lot of experience to produce photo shoots, both for my own brand and for the project that I do with Chun. Excitingly, you’ve got a concept for a leather bag in the works… We’ve got a lot of different things that we want to do with the handbag brand. Our main focus at the moment is doing digital concepts. Chun is a designer and 3D modeller and he’s really skilled at making anything I want. I’ll be like ‘can we do a little video of a bag floating in the air with stars around it,’ and he’ll do it straight away, I put him to work quite a bit. Material costs can be a lot and there’s times when we just feasibly can’t be making bags to sell, so we’re generating ideas and moving the brand forward without having to make anything. I’m a huge Sailor Moon fan so a lot of the digital concepts on our Instagram are Sailor Moon-inspired, like gadgets. It’s a creative outlet for us because what I do is quite serious and emotionally taxing. It’s fun, and it lets Chun expand upon his own graphic design and 3D modelling skills as well. Right now you’re working on a group exhibition… We’ve done two already in the past, because of lockdown at the RCA, we didn’t really get our own show to commemorate the end of that experience. So me and one of my friends put on a group exhibition, and it went really well. We did it again the following year to kind of keep everyone together. We didn’t end up doing it last year because everyone’s working like seven jobs, and living in London right now is quite grim. It’s a great way of making sure that people stay connected while giving people a platform to keep promoting their own work. It’s hard to keep creating, so it almost forces you to create. In my experience there’s so many talented people here in London who are so good at what they do but you never see or hear from them because they’re not that 1% of people that just met the right person at the right time. When people ask me ‘Who are you inspired by?’ it’s always my friends or the people that I studied with, their work is so amazing, so it’s just trying to keep that going. What are you focusing on at the moment with your own brand? Well, I’ve obviously just moved studios, so that’s been a huge shift. From doing the handbag label with Chun, I’ve gotten really into handbags and accessories, so finding a way to incorporate that within my own label would be great. More leather goods, and I’ve done some small batches of ready-to-wear for some local shops here in London, which has been great because it allows me to just make what I can as opposed to having to fulfil whole orders. If I end up seeing someone on the street who’s wearing a skirt that I made or something, it’s always really fun, while still doing the creative photo shoots and conceptual projects. Have you ever bumped into someone wearing one of your pieces? Yeah, one of the puffy tulle shirts, I sold like three of them at Alta, which is a store in London that has a lot of emerging brands. It’s really fun to see people actually living in the stuff that you make. I was like ‘Oh my God, that’s my shirt!’ If in theory the world were to end tomorrow, what would you be wearing to the After Party? I made something for a Fashion Week event. It was a black satin corset with a little bubble hem. It was made from deadstock silk, a lot of ribbon, antique trim and lace. I wore it, and I felt hot! So probably that. Get full access to After Party at afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe [https://afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

After Party meets: Kathryn Hewitson of Pristine

Welcome to After Party – the show where I interview sustainable brand founders in their natural habitats In this episode, I’m joined by Kathryn Hewitson, designer and founder of the fashion label Pristine. Kathryn’s career in fashion began at cult London labels Meadham Kirchoff, Sibling and Ashley Williams. Later she landed the Head of Design role at Rokit Originals, the upcycled line by the well known London vintage shop. On top of her day job she started selling her own line of corsets on Depop – which started making enough money for her to quit her job at Rokit. Since launching Pristine in 2021, Kathryn has been committed to supporting local producers working with British wool, and the even the last remaining lace manufacturer in the UK. Kathryn also incorporates deadstock and vintage fabrics into Pristine’s collections, and she has even designed her very own tartan with a traditional Scottish mill! The brand oozes glamour in all its forms – taking inspiration from old Hollywood films, playboy bunnies and 70s porn mags – fusing a celebration of femininity with the harder edge of subculture. Having been worn by Julia Fox, Kortney Kardashian, Chloe Cherry, and now me! Pristine is the brand for the cool girls about town. Imagine a sexy smart-arse girl gang uniting to right the wrongs of the world, with killer cleavage, silk stockings and a mouth full of bubblegum. When Kathryn isn’t balanced on top of a photocopier scanning her own arse for a Pristine skirt design, she can be found rewatching old Hollywood movies and rifling through 1940s slip dresses for inspiration. Welcome to the After Party Kathryn! You grew up in Cumbria, in a village called Thornhill. What was it like growing up there as a kid interested in fashion? I was kind of an alien! I’ve always been into fashion and clothes and style. When I was a kid I would run around saying “I want to be a fashion designer!” There’s always a story [in interviews] people say “my grandmother was SO stylish,” I would watch her applying her rouge”... it was none of that. Reading Vogue under the bed sheets, that's a classic. I just always loved it. Trying to get my parents to be on board with it was a strange one because they didn't have any f*****g reference point of for it. When I was a tiny tiny primary school kid I just always loved figuring out how to make things. “I would be like, ‘I’m not emo, I’m punk!’ but I guess we all looked pretty f*****g similiar.” What were you making? Do you remember the Spice Girls boxes of chocolates? I made a flag out of the sweet wrappers. In year five, I insisted that I made a shoe with a padded foot bed out of kitchen sponges. Or chopping the majority of a t-shirt away and scroll a band name in lipstick on it, they would always ‘disappear’ in the wash. I wonder why…how did you express yourself through clothes? There aren’t that many pictures of me as a teenager, but I suppose that was before the time when we were taking photos of everything constantly. I wish I could see the state that I must’ve looked like, with varying colours of green and pink hair and tiny tiny t-shirts, frills and big chunky zips. There's definitely a thread from the things I liked then. I think that teenage me would think that what I do now is really cool! Was it kind of punk? Me and my friends were really into Emo, but I would always get tired of that brush, I’d be like ‘I’m not emo, I’m punk!!’ but I guess we looked pretty f*****g similiar. I used to spend a lot of time reading online forums of girls on the other side of the world, like ‘how I chopped up my T-shirt.’ When my Dad came in, I had to click off the screen because he thought they were stealing my bank details. Was it Tumblr? MySpace? I was never into MySpace. Live Journal was one of the big ones. I remember this page called ‘Mad Rad Hair’ with loads of people dying their hair and posting pictures of themselves. Where does Barbie fit into all of this? I need to show you a photo where I had Barbie bed sheets, Barbie everything, wearing a Barbie t-shirt with little leggings and a Barbie doll on my bed in my pink bedroom, I look SO pleased with myself. It’s funny, I did have a dress to match one of my Barbies, and it was my favourite thing in the world! Just like Melvin! [Kathryn’s Dog]. When did you decide that you wanted to be a fashion designer? Really young actually, but I didn’t think it was going to happen because I had a conflict with my parents about it. I was a brainy kid, and they obviously thought I could be an accountant and make loads of money, and I was like, ‘If I don’t go and be an accountant and I don't kill myself, I can save money and start a fashion brand.’ Were you doing textiles at the time? My A Levels at school were art, maths and further maths. I was in this shitty arse end of nowhere town where there weren't enough people to want to do textiles, but my art teacher really encouraged me to make textile-based things. I made a dress that was kind of Victorian, and had all these appliques, lace and beading. It was pretty hideous, but certain things have always appealed to me. There was a pair of trousers that I used to repeatedly draw in my school notebooks, but I never made them. I'm really thinking of making them now in honour of my teenage self. What were they like? They were f*****g nuts. They were slim-leg trousers that were a bit cowboyish. The outside leg was tartan, and the inside leg was leopard print. Sounds quite Pristine actually. After school, you went to uni in Newcastle? I’m not sure what their reasoning was, but my parents were like ‘you can study fashion, but you’re not going to London.’ I was the first person in my family to go to uni, and my immediate family are all within a few miles radius of where they were born and grew up. I put so much pressure on finally living my dream, and I realised university wasn’t going to solve all of my problems. “If I don’t go and be an accountant and I don’t kill myself, I can save money and start a fashion brand.” How was Newcastle? I was really depressed for years when I was at uni; it was really tough. I think my graduate collection was the only project I technically finished. I don't think a university environment is necessarily where I thrive. I was the same at school, I much prefer learning by doing, and I’ve always had an issue with authority. People learn in different ways. University just feels like a bit of a scam, to be honest, fashion courses barely teach you anything and there’s so much controversy around unpaid internships, but the universities rely on the internships to teach what they should be teaching them themselves. But there is also no way that 18-year-old me would’ve packed my bindle and gone off to London to make it in the fashion industry, so I don’t know what the answer is. And then the bright lights, big city of London… If you want to work in fashion and you're going to be in the UK, you go to London. I always knew I wanted to have my own brand eventually, so I wanted to start by working for other small designers. I started interning in fashion while also working in a pub. “Big brands will be selling something for three grand and it’ll be made of the cheapest, nastiest fabric – it’s offensive.” At Roksanda? Roksanda was when I was still at uni in my year out. It really reassured me that my experience at Newcastle was not the fashion industry. I was interning at Meadham Kirchoff, which very quickly became a sort of job, which also coincided with the collapse of the company. I was working 40 hours in a pub for minimum wage, eating Snickers a day, crying a lot and thinking ‘there’s got to be a way through this.’ “If you’ve touched an amazing duchess silk satin, you’re not going to go, ‘Oh, I’ll use this polyester jersey.’” On the pot noodles… But it felt amazing and magical at the same time, like I was getting closer to the path that I wanted to be on. The kind of energy you have for these things when you're younger is insane. For people who don’t know the brand, how would you describe Meadham Kirchoff? It had quite a following at the time. Everyone was obsessed! The pieces may have been inspired by subculture, but everything was executed to such a high standard, with couture finishes, luxurious fabrics, structure, layer and volume!! And the shoes were piling on top of that with the make-up, the hair and the styling! They really created a world; it was amazing, and people would dress like it. No one could afford the clothes because it was like 40K for a jacket, because there was so much work in the pieces. I guess when the people who love your stuff are so far away from the people who can afford it, it’s a bit doomed. What did you learn from being at Meadham? It started at Roksanda, seeing all these amazing, beautiful fabrics. She would use a lot of old couture techniques – it literally makes my mouth water and gets me so excited! It’s tricky – you want to make stuff that isn’t just purely available to oligarchs’ wives, but if you’ve touched an amazing duchess silk satin, or an amazing cashmere, you can't then go ‘yeah fine I’ll use this polyester jersey.’ I feel like so much of the industry is going that way now; it makes me really sad that quality is fading. Big brands will be selling something for three grand, and it’ll be made of the cheapest, nastiest fabric; it’s offensive. “Because of the nature of vintage, Rokit attracts really great people.” All that plastic coming out of these big fashion houses… Yeah, it’s grim, it’s insulting. I think so many people now don't even know what good quality clothing is because they've never seen it. How do you try to be the antithesis of that at Pristine? I know my life would be a lot easier and the business would probably be bigger if I were happy to hop on to a trend and do it cheaply, but my own morals just won’t let me. I wish that the business was selling more and earning more money, but I'm not gonna contribute to the mess that the fashion industry is in to do it. Do you think working at Rokit Vintage changed the way you think about sustainability? You were Head of Design at Rokit Originals [the upcycled line] ? That job came along at the right kind of time for where my kind of passions and values were. After years of working in the ‘fashion fashion’ bubble, I was really jaded by it, and had some really bad experiences. The grass isn’t always greener, but what was really great at Rokit was that I got a lot of freedom. I was trusted to experiment and do things, and we had so much available to us. If I wanted a load of wool blankets or silk scarves, the sourcing end of the company that was based in Canada would take the time to get them for us. Because of the nature of vintage, Rokit attracts really great people, and I made so many great friends there. My passion was the more experimental stuff we were doing, like coats made out of blankets and upholstery fabrics. On the lower price point end, we were customising jeans and t-shirts and churning out hundreds of those pieces. I was working on the designs and the patterns, but also managing the team and the production of all of it, and the pricing and the social media. Rokit Originals was very much its own brand within the brand. It’s completely different now, so don’t look it up and think it has anything to do with me. I even said when I went into that job, this is going to be my last job, after this I’m going to do my own thing. “I’m massively inspired by fabrics, and I’m trying to work as much as possible with deadstock and existing materials.” Let’s talk about the transition from Rokit to Pristine… It was always on the cards, and it was the right time. I had some health issues that I had dealt with, and I was finally feeling that I was in the space where, mentally and physically, I could do it. The job that I had wasn't very well paid, and I didn't have any money from anywhere else, so I would wait every month get paid and spend 100 quid on silk, or screen printing next month and then selling random old pieces on Depop to kind of pay for it, like pieces I had, some Meadham or my Dior Saddle bag. [*cry] It took the best part of a year and a half of me gradually chipping away at it. I was running out of things I could sell and I needed to strap money together to do my photoshoot. I saw the trend for corset tops picking up steam, so I thought f**k it! I’ll just take a couple of shitty pictures of myself in the flat in the corset tops. I remember looking on Depop and this was peak Depop and they were f*****g terrible. All I needed to do was get mine out there and it will happen. It really did and it was really overwhelming. And then the money was coming in, and the fact that people want to buy your stuff, it’s an amazing feeling. What was the best seller? It was a really basic, heavy organic cotton, like black twill. We did a white version later with lace trim everywhere and little bows. I was working full time in the day, and then coming home and working evenings and weekends. Then I was getting up at like five in the morning and reading books about marketing. I was sewing constantly but it was really exciting. Where did your love of corsets come from? I've always been fond of historical garments, they get a really bad rep but actually they’re pretty comfortable. I sometimes get bitter when I’m making these pieces. I had breast cancer and I had a mastectomy, and I don't look as good in these things as other people do – I would love to be like all tits McGee – corsets are just so satisfying as an object. Let’s talk about the OG, the one that went wild on Depop… This is the Candy Top which were made in black, white, blue and pink and then people wanted customisations so we did it with a zip or in velvet. In contrast, this is the Cha Cha corset from the current range, which is much more structured, it’s much more like hardcore, and has steel boning, in this gorgeous deadstock heavy Dutchess satin and the tassels that we make ourselves! “It doesn’t need to look old-fashioned, it can still be some stupid little tarty dress with your arse cheeks hanging out.” And then inside of this dress – between and lining and the outside – has coutil panels and boning, and then has waist tape, which is an old couture technique, a lot of couture techniques that existed in older garments were functional as well as beautiful and they were there to make it last, so much of that is lost now. People don’t know that these techniques existed, and I think that partly comes from my love of vintage, but it doesn’t need to look old-fashioned, it can still be a stupid little tarty dress with your arse cheeks hanging out. Which vintage pieces do you look to for inspiration? One of my big loves is 1930s fashion, old Hollywood glamour – metres and metres of bias cut silk. There’s something that feels so modern about a lot of those pieces, even though they are close to 100 years old now. I also love the 60s as a period for fashion, especially the early 60s which looks like the 50s but somehow really camp, crazy coloured and tacky. In my head, 60s fashion and 30s fashion are the opposite of each other in terms of fabrics and silhouettes, the 60s were very structured and clean. I don't really like when something is done by halves, it’s got to be the most glamorous or the most structured. What else would you say are some of your main inspirations? I’ve always, since I was a teenager, I’ve been really interested in subculture, mainly punk but also aspects of goth and fetish and combining those aesthetics with old Hollywood or couture elements. I think that's where the core of the brand is, you can make this beautifully made structured dress with all these internal details, but on the outside you look like a bloody trollop, that’s Pristine. You describe the Pristine girl as a girl with a clear, conscious and a dirty mind She loves clothes and glamour and the positive aspects that they can bring to her life. It’s about doing it for yourself and living life on your own terms, wanting to get dressed up in a sassy little outfit for you. If someone thinks it's for them, they can get a kick in the teeth. What does your design process look like? I'm massively inspired by fabrics and trying to work as much as possible with deadstock or with existing materials. There are a few deadstock suppliers that I’m constantly checking their website, and if I see something that’s right, I will buy it, and then I just have to figure out what I want to use it for later, which means it was a very expensive year last year. I had an idea for a blouse that I worked on the pattern for and I had this deadstock fabric in mind, but the day I went to buy it I got the tab open on my phone, and then I thought ‘I want a big screen,’ by the time I got to the office someone else had bought it…it was crushing. Nothing else has come up yet that is right for it, which is so annoying because I really want it to exist. “If we don’t support these businesses, then they will go, and the world will be a much less beautiful place.” Let’s talk about some of your pieces made from deadstock I’ve been changing the way I do things, slowing the pace down and focusing on quality and not overproducing. Working with deadstock where I can and working with suppliers that I don’t want to disappear. Each garment in the current collection is made at least partly from deadstock. Where do you source your lace from? I have three main suppliers that I will get lace from, 2 are based in France and the other, which is the UK’s last lace mill, the only one left. They’re based in Nottingham, which has a whole heritage of making lingerie, that’s nearly all gone now, but Clooney, the company that I get this lace from, have the most amazing, beautiful range, and they're really nice, and it's not prohibitively expensive for the quality of it, compared to some nasty crap you’re going to get from China, it just doesn’t compete. If we don’t support these businesses, they will go, and the world would be a pretty sad place, a much less beautiful place. And you designed your very own tartan, which I’m sporting today It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, combining traditional materials with a playful spin. I’ve always liked tartan, always in the market for things in a tartan, but I’m really fussy about the colours that I wear. You know, the Clans in the Highlands aren't skipping around in pink kilts – I wish they were! I work with an amazing company called Lock Aaron of Scotland that makes fabrics for traditional Clansmen and big designer brands as well, and it was really satisfying getting involved in that process. They care about maintaining the integrity and heritage of it, but you can still play around with it and still make something that looks really modern and playful. The Scottish Tartan Registry keeps a record of all the tartans that have been made. They care about maintaining the heritage and integrity of it, which is really nice. “It’s really funny how many people are walking around wearing a picture of my bum.” Let’s talk about newsprint, you’ve made headlines! I've always loved newspaper prints. My hero designer Elsa Scaparelli was the first person to ever do it and Franco Moschino and obviously, Galliano, it's just great. It was a process making the print – I wrote the headlines, I wrote the articles, I chatted a lot of s**t. ‘Horoscopes are real: NASA scientists confirm’ there’s also little Easter eggs in there like birthdays. And what about the bum skirt? I love trompe l'oeil stuff, and had the idea for this piece, I was trolling online trying to find the right underwear, it had to be right. I found this amazing Fredericks of Hollywood set that I ordered from America, it was about 200 quid or something…it’s paid for itself multiple times over at this point. I took a photo of me in the spare room of the flat where I used to work from. Just taken on my phone, nothing glamorous, nothing cool about it. If you could see the chaos of the room, I was peak busy. This piece did really well and it was a signature for the brand for ages, it was a nice little money maker, and it’s really funny how many people are walking around wearing a picture of my bum. That wasn’t on my bingo card. Put it on my tombstone. “It’s going to do a lot to help people stop seeing clothes as being disposable and the people who make them being an idea of a person rather than an actual human being on the other side of the world that’s being treated like s**t.” It's quite similar to the piece that Julia Fox wore. How does it feel to have celebrities wearing your staff? Mixed emotions. I don’t want to say I feel nothing because that’s not true. It’s really sad how when you’re younger you dream of doing these big acheivements that you think are going to make you feel really excited. Really famous people don’t necessarily tag the brand, or sometimes it’s been purchased a really long time ago. What is nice is when you get fans of the brand sending things to me and commenting, and that feels really special. Let’s talk about the Julia piece… It doesn’t have the most hanger appeal, annoyingly. The styling, the pigtails, and the boots were very good. Her stylist reached out, and they pulled quite a few bits. You never know if it’s going to be worn or not, but people LOVE her. I reposted a photo to my story and the photographer said they were going to sue me which hasn’t happened yet. The first time I loaned it to anybody days after it had been shot, it came back practically destroyed, and it had stains on it that they couldn’t get out as they were rolling around in the mud. Not Julia Fox’s stylist but somebody else. So it was good to have a good association with it, the interest definitely spiked after she wore it. Any other stylist that you'd love to slide into the DMs? All my favourite people are dead or really old, but at the same time if Madonna’s stylist came knocking I’d be like yeah! I always joke about Miss Piggy. I have DM’d Miss Piggy's Instagram account a few times, saying ‘let me dress you.’ If you could bring back anyone from the dead to wear Pristine for a day. Who would it be? Mae West. What would you put her in? It would have to be custom! What do you love about Mae? She was doing it on her own terms and had so much f*****g spunk! This is a bit of a segway but let’s talk about workshops… I am really passionate about people seeing value in their clothes and people having a craft and a skillset. I think the more we can do to make people physically in touch with the clothes that they are wearing and buying it’s going to do a lot to help people stop seeing clothes as being disposable and the people who make them being an idea of a person rather than an actual human being on the other side of the world that’s being treated like s**t. Me doing a workshop isn’t going to solve it, but I think that you have to do things that contribute to the world being more like it should be and less like the hell scape it is right now. At the same time it’s so nice to meet people when so much of the brand is online, and doing things in real life is something that I want to do more of. The look on people’s faces when they haven’t sewn anything in their life and they leave at the end of the day and are so proud of themselves. I have this craving to do more stuff that has that community aspect. If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you be wearing to the After Party? Hopefully it’s not going to be tomorrow because in 3-4 months’ time the collection that I’m working on is going to have some amazing pieces inspired by showgirl costumes with fringe – let’s go with that, so it better not be tomorrow. Get full access to After Party at afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe [https://afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

After Party meets: Lydia Bolton

Welcome to After Party – the show where I interview sustainable brand founders in their natural habitats. In this week’s episode I’m joined by the London-based fashion designer, content creator and slow fashion designer Lydia Bolton. Born in Cheltenham, the daughter of an eco-warrior, Lydia was first taught how to sew by her mum at 13, making a scrumptious little shift dresses with gathered sleeves and peachy-blue swirls – delish! Whizz on a few years and Lydia was off to study fashion in the big city (Kingston University), with high hopes and a bag full of dreams. Post-graduating Lydia found herself at the epicentre of the fashion industry, amongst the 00s-inspired prints and cheeky slogans of House of Holland, where she worked as a design assistant. After a couple of years in ‘the real world,’ Lydia quit her job as fashion assistant to pursue her biggest dream of them all: launching her namesake sustainable brand. Determined for her work to align with her values, Lydia started making new pieces using donations from the London-based charity TRAID, and nowadays, the big brands come knocking. For a designer with such a colourful aesthetic Lydia has a hardcore approach to reworking waste – often incorporating scraps and off-cuts into her designs. She’s worked with everyone from Liberty to NIKE on creating one-of-a-kind pieces, hosting workshops and more. Many of her brand collaborations feel more unexpected than the usual collaborations with big fashion brands. My personal favourite is her line of Christmas jumpers for Lidl x ByRotation that were inspired by camp Christmas icons (hello Mariah, hello Elton!), and Lydia has also worked with Lime Bike on an exclusive cycling collection that certainly didn’t leave a sour taste. Whether she’s transforming a tablecloth into a mini-skirt, filming her ‘Easy Upcycle’ content series or teaching at her sell-out scunchie workshops, at the heart of the brand is a DIY approach to making. She reminds us mere mortals that there’s nothing you can’t do yourself when it comes to upcycling the pieces already hanging in your wardrobe. In sharing her knowledge with the world, Lydia is living proof that sustainable fashion is about collaboration, not gatekeeping. Welcome to the After Party Lydia Bolton! Let’s talk about your upbringing…My upbringing was very outdoorsy. We were outside the whole time making things. My mum is very eco and all about the outdoors lifestyle. I grew up in hand-me-downs, in my brothers’ and sisters’ old clothes, and in charity shop clothing and I loved dressing up in my granny’s old clothes. There was definitely a phase where me and my sister loved dressing up like the Sound of Music, I would be in a dress and silk gloves and she’d be dressed as the guy, we’d do little plays and create stories around whoever we were dressed up as. What about your mum? I always say that my mum’s my eco inspiration. She’s the most environmentally determined and committed person I know. She’s also really into sewing, so she was the one who taught me how to sew when I was, like, 13. The first thing I made was a little shift dress with gathered sleeves with blue peachy swirls. It’s giving costume. Perfect for the plays! These days, you describe yourself as a ‘slow fashion designer,’ what does that mean to you? It’s about acknowledging that you’re not working in the same way as traditional fashion design. The way I work is a lot slower; I’m not trying to be a designer and have a brand in the same way that previous brands have existed. The entire fashion industry (not just fast fashion) is SO fast, so quick, the ‘slow fashion’ label shows I’ve taken a step aside from that. When do you think sustainability became important to you? I’ve always grown up in an eco environment, where there was a bin for everything but it didn’t have the ‘sustainable,’ label. When I was a teenager I’d still shop in charity shops a lot, but then I also would shop a bit of fast fashion. By the time I was working I wasn’t shopping at fast fashion brands anymore and I was trying to live a sustainable lifestyle but it didn’t match my career. Then I heard this quote, which really stuck with me, “as a designer you have a responsibility with what you create,” and it hit me that I have all these personal values but I hadn’t connected them to my career. I have a job where I can make an impact, and I can create things which are better for the environment. A couple of months after hearing that quote I decided to quit my job and pivot my career to be focused on sustainable fashion. You studied at Kingston, how was your uni experience? I did my Art Foundation, and then my degree at Kingston, which was so fun. The art school is by the river and I had a really good time studying there. Probably a better time on the social side than the work. The first few years I worked hard, but I didn’t love the work. Then in third year, where you got to do your own final collection, I really enjoyed that. What I hadn’t enjoyed in the previous years was doing the projects for brands, and I think that was because I was not as interested in these industry briefs. It made me realise that I prefer doing my own thing rather than working for other people. “I was trying to live a sustainable lifestyle, but that didn’t match my career.” – Lydia Bolton Now you work with a lot of brands, so it’s come full circle Now I like brand projects because they give you a brief, and you’re like, ‘Okay, great, I’m just gonna do the brief – my take on what they’re looking for’ – but at the time I didn’t enjoy the briefs. So, what was next? You went on to the world of work? The world of work, which was a slow start for me. So I left uni, moved to North London, and didn't have a job. So I started interning and then worked in the pub in the evenings to obviously pay to live. And then slowly, after almost a year of interning – maybe a full year – one of the places I was interning at, House of Holland, then offered me a job as a design assistant, which was amazing. When did you quit your job to start your own brand? I worked for a couple of years, and then I felt this real need to do my own thing and quit. It had taken me so long to finally get a job as a design assistant, and I really enjoyed where I was working, but I knew it was time. I knew I could go back to the pub to pay my bills to cover my rent. Was it the same pub? Yeah they had me back. Bless them! Bless them! They were lucky! It was an interesting place… I did this online course at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and learned more in-depth about all the different issues within fashion. The main one that really stood out to me was the huge amount of waste. I could see how I could use my skills as a designer and a maker to make a small solution. “The entire fashion industry is SO fast, so the ‘slow fashion’ label shows I’ve taken a step aside from that.” – Lydia Bolton How was it starting the brand? Again it was very slow. It was very slow to get going. It took me so long to understand how to have more of a brand – I had just come from design, and I enjoyed making things. A singer messaged me and they wanted an outfit for their BBC Introducing performance at Glastonbury. I said “I’d love to make this for you, but I’m only using secondhand textiles,” and they loved the idea. I didn’t want to use clothing that could be bought in charity shops, I wanted to use clothing that can’t be sold. So I sent some emails and went to the TRAID warehouse to find materials to rework. What was it like going to the warehouse? A real experience. It’s changed now, because this was almost six years ago, but when I was there, it was this long conveyor belt, and they would sort things into different categories. And then I would just wait to see what came at the end and couldn’t be resold. The scale of clothing is pretty overwhelming. At the time, you were deconstructing the pieces to make new fabrics, right? Exactly. And then, yeah, I’d wash things, unpick them all, and then stitch them together. It’s such a process. Even just going to TRAID, getting all the stuff, lugging it all back on the Overground and trains – that in itself is a lot, before the washing and unpicking. For me, the upcycling craft is the labour. Unpicking isn’t super difficult, but it’s the labour you put back in that gives it value. It’s almost meditative, unpicking things. Yeah, I used to really enjoy it. I would just listen to some music, listen to some podcasts, and sit and unpick. “I wouldn’t work with ultra-fast fashion brands.” – Lydia Bolton How has your sourcing process evolved? I still go to the TRAID warehouse but brands also get in touch with me and send me their unwanted fabrics and swatches. Or I’ll use eBay and Facebook Marketplace if I’m looking for something really specific. When brands donate to you, how does that work financially? Brands would incur more costs recycling it responsibly or paying for waste disposal at the landfill, so I’m a cheap option! You’ve worked with everyone from Lime Bike to Lidl, let’s talk about your brand partnerships… The brand partnerships started quite early. The streetwear brand Nicce got in contact with me, and I made a little capsule collection from their defected stock. I've been fortunate to have several collaborations since then, and they're always so fun. Brands give you a brief, and it’s interesting to apply my process – always reusing second-hand textiles and incorporating my design aesthetic – while also aligning with their vision and customer base. There’s a lot to balance, but it’s always an exciting challenge. There seem to be two different kinds of brands you collaborate with, brands like NIKE and then more unexpected partnerships like Lidl and Lime. I love the unexpectedness of collaborations! For Lime, We made a vest jacket with reflective Lime wedges for visibility, but it still functioned as a stylish vest. We also created patchwork shorts that fold into a small bag – ideal for those wearing skirts or dresses who want extra coverage while cycling. And we designed a long coat that could be zipped into a shorter one, so it wouldn’t get caught in the bike chain. And then there was the Lidl Christmas jumper collaboration By Rotation [the rental platform] was launching Lidl’s Christmas jumpers on the so that people could rent them. We made three statement Christmas jumpers inspired by Christmas icons. One was a blue jumper with long fringing, inspired by Elton John. Another was a red off-the-shoulder piece with velvet bows, inspired by Mariah Carey. The third was a yellow, glittery jumper inspired by Leona Lewis and her iconic gold dresses. So fun! And you’ve also worked with Nike right? I’ve done two different workshops with Nike. One involved upcycling football jerseys, and the other focused on making cushions. For those who might not know, what is defected stock? Defected stock includes items that can’t be sold due to minor imperfections. This could be clothes used in photoshoots that got marked, misprinted items from customisation stations, or products with small manufacturing defects. “It’s the labour that you put back into it that gives it value.” – Lydia Bolton Is there any brand you wouldn’t work with, from a sustainability standpoint? I wouldn’t work with ultra-fast fashion brands. However, I do believe in meeting brands where they’re at and helping them take steps toward sustainability. A lot of the workshops I do involve people who aren’t already engaged in sustainability conversations, and that’s a great way to introduce them to these ideas. For those unfamiliar, what’s the difference between fast fashion and ultra-fast fashion? Fast fashion is like high street brands like Zara and Primark – companies that produce large quantities of clothes quickly and cheaply. Ultra-fast fashion brands, like Shein and PrettyLittleThing release hundreds of thousands of styles often with incredibly low prices and massive amounts of waste. Shall we have a look at your Deli series? Who doesn’t want to wear pizzas and pork pies! These shirts are made from ASDA tablecloths and tea towels, which I found on eBay. The prints feature classic deli items like pork pies, scotch eggs, and quiches. It’s such a fun collection, and people really love the foodie prints! I also released the shirt pattern so people can make their own versions at home. “Brands would incur more costs recycling it responsibly or paying for waste disposal at the landfill, so I’m a cheap option!” – Lydia Bolton What about your collaboration with Liberty? That was a really fun project! Liberty designed fabric for their partnership with Wicked, the musical, and they gave me complete creative freedom to make something with it. I wanted to create a piece inspired by Wicked’s costumes – the cinched waist, ruffles, and whimsical details. Knitwear is also a big part of what you do… talk us through some of your favourite knitwear pieces and how you made them. Yeah, this is one of my cardigans. Oh, and I'm sporting one! And you’re sporting one! One of the mini ones. So all of my cardigans are made of knit swatches from knit suppliers. There’s a huge amount of waste within this one small area of the industry because all the brands get all these swatches made from different textile suppliers and then they use those swatches to kind of decide what fabrics to use in their collection. After a few seasons, they are all just chucked in the bin, but obviously they are valuable materials and make really cute one-off cardigans! How did you link up with the knit suppliers?Everything happens quite organically. From working in fashion, I knew about the waste there is within swatches, when you upcycle, you kind of have to design and think differently. You think, ‘okay, what products would work really well with that waste stream?’ I knew the cardigans would be a good solution. I also had an intern and she moved on to work at a knit supplier, and she messaged me saying ‘I don’t know if this is interesting to you but we’ve got so much waste with these swatches do you want them?’ Then I made some content about having the swatches and other brands started sending me their waste. “I hope that people feel inspired to look at their unwanted clothing differently.” – Lydia Bolton Being a content creator has become another arm of your business…how did that come about? I think literally how you said in my intro – my approach is so DIY –I don’t know how to be polished and I think people connected with seeing behind the scenes and I always kept up with doing the content and I always wanted my brand to be educational so people understood why I was doing the upcycling. Tell us about your “Easy Upcycles” content series… Showing people how to upcycle themselves has always been a big part of what I do. In the pandemic, I did these DIY kits so that people could make pieces at home. Over the last year, I’ve been making videos with instructions so people can follow along – I hope that people feel encouraged and inspired to look at their wardrobe and their unwanted clothing differently. Sewing is just practice – and obviously, I've had lots of practice – but I think other people should just give it a go, you don't need to be scared of it. What do you enjoy about teaching people? I really enjoy chatting, connecting with different people and showing them how to do things. I had no idea that the workshops would be so popular when I started it. I just thought they’d be cute and fun, but for a year and a half now the scrunchie workshops have consistently sold out. I do lots of different workshops, some with brands, either for their communities or corporate workshops where I’ve shown their employees how to make and repair. These cushions were a collaboration with NIKE! If in theory the world were to end tomorrow, what would you be wearing to the After Party? Well, definitely something I've made! Probably a little sporty jacket with maybe a preppy skirt, so we’ve got a mix of vibes going on. And maybe a scrunchie and a fun sparkly bag – lots of things which maybe feel a bit random together! Get full access to After Party at afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe [https://afterpartybychekiiharling.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]