London Fashion Week x Lone Design Club
Contemporary Fashion That Doesn’t Cost The Earth
The slow fashion revolution is imperative. With more people aware of the damage caused by the fashion industry than ever before, it’s crucial that we continue to push for change. Consequently, for London Fashion Week, Lone Design Club’s two-week long pop up store in Covent Garden is spotlighting a range of independent and sustainable brands.
Founded in 2018, Lone Design Club describe themselves as ‘the antidote to fast fashion’, as they aim to cut through the noise of a saturated fast‐fashion market. Their pop-up stores provide a platform for small sustainable brands to flourish.
We visited the launch party for the pop up store last week, and the space was brimming with beautiful clothing, jewellery, and fashion enthusiasts — there really was something for everyone. Bringing together a group of independent brands that wouldn’t usually be found on the high street created an exciting kind of energy, which felt nothing like what you might expect from a more closed-doors London Fashion Week event. We felt welcomed, and the variety of people in attendance created a real buzz.
Surrounded by emerging talented designers with ethics and sustainability at the heart of their practice, and importantly, with a glass of sparkling rosé in hand, we got to talking about some of the beautiful items on display.
Research has found that over 70% of the fashion industry’s emissions come from raw material production, so a great way to reduce this is to reuse and recycle the textiles which are already in circulation. This is exactly what SON Vintage are doing – they restore and rework vintage clothing, while centering the fun in fashion (expect dresses full of flair, with ruffles and sequins galore). We spoke to Sue, co-creator of the brand, who emphasised that their main aim is to make the most of the vast range of clothing already in existence, without adding anything more to the planet. In fixing damaged items and making vintage clothes more wearable, reworked vintage brands like SON Vintage are changing the landscape of fashion for the better.
“This is something people are connecting with”
Working with a similar concept, Freya Simonne creates upcycled sustainable womenswear. After working in fashion for a decade, Freya was frustrated with the waste and harm caused by the industry. As a result, she started her own clothing brand, using ‘waste’ as her only resource. When she turned an orange quilt into a puffer jacket, which garnered positive reactions, she realised – “this is something people are connecting with”. Now, Freya uses preloved textiles such as vintage quilts, curtains and tablecloths to create beautiful pieces of upcycled clothing.
Suzannah, founder of Shruggler, started creating her coats when she got a sewing machine for her 50th birthday. She began making coats for friends and family, and the brand was formed! Shruggler also strives for sustainability: they create limited-volume collections with vintage, sustainable or recycled elements. Each piece is unique and designed to be long-lasting – she even makes matching collars and leads for stylish dogs.
A favourite brand of ours was Sara Chyan, who described her jewellery as “a gift from nature”. Adopting a minimalistic and conceptual approach to her work, Sara experiments with the metal bismuth, carefully controlling the temperature and time of melting to garner varying naturally-occurring shapes and colours in her jewellery. “I’m very obsessed with heat”, she tells us. London is too cold for Sara, and as a result, she’s drawn to creating pieces that form and change in response to heat — one of her previous works melts and shifts in accordance to the body temperature of its wearer. Sara Chyan jewellery has a life of its own.
And so, like this melting and merging of metals and jewellery, we learn that it’s sometimes best to go with the flow, giving into the current of life — that’s what the people behind fashion and lifestyle brand Loyauté did. We spoke with Loyauté founder, Giovanna, who told us how their journey started with a reusable coffee cup. The step into creating clothing wasn’t all planned out from the start, but after moving forwards with tote bags and finding success with their brand, they decided to focus on basic items that can be styled in their own way. In the words of Loyauté, they aim to ‘remove the noise, keep the aesthetic’.
As we continue to question the future of the retail store in light of online shopping taking over, pop-up stores are a great way to give independent brands the opportunity to meet customers face-to-face, as well as enabling the tactile experience of shopping for clothes in real life.
In their latest Fashion Transparency Index, Fashion Revolution stated that although the UK consumes the most clothes in Europe, British brands are falling behind in terms of transparency – something that is crucial for understanding the impact of big brands in order to hold them accountable. For this reason, it was encouraging to see Lone Design Club supporting many independent brands who are putting sustainability first. In rejecting fast fashion, these designers are providing alternatives which could shape the future of the slow fashion world.
Lone Design Club’s Covent Garden pop-up is open until March 2nd – catch it while you can!
