It’s a chilly autumn afternoon on Carnaby Street in London, the swinging 60s in full effect, music of psychedelia and rock’n’roll streaming from cafes and boutiques as women dressed in miniskirts, loafers, and square-toed ankle boots fill the scene with an air of modernity.
On the other side of town, an underground movement - which would later be known as punk - was beginning to grow. Heavy hardware, zippers, straps, chains and pointed toe boots were being set against a noir canvas of black leather and ripped shirts.
It is at the juxtaposition of these two subcultures that we find our muse - King Louis XIV. A time-traveller, bored with the opulence of Versailles, spending his days on Carnaby Street with the mods and his nights off Kings Road with the punks, seamlessly riding the divide of time, culture, and style.
This is the collection we were inspired to create - a little bit Louis, a little bit mod, a little bit punk - with a color palette informed by a portrait of (Kate Moss as) Eve. Feminine, bold, daring, powerful.
We founded this company at an interesting time in the fashion industry. A massive study called Pulse of the Fashion Industry was released in May 2017, which coincided with the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, and unleashed some serious wake up calls. The report gave a failing grade of sustainability to the fashion industry (32 out of 100). The main problem: raw materials. And by far the most polluting raw material: leather.
We started working on a Journal entry to address the common misperception that synthetic leathers (made from plastic) are worse for the environment than leather.
But we read this article by The Discerning Brute (Joshua Katcher), and realized we couldn’t say it any better.
Here are a few of the best bits, and please, please click on this link to read the full article:
Livestock constitute the single greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, an extremely potent GHG.
So much leather is made every year (7.2 million tons) that it would equal the weight of 20 Empire state buildings. And then we have to consider the 2.2 billion tons of tanning chemicals that enter waterways every year - equivalent to the weight of the entire human population - wreaking havoc on ecosystems and communities who live near tanneries.
From a standpoint of biodiversity, livestock production is still the predominant driver of forest loss worldwide, threatening biodiversity and ecological process and driving greenhouse gas emissions.
The production of leather is not even close to being free of fossil fuels, which typically go directly into making plastics… It requires far less oil to make PU leather directly, than cycling it through corn and then an animal's body to then arrive at one single hide. Then the tanning and finishing process commonly involves all sorts of synthetics and plastics like syntans, acrylic resins and lacquers, polyurethane resins and lacquers, and vinyls like butadiene.
Plastic microfibers and plastic debris aren't the only things killing the sea. Runoff from factory farms (the places where leather comes from) are responsible for enormous ocean dead zones… Pair that with the fact that a whopping 46% of ocean plastic debris actually comes from "enormous discarded fishing nets", making the devastation of the seafood industry far worse, especially for fish who, we now know with certainty, can feel pain.
This holiday season, we wanted to flip the Hallmark dinner party on its head.
Lights, sleigh bells, Christmas carols and trees. Picturesque merriment splashed across tvs and played over sound systems in every store.
But, let’s be honest, the holidays are stressful, angst-ridden, and anxiety-inducing.
Being stuck at a table with your politically-charged uncle, or cornered in the kitchen by your passive aggressive mother-in-law. Being charged with cooking dinner for 15 people, or buying presents for a seemingly endless list of friends and family.
The holidays are an ironic time where it’s easy to lose yourself, to get swept away in the gluttony, the merriment, the generosity, the expectations, the conflicts.
A dinner party for one was our answer to this.
Starring the amazing, angelic actress Juno Temple, our dinner party features our AW ‘19 collection with feet on the table, fruit in the vases, flowers falling over, and cigarettes being smoked. A table of no expectations, where we can wear what we want, serve tea to our imaginary friends, and leave cookies out for Santa. A table where we can break dishes, eat dessert first, and spill our wine. Harking back to a simpler time, when we lived stress-free and believed that anything was possible.
Happy Holidays. May yours be filled with wanderlust and dreams.
The place where artists go to find themselves and lose themselves. A setting for the imagination to run completely wild.
Autumn/Winter 2018 brought us both back into the studio after a creative hiatus, a much needed return to our artistic truths.
We drew inspiration from the 1960s and 70s, a distinguishing era of creativity, freedom of expression, and political activism. Through this lens we worked to capture the punk rock and bohemian spirit and style that had inspired us both for years.
We stumbled upon Austrian artist Egon Schiele’s expressive renderings of the female form, and the moody, hazy 70s photography of David Hamilton, inspiring our color palette of mustard yellows, antique browns, bone whites, and blackest navys.
We pulled architectural design elements from Irving Penn’s still life series, and were emboldened by Juergen Teller’s strong use of flash to capture his subjects.
We channeled the spirits of strong female muses like Jane Birkin, Patti Smith, and Talitha Getty in designing our three signature styles.
This season was inspired by and is dedicated to the Artist, the one that lives inside each and every one of us and can return to the studio at any time.