Inventive, creative, sustainable cool brand ‘Stuart Trevor’ launched at LFW SS24. Stewart the founder of the successful fashion brand ‘All Saints’ has created a new brand with John Vincent founder of LEON. This bold brand has a cool vibe based on the use of quality ‘dead stock’.
Stuart Trevor, “There are already far too many clothes in the
world.”
John Vincent, “We cannot continue with a food system that
poisons people and the planet.”
Stuart Trevor and John Vincent are partnering to build what
they hope is the most sustainable fashion, food and lifestyle
business, named STUART TREVOR.
“There are some mad things going on in both food and fashion,
and we would like to do whatever we can to change that.”
Stuart Trevor said: “I have been asked multiple times about
launching a new collection. I always replied , there are already
far too many clothes in the world, the last thing we need is
another clothing brand. What about a clothing brand that
doesn’t produce any clothing?”
John Vincent, “We cannot continue with a food system that
poisons people and the planet. We want to create a business
that respects the earth, that loves and uses things that would otherwise go to waste – fabrics, ingredients, people, and
property.”
They have set out to prove that you can build a clothing
business that uses existing clothes, dead stock fabric,
recycled yarn and organic cotton, linen and hemp and an ultra
seasonal food business that also makes use of ingredients that
would otherwise go to waste.
“We need a clothing brand that limits the production of new
clothing,” says Trevor, founder of All Saints.
“Creativity to me has always been all about doing more with
what we have already. The world has scarce resources, yet the
fashion industry acts as if there is an unlimited supply of
material. It’s actually a disgrace, and a disaster for our world.
As a society we produce millions of pieces of low quality
clothing, that really doesn’t bring anyone joy.
It hurts the planet, it does not serve customers and it actually
doesn’t serve the companies or their shareholders. Companies
are churning out 100 billion garments each year, in a bid to
chase revenue. So many of these companies are producing
such little profit. What’s the point?”
“These same principles apply to food’, explained Vincent, who
founded and built fast food brand LEON.
“We did alot at LEON to show that fast food could also be
good food. Good for you and good for the planet. Stuart and I
would like to work together to take this to a new level.”
Trevor and Vincent met a year ago after each announced that
they were developing their own brands focused on
sustainability.
In the case of Vincent, it was a plant-focused food business
that also did clothing and beauty products. In the case of
Trevor it was a sustainable fashion business that also did food.
‘We were both interviewed by the same newspaper, and one of
the journalists thought it would be a good idea to suggest we
meet. It was a fantastic idea on the part of the journalist. We
met for lunch and immediately hit it off. We have been dating,
in a business sense, since and decided to bring our concepts
together in one company,” explains Vincent.
Stuart Trevor added ‘We have both been keeping people up to
date about our respective plans, but we are ready to launch
the project and share the fact that we have decided to marry
the two concepts into one idea. A business that brings
together our creativity in both food and fashion.
It’s been fun being able to pool our ideas. Whilst one of us
built a business in fashion and the other in food, we have been
able to collaborate on both areas.”
The business will start online, focused initially on fashion.
The business launched on 15 September, marked by a party at
the company’s Hoxton HQ. More than 600 people attended.
Locally produced drinks were supplied by Hoxton Spirits and
Toast Ales who make their beer from discarded bread.
The designs are created from reworked vintage clothing and limited edition pieces from dead
stock fabric. Essentials are produced from recycled yarn and
GOTS certified organic cotton, linen and hemp.
“Our clothes are reworked, rebranded, cut up, distressed,
reimagined and handcrafted with care , patched, printed,
sprayed, washed and embroidered, often with a ‘less is more’
attitude.
Not only is there a huge supply of vintage clothing ready to be
given new life, there are also millions of metres of ‘dead stock’
fabric either lying around in fabric mills or ending up in landfill.
Or even worse, burned.
Until recently, this fabric was secretly burned,” explains Trevor.
“We want to turn this ‘dead stock’ into ‘living stock’.
A successful press campaign highlighted this issue and
embarrassed clothing companies who have called a halt to the
practice.”
Trevor says he can turn this fabric into clothes
that people want to buy.
Trevor started as a fashion design student in 1983, won the
Paul Smith Mont Blanc competition and The Smirnoff Fashion
awards young menswear designer of the year 1985 and aged
19 became the first designer and main buyer for REISS.
Aged 28 he founded All Saints. Many of the clothes that still
feature each week in the top 10 bestseller list of the high street
brand today were designed by Trevor himself over 20 years
ago.
“I miss All Saints. Obviously, it was my baby, I created the
perfect Rock n Roll brand and it’s still going great guns. That
best selling biker jacket started out as a vintage find and it
took over the world!” says Trevor.
“But right now I want to create something that brings the same
joy, even more pleasure to people whilst doing what’s right for
our planet,” explains Trevor.
Trevor and his team started customising vintage finds and then
began creating small quantities of reworked outerwear in
limited edition from a small factory in East London.
“People want to have more fun, rediscover the magic of
fashion, buy clothes that will last and that have the smallest
possible environmental impact. I hope we will make this
possible.
Personally I am so incredibly excited, I’ve always loved
creating something amazing from scratch, from vintage finds,
that’s always where it starts with me, from a very young age.
That was always my favourite part of the creative process.
Now it is the creative process, it was always about quality
and longevity, right from the very early days. And now, every
single person I’ve shown this new product to absolutely loves
it!”
Stuart’s business partner John Vincent also shares Stuart’s ‘green passion’ with a healthy approach to food and waste on the planet.
“There are many structural challenges with producing good
food. The big food companies know that they can make big
profits from sugary foods or foods with bad fats because they
appeal to our natural inbuilt instincts to consume energy dense
foods. We are not physically able to cope with the amount of
empty calories that we are consuming. In nature these
products were scarce and we had to scavange or hunt for
them.
They are no longer scarce. When you fill up with petrol and
walk to the till you pass about ten metres of chocolate or
confectionary,” explains Vincent.
“Easter eggs used to be for Easter. And Lent was about
restraining ourselves. Now we gorge ourselves for the whole of
Lent. Christmas Day was a feast day that we looked forward to
because it was out of the ordinary. Nowadays people just eat
like that every day.
The ‘seasonal’ supermarket aisle in December is just lots of
crap plastic decorations.
We have lost touch with the rhythms of our culture and the
rhythms of our planet…
We are also becoming increasingly aware of the damage done
by ultraprocessed foods.
Secondly, cheap processed food is not really cheap food. It is
costing the individual and the state huge amounts of money in
ill health and ultimately it is costing the planet.
We want to create a brand that makes fast food and groceries
that taste good, do you good, are kind to the planet and as
affordable as possible. We will be focused on natural
ingredients that add flavour, are good for our gut and that help
reduce inflammation and optimise nutrition.
These are the same principles on which we founded LEON. I
have another opportunity to learn from our successes and
mistakes. Let’s see what Stuart and I can achieve together.
The most important reason we wanted to work together is that
we both have surnames that sound like first names. So we are
already enjoying seeing how many people that confuses.”
The first collection was presented at an exclusive launch party
during London Fashion Week on 15 Sep at The Academy Of
Beauty & Culture, Unit 1 Academy Buildings, Fanshaw Street,
Hoxton, London, N1 6LQ
by Kim Grahame
photos: Tim Kent @timkent_photographer
For further information please email
info@stuarttrevor.com
