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Bright New Things

Autumn / Winter 2019

Our Selfridges buyers are always on the hunt for new and exciting brands that are creating products that are better for people and the planet. In the latest drop from our emerging talent initiative Bright New Things, meet the new names to know in sustainable design…

 

Charlotte Knowles - top and dress (worn as skirt)

Charlotte Knowles

Founded by Central Saint Martins graduates Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault, this London-based brand is creating a wardrobe for confident women in the digital age – “the future feminine”, as described by Knowles. Think handcrafted-meets-highly-technical pieces and deconstructed corsetry.

Made in: North London. 

Made from: All materials are from OEKO-TEX® certified Italian and Japanese mills (ie: the textiles and fabrics are free of harmful chemicals and are safe for human use). Some pieces are padded with fibres made from recycled ocean plastics, while the shearling used this season is made from reconstituted off-cuts.

Fun fact: The brand’s story began when Natasha Booth, Project Manager at influential talent incubator Fashion East, posted a photo of Charlotte’s graduate portfolio on Instagram. Charlotte messaged Natasha, and Fashion East hosted the brand’s first show.

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A lot of people don't realise that if you buy a T-shirt for £20, someone – whether it is the guy who grows the cottons or makes it into the fabric – wasn't paid. We're offering a product that is perhaps more expensive, but everyone involved was paid fairly and the mill is conscious of the environment.

 

Charlotte Knowles

Anaak - dress / styled with vintage items

Anaak

After 15 years working as Design Director at a major, corporate fashion retailer and the collapse of Rana Plaza, Bangladesh, in 2013, Marissa Maximo saw the harm of fast fashion first-hand. In 2015, she founded sustainable fashion label Anaak, creating beautiful and timeless resortwear.

Made in: Handcrafted in small batches by oft-disadvantaged female artisans in India, preserving their centuries-old artisanal techniques.

Made from: Natural fibres and eco-friendly vegetable dyes, each sourced locally to its weaver.

Fun fact: Anaak means ‘child’ in the Tagalog language – a term of endearment used by Marissa’s mother.

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Anaak

After 15 years working as Design Director at a major, corporate fashion retailer and the collapse of Rana Plaza, Bangladesh, in 2013, Marissa Maximo saw the harm of fast fashion first-hand. In 2015, she founded sustainable fashion label Anaak, creating beautiful and timeless resortwear.

Made in: Handcrafted in small batches by often-disadvantaged female artisans in India, preserving their centuries-old traditional techniques.

Made from: Natural fibres and eco-friendly vegetable dyes, each sourced locally to its weaver.

Fun fact: Anaak means “child” in the Tagalog language – a term of endearment used by Marissa’s mother.

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Anaak - dress / styled with vintage items

 

Working with natural fibres, quality materials and paying fair-wages costs more money. To reduce costs would only hurt the product and people who make them, so Anaak sells only to customers who can appreciate and align with this mission.


Marissa Maximo, Founder of Anaak

Olivia Rose - top / styled with vintage items
Olivia Rose - dress / styled with vintage items

Olivia Rose

A one-woman brand adopting a zero-waste approach to fashion, Olivia Rose designs and handmakes every single item to order, ensuring nothing is sent to landfill. The brand’s signature? The ever-so-Instagrammable, puff-sleeve blouses and dresses.

Made in: Handmade in Olivia's Edinburgh studio.

Made from: Mostly natural or dead-stock fabrics that would have otherwise have gone to landfill, as well as organic fabrics that are ethically produced in fair-wage mills.

Fun fact: Each of the brand’s designs is named after Olivia’s family and friends; the Beryl dress is a tribute to her grandmother, who taught an eight-year-old Olivia to sew.

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I hope people take from my brand a personal, romantic and timeless experience of well-made items that will make memories with you for a long time, as well as the knowledge that it was handmade with love by me.
 

Olivia Rose 

F_WD - trainers / styled with vintage items
F_WD - trainers / styled with vintage items

F_WD 

Founded by Onward Luxury Group and headed up by Footwear Designer Raphael Young (whose portfolio includes Calvin Klein, Jil Sander and Off-White), F_WD is a street-inspired, sustainable sneaker brand that seeks to “awaken people’s minds to a new era of fashion”.

Made in: Factories in Italy, Romania and Indonesia, where workers are paid a fair-living wage.

Made from: Vegan leather and recycled materials – the laces and eyelets are made from recycled fishing nets.

Fun fact: Raphael takes a hybrid approach to design, combining athletic, outdoor, street-culture, workwear, military and space-age influences.

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I’m always projecting my designs into what people will wear in the future, if we are able to face and fight the ecological issues of today.


Raphael Young, Creative Director of F_WD

Yatay - trainers / styled with vintage items

Yatay

Yatay offers pared-back trainers that blend Italian craftsmanship with highly advanced sustainably sourced materials. These are vegan kicks that deliver on style and substance.

Made in: Handmade in Italy by an artisanal producer.

Made from: Each of the 12 components uses a sustainable material, including recycled plastic bottles and recycled rubber. The laces are 100% natural hemp.

Fun fact: A tree will be planted for every pair of Yatay sold, thanks to the team at One Tree Planted.

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Yatay

Yatay offers pared-back trainers that blend Italian craftsmanship with highly advanced sustainably sourced materials. These are vegan kicks that deliver on style and substance.

Made in: Handmade in Italy by an artisanal producer.

Made from: Each of the 12 components uses a sustainable material, including recycled plastic bottles and recycled rubber. The laces are 100% natural hemp.

Fun fact: A tree will be planted for every pair of Yatay sold, thanks to the team at One Tree Planted.

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Yatay - trainers / styled with vintage items

 

Very few companies are seriously invested in sustainability, making it challenging to keep production costs down. I decided to take production in-house, so that we could impact the pricing of the shoe and make it more accessible.


Umberto de Marco, Founder and Chief Environmental Officer of Yatay

GoodWaste - mirror and clock

GoodWaste

Founded by three product-design students at the Royal College of Art, GoodWaste is a reaction to the amount of high-quality materials, such as marble, discarded on industrial sites. Its collection of furniture and decorative homeware at Selfridges –made entirely with offcuts and waste materials – formed the trio’s final MA collection.

Made in: London.

Made from: Materials sourced from industrial site skips that would otherwise be sent to landfill.

Fun fact: While finishing their MAs, the GoodWaste team would visit industrial sites “collecting as much waste material as we could manage, before pleading Uber XL drivers to take us back to school with it.”

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We want people to be critical of the objects they buy and to rethink what they consider to be ‘waste’.


Ewan Alston, Rafael Muldal El Baz and Ambra Dentella, Founders of GoodWaste

Introducing: the new collections from our current Bright New Things

Each season, we add a handful of new designers to our roster of Bright New Things. We caught up with the designers from last season to discover what their new collections have in store.

Stay Wild - swimsuit / styled with vintage items

Stay Wild

Made in London by female artisans, Stay Wild swimwear is crafted from ECONYL® – a blend of regenerated waste plastics, such as fishing nets, with other post-consumer off-cuts that would have otherwise gone to landfill. This season, a new surf-inspired swimsuit with sporty zip-up front joins the brand’s bestselling styles. The brand's ultimate goal is “to become a circular brand; one that can reclaim your old and used swimwear and turn it into new pieces down the line.”

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E.L.V. Denim - jeans and jacket / styled with vintage items

E.L.V. Denim

Designed and produced entirely in east London using unwanted vintage jeans, E.L.V Denim uses just eight litres of water, compared to a whopping 7,000 litres for the average pair of jeans. The brand’s bestselling Twin style is made from two pairs of pre-loved jeans spliced together, while new for this season is the reworked denim co-ord.

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Good News - trainers / styled with vintage items

Good News

This British footwear brand’s motto is ‘bringing the world a little bit of Good News’. From funding charitable projects (providing over 3,000 pairs of shoes to migrants and refugees arriving in Italy) to its sustainable recycled soles, we think they’re doing just that. New for this season? The organic-cotton trainers reimagined in wool, featuring statement plaid and animal prints.

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Permanent - sweatshirt, T-shirt, trousers and lanyard (coming soon) / styled with vintage belt

Permanent

Each of Permanent’s collections addresses a different environmental issue, and for AW19 the Amsterdam-based streetwear label is tackling energy consumption within the fashion industry. The 100% organic-cotton pieces, produced using renewable energy, take inspiration from science fiction, depicting a dystopian future.

Permanent AW19 is coming soon

Elliss - dress (coming soon) / styled with vintage items

Elliss

Central Saint Martins graduate Elliss Solomon creates swimwear, dresses and tops that rework classic shapes with photographic, vintage-inspired prints (all ethically produced from 100% organic cotton, of course). Our top pick this season? The dress collaged with the text 'Every Curve Has A Right Angle' – which embodies the body-confident premise of the collection.    

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A note from our stylists

This editorial shoot features vintage items sourced from Contemporary Wardrobe. With over 30,000 tonnes of clothing going to landfill every year in the UK, buying and upcycling vintage clothing is one of the best ways we can help reduce the environmental impact of what we wear.

Discover our sustainability story