After thinking a lot, I notice I don’t have a particular favorite brand. So, I’m going to talk about an exciting Brazilian brand called Noor. It started not so long ago as a small business, with the objective of you being able to create or buy different and unique pieces. The owner, Amanda, became a good friend after becoming a client, which made me love the brand more as I know most of the background and the creation of ideas. It is a small business from the south of Brazil that has small drops around the year varying different types of styles and clothes. Also, all the materials are handmade by a local producer; Noor is also linked to her homemade silk company, making it all more interesting. Amanda designs with you special productions of pieces you want to create as well; for example, most of my dresses are made specifically for me, in my measures and style.
Founded in 1961, Yves Saint Laurent is one of the most prominent fashion houses of the 20th century.
Handsome, sexy and willful.
I enjoy his simple, clean lines. The way Saint Laurent blurs the gender-specific design and the way he empowered individual style while creating a scissor-sharp aesthetic of voluptuous ease and beauty.
My favourite fashion brand is an independent East-London based ethically sourced streetwear brand called Named Collective. The fast growing brand features their distinctive and striking designs on tracksuits, making street-wear look high fashion all the while comfy. However, the work behind the scenes is what establishes Named Collective as my favourite brand, as they are avidly helping contribute to less waste wear and greenhouse emissions through use of biodegradable packaging and ethically sourced materials.
Named Collective was established in 2020 possessing a heavy social media presence now with over 350,000 followers. They actively promote their brand through campaigns collaborating with social media influencers promoting slogans such as ‘it’s nice 2 b cool but it’s cool 2 b nice’. Their active stance on social media provides them with a fresh outlook on social issues, actively communicating with their consumers and accommodating their needs through their clothing drops and social engagement, actively participating in movements.
Named Collective’s distinctive designs are bio-degradable and cruelty-free, conveying to other brands that smaller less established brands can have a detrimental impact in reducing greenhouse gases and wastewater. Named Collective’s stance in sustainability is what contributes to it being my favourite brand, being that the fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of CO2 emissions. Seeing a small independent London-based brand like Named Collective possess a social and ethical promise conveys how high quality streetwear can be ethical, even in small independent businesses.
The brand is very vocal about its social stance, featuring on their website their position In social and ethical responsibility, ‘Our garment bags are made out of compostable cornstarch rather than plastic and can be discarded with green waste to decompose naturally. Our mail bags are fully biodegradable and designed to degrade after they have served their use, leaving no harmful residue behind. These can be recycled with your usual plastic waste! All of our clothing is made in limited runs and small batches to ensure no excess stock ever goes to landfill. We endeavour to create high quality, beautifully made garments designed to last.’
Therefore, it is clear to see why Named Collective is my favourite brand due to its inclusivity and heavy involvement in social and ethical issues, communicating heavily with its consumers’ wants and needs. Also their sustainable approach conveys their concern for the planet’s future, acknowledging more needs to be done,‘We are currently working with our manufacturing partners to move towards using solely organic cottons and recycled composition fabrics- something we’ll be sharing more about very, very soon!’
Parsons graduate Alexa Elkaim began embarked on her journey with the aim to create ‘the perfect pair of pants’. Inspired by her love of vintage clothing, she created an alternative to the standard five-pocket denim jeans. Since then, the LA-based designer chose to capitalize on the success of her design and expanded into new categories, leading to the launch of Miaou in 2017. Since then, major celebrity influences such as Emily Ratajowski, Alexa Demie, and Gigi Hadid have become constant consumers of her brand. With her love of vintage clothing and sustainability still in mind, her brand aims to uphold a common set of principles for ethics, social responsibility, and environmental protection. They contribute at least 1% of their annual sales to their mission of funding collective environmental organisations dedicated to the environment. They manage to cater to current trends whilst maintaining a sustainable image, hence the brand’s sudden yet well-deserved popularity.
My favourite fashion brand is Ader Error, it is a unisex brand from South Korea. The products of Ader Error colourful and playful. The reason why I like this brand is because it is innovative and creative – it always launch projects that keep the brand fascinating and attractive. For example, it collaborated with Maison Kitsune, Zara, EastPak. The collaboration with Zara has even drew a lot of people’s attention.
My favourite brand this season is Maharishi. Founded in 1994, () Maharishi combines a technical streetwear look with sustainability and durability. The brand aesthetic is reminiscent of the milliatant 90s streetwear look which has been reincarnated as 2022’s gorpcore tech wear tendencies. Set off by beautiful embroidery and infused with south east asian influence, the products themselves boast a timeless yet recognisable look. The brands only but unforgivable flaw is that it dropped it’s womenswear range in 2003 after the brand lost credibility. Hopefully following the brands reinvention, this line will be expanded.
Prada, an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913, showcasing simplicity and elegance through timeless fashion pieces. I believe that fashion brands should not necessarily be outrageous nor expensive to be titled as luxury. Prada stands for top quality and that is exactly why it has become one of the biggest luxury brands in the world. I am very fond of how the brand sticks to its roots by repurposing ideas from past time periods. For instance, the iconic and extremely popular off the shoulder nylon handbag has made a return from the early 2000s and modernized to appeal to today’s consumer. The effortless but creative time travel makes it easy for the customer to experience the best of both worlds – classic and trendy.
Djerf Avenue is a family run business which gained popularity swiftly after its launch in 2019. This is largely due to Matilda Djerf, a Swedish influencer who’s signature style of comfortable and chic streetwear was made accessible to her followers through the brand. For example, a piece often seen on Matilda Djerfs’ instagram long before she launched her brand was a multi coloured headband (See Fig 1). Due to the popularity of this piece, Matilda added a slightly altered version of the headband to her first online collection (See Fig 2). Thus Djerf Avenue is clearly a carefully curated collection of timeless pieces true to Matilda Djerfs’ personal style, bringing comfort and convenience to her followers rather than an attempt for her to simply capitalise off her reputation.
Fig 1: Matilda Djerf wearing her original headband in 2017.Fig 2: A slightly altered version for sale on Djerf Avenue.
“For us, sustainability is the number one aspect to have in mind when working with fashion and garment production”
(About Us – DjerfAvenue.com)
Each piece is made ethically in either Sweden or Portugal, Portugal being chosen for its high quality craftsmanship and tight laws regarding fair labor laws and good working conditions. The sustainable focus of Djerf Avenue makes its particularly appealing to many people, including me. As we as a society are being made more aware of the repercussions of fast fashion, more thought is going into what we buy. Hence, sustainable brands are becoming more popular and achieving hight levels of growth in sales. The launch of this brand also comes at a time where timeless pieces with a long product lifecycle are favoured by many consumers due many countries facing recession, and the threat of global recession.
Founded in Italy in the 80s, Brandy Melville is an affordable clothing and accessories store targeted at young girls. Moving into California, they adopted a university style, west coast aesthetic featuring quality basics and graphics. They controversially only offer their clothing in one size range.
