best-wardrobes-in-britain

What have you been investing in or buying more of personally? I have always loved Jacquemus before I founded the app—I wore it to my civil ceremony. He had such a moment after his Provence show, and I really like the designs, and they do really well on the app, so it makes me feel less guilty when buying a dress. I am now more confident buying designer investment pieces, so I bought two Jacquemus dresses recently. Are you noticing more people are starting to rent? It has been intense and insane, and we have been doing rentals three times the volumes we projected. Ever since the beginning of April and restaurants opening, people started making a lot of bookings, and women were saying, “This app has changed the way I buy things.” I am definitely encouraging people to really dress up aga...

So tell us more about how you invented the Gaia print and your inspiration behind it? We did that with a Nigerian woman called Adebusola Ekoko, from a print company called Grapes Pattern Bank, and I sent her a mood board and we started by discussing colours. She said she found my voice very fluid. So that was what inspired her to come up with the Gaia. When I first came up with it it was actually very different, I just knew I wanted lots of colours and brightness. It only took a few weeks of back and forth as she really understood my vision. It’s definitely our best selling product, and it’s frustrating that everyone has copied it because then it looks like I was just playing into a trend, and so now I’m figuring out what we do. It’s become what our brand is known for, as even our pa...

Then you’ve turned your business more into studio hire and event production. Tell me about that. We started doing more event production and naturally started doing more set design. My love of interior design just came from the sheer amount of events we had to style and create from scratch in these blank-canvas locations. I got really, really into furniture and started sourcing more and more pieces, and learning about different designers, so as I developed each space it became more and more refined and I felt like I was really finding my design voice. It got to a point where we didn’t want to rent furniture for our events anymore and started to purchase them instead. Eventually, we got a space in Leyton to be our storage and office, but I decided to lay it out in situ and then p...

When did you set up your own company? I worked with Threads for two and a half years, and then I set up my own company afterwards. I was ready for something different and to do something on my own. I wanted it to be boutique, small and bespoke. We do full wardrobe refreshes and then we also create seasonal wardrobes for our clients, do styling edits and source any pieces they are after. We also resell our clients’ pieces, so that we are also circulating that fashion. It’s amazing to be able to offer that service so we can take pieces off their hands, and then we put a small percentage to charity. Have you learned a lot about your own style by clearing other people’s wardrobes? ‘Oh my gosh! I did not have style at all—if you saw my photos in college it is hilarious. I also didn’...

Do you buy a lot of vintage clothing or mainly secondhand interiors? ‘I have a few trophy pieces, like a Dior jacket, that I have as a beautiful piece of art almost, and I buy vintage tweed jackets and waistcoats. My autumn winter clothes tend to be more vintage, as I wear mens clothes in winter and a lot of vintage tailoring.’ Where do you shop the most? ‘I have found so many brands from being on Instagram, and I’m finding lots of little niche slow fashion brands, like Cabbages and Roses, Son de Flor and Little Women Atelier. I still have fun shopping, but I know myself very well now so it’s very rare that I will send anything back. I don’t buy lots, and when I buy things, I know exactly what I like. I don’t want to wear a new dress every time I take a photogra...

As an influencer, do you feel conscious of that and not promoting people wanting to buy more? I tend to not care what people think, and I have that attitude. I see it as my place to be me. If you want to be part of it, join and be part of my family, but I don’t feel like we should be worried about the pressure of everybody overthinking things. I treasure my clothes so much, and as I’m from a textile background I am so particular about the fabric and will really check every detail when I’m shopping, such as the quality of the seams. Because of that, I want to make sure I’m buying and wearing things again and again. Also because I make clothes too, I really appreciate how long it takes to make a garment—one of my dresses took me three days to make. So when you think o...