Stuart Trevor, the founder of AllSaints and Bolongaro Trevo, and the head designer/buyer in the early days at Reiss, has set out to build the world’s most sustainable brand – and Green Retail World went to see what it’s all about.
The eponymous brand, Stuart Trevor, is run from a loft apartment-style building in Fanshaw Street in Hoxton, east London, and comprises a kaleidoscopic range of clothes created from recycled garments or dead stock fabric. It’s a clothing company that doesn’t and will not produce any new clothes – it is solely relying on using material that already exists.
The mission is to create compelling products from others’ waste, to make it easier and more fun to buy sustainable fashion, and to wear what Trevor describes as “non-destructive clothing” which flies in the face of a lot of the fast fashion currently on the market.
Trevor, who founded AllSaints in 1994 and sold his stake in the business in 2005 partly due to a disagreement with the then majority shareholder about not wanting to shift all production to China, tells us people in the fashion industry have raised eyebrows at the scalability of his new venture. But he is adamant there’s a huge supply of unwanted or unsold garments and vintage clothing ready to be given new life with his unique designer’s touch, not to mention the millions of metres of dead stock fabric lying around in mills ready to be saved from landfill.
“Industry people ask ‘where are you going to get the stock from?’, and I say ‘are you f*****g joking, mate, what are you on about?’,” Trevor explains.
“In any business they’ve ever worked in, they’ve got more clothing than anyone knows what to do with. The last thing I need to worry about is where I’m getting clothes from.”
After launching in autumn 2023 via a spontaneous social media post that spawned a launch party attracting circa 750 people into the narrow streets of Hoxton, Stuart Trevor has gone from selling “a couple of hundred” items in year one to 1,200 in year two. It’s an online business served by the east London unit, but people can book in-person fittings and visits, and the founder is ambitious and confident in the scalability of the venture.
“If I can’t build this into a $1 billion business, I will have failed,” he says.
“I want every young kid on the planet to come and buy something that already exists, from here. People don’t want a brand new jacket, they want a vintage one.”
Trevor says “the future is in the kids”.
“It’s all about the next generation and this how you build a global brand – work out what the next generation want. In my sincere heart of hearts, I think they want to live on a planet that isn’t messed up by us. The only way of doing this is to stop the conspicuous consumption and overproduction.”
He’s targeted the youth market before and knows what that leads to.
“How did I make AllSaints a huge success? When I started opening shops in big cities, I sent kids out to local colleges, cafes, and the cool clubs, and invited them to launch nights. They were all 18 and bought the odd belt or T-shirt, but within three years they were in £30,000-£50,000 jobs, and where did they go with their first pay packet? AllSaints.
“That’s how AllSaints went from a £2 million to a £20 million business in a five-year period.”
As for the Hoxton site, Trevor is keen to make it a creative hub. He invites artists and musicians to use the space, and allows start-ups and sustainability-minded businesses in to host their meetings.
“I wanted to replicate Andy Warhol’s Factory but without the heroin,” he states.
“It’s about bringing everyone under one roof to create a community.”
The garments, which span mens and womenswear and range from T-shirts to jackets to dresses and trousers, are “walking works of art”, according to Trevor.
“People come here and are completely gobsmacked as most of the items don’t look vintage – it is curated and every single garment is re-labelled with a ST label and given an ST David Bowie lightening bolt-inspired patch. They each have a tailoring label I sign and date, and the name of the person who orders it goes on it.”
Stuart Trevor gear can be found in The Cirkel pop-up fashion space in London Marylebone, but aside from that the stock is held in east London. The “ridiculous” business rates and rents hold Trevor back from opening up in central London any time soon, but a vintage department store is all part of the grand vision for the brand.
“We could already fill a 10,000 sq ft retail space and it would look beautiful,” the AllSaints founder argues.
Reflecting on the launch party back in 2023, Trevor talks about how he had to hire security, position the speakers by the windows so the masses that turned up could be part of the event. Drinks were being served to visitors inside and outside.
His fondness for punk, the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren, and Vivien Westwood shines through in his reference points, and it’s clear he’s up for disrupting the status quo in his current venture. As we talk, he’s wearing a T-shirt that depicts a famous quote from a 1976 NME interview with Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones: “We’re not into music we’re into chaos.”
“I was walking around the launch party with the blinkers on thinking this is complete chaos,” Trevor reflects. “But I don’t mind a bit of chaos.”
Green Retail World editor, Ben Sillitoe, is set to interview Stuart Trevor live on stage at this year’s Retail Technology Show (RTS) to find out more about the sustainable fashion venture and his career in fashion. The session with Trevor takes place in the sustainability stream of the conference on the morning of Thursday 3 April, but RTS runs for two full days between 2-3 April at London’s Excel.
[image credits: Green Retail World]
