How I Built AllSaints From Scratch | Stuart Trevor (Founder Story)

17:53Stuart Trevor:um went to nottingham did a paul smith montblanc competition um and uh sorry paul smith montblanc as a paint company. Paul Smith did a competition wear and I made two suits. They were, basically I was taking the idea of taking the inside of a, you know, with the lining and putting it on the outside and I did a Levi jacket with the pockets with the little, and I put that on the outside of a suit. Yeah. And I made these suits and Paul Smith, you know, loved them and offered me an internship to come and work with him. What was that like for you? getting i never i never i never did it because i also i want to pull a smirnoff fashion awards and it was at the royal level hall presented by vivie westwood and naomi campbell i won men's wear day section i remember you know applying for it and making this outfit it was on the runway i never thought for one minute i was going to win it um my uh they they i think they said to me the day before we had to go down to London for the final and they said oh do you want to invite your mum and your dad and whatever and I went oh well I hadn't even thought about that so I got them tickets but they were way up in the gods because I'd only asked for the very last week the whole elbow was full you know 10 ,000 people however many people it fits so you'd already got an opportunity with Paul Smith at this point I had from the competition and then you didn't do another one and then I won this wow and that was quite funny the reason I've told you but because when they announced and the winner is Stuart Trevor and I just sat there and all the kids and all I could hear was that's me son screaming her head off at the top my mum at the top of the Royal Abba Hall going I knew he'd win and all this and it's kind of like

19:41Olly Fawcett:I was like oh god that must have been a pretty overwhelming moment no? yeah because I just you know I've never I don't think I've ever won anything in my life and then was there any like valid I mean for you it feels like you've been very confident in your art and your work you know you've had that direction but you saw me so far to this point was there at all winning that and winning the paul smith element did that give you like a certain level of confidence or overconfidence at all yeah i always had it anyway right even as a young or validation maybe like you you're being there must be elements of that right you know obviously

20:12Stuart Trevor:all that yeah that's that's all yeah 100 i mean i was as i was not i think it's just the adhd i As a young kid, you just have no fear, do you? And I never thought about it. I've never thought about any of it. I never thought All Saints was going to be a global brand. I never thought that, you know. So what happened was the Savannah Fashion Awards was televised, and David Rees, the owner of Rees on King's Road, just up the road from here, he rang the college about 14 times and made me, basically, the head of faculty said, you've got to bring this guy back. and I went, I don't want to work for him.

20:50Stuart Trevor:I've got a job of Paul Smith. And they were like, you have to go and see him. So I rang him and he said, oh, listen, I'll pay for a ticket, train to come down to London and I'll put you up in a hotel and all. And I went to see him and I arrived at the King's Road and this is around 1984 or something, and the King's Road was the epicentre of Caw. It was the most stylish place probably in the world. and his shop was the busiest store. There was maybe 500 people in there buying, queuing up at the till. He came down. I was like, God, I should take this seriously. It's much, Paul Smith had a tiny little shop

21:27Olly Fawcett:about the size of this room in Nottingham and one in Covent Garden. It was, you know, this was a serious business.

21:35Stuart Trevor:And so I laid out these Paul Smith, Stuart Trevor, Paul Smith suits that I'd made. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just handed me an envelope. This is David Rees. And I opened it up. I thought, what's this? He goes, open it, open it. And I opened it up and there's about 500 quid in it and an airplane ticket. And I'm like, what's this? And he went, so next week is the world's number one menswear fair, Pittiwobo in Florence in Italy. And you're coming with me. And I'm going to take you to the fair. And we're going to take you around all the best designer stores in the world. You're going to stay in the best hotel in the world.

22:12Stuart Trevor:And we're going to eat in the best restaurants in the world. and then I'm going to take you to the best fabric mills in the world and you're going to choose fabrics and then take them to my factories that are producing for all the best designers in the world. You're going to design stuff and it's going to be in the shop in about a month. Fucking hell. And I went, wow. And all I could think was, what am I going to tell Paul Smith? And I looked at him and he went, and the good thing is you don't have to tell Paul Smith. And I went, oh, actually, yeah, you're right. So I went, okay, I'll go. so I went did you never tell Paul Smith no I had to go back and tell well I went back to see Paul Smith because this guy offered me basically 50 quid a day if I would come in yeah and Paul Smith didn't have any money and basically said I can't pay you over the summer yeah and I went oh alright then I'll see you later and I went and started doing every Friday and Saturday for Rees and then every Easter holiday summer holiday you know I basically i was the first ever designer at reese uh working directly with david reese yeah flying over to italy for for easter going around all the fabric mills going to all the factories going to the shows whole process you didn't just see the design process i just he just basically threw me at the deep end and said right you go on then what do you want to do with that fabric and i'd be like you've got any bomber jackets why don't we do a bomber you know and he would like go on then so we put bomber jackets in reese and they bombed you know they bombed out and um loads of their hoodie but no one had hoodies in the mid 80s it didn't exist in the uk that's not a thing no and um there was a tutor an external tutor in um nottingham that came to um you know teach it at that at the yeah and he used to wear a vintage hoodie that he bought in america it was a vintage levi's one and i had to describe this to david reese um so so so it's like a cardigan but it has a zip and it but it doesn't have a collar it's got like a hood and it has little strings and then and it's knitted fabric but it's not anywhere it's like a sweatshirt but it has sort of ribbed like knitted cuffs and a little sore pocket on it and he was going oh so you know i was describing this and then when we went to this was on the on the plane to italy when we went around all the shops, hoodies were the big thing.

24:37Stuart Trevor:Oh, really? All the designers had launched, yeah. And he was like, the boys are geniuses. So I ended up just getting free reign. So at 18 years old, I was designing and producing collections for Rees. Before that, it was a suit company, really, that bought in from other brands, from Italian designers. And I put together the whole Rees concept or whatever. and he basically had everything I mean he'd start off doing like one hoodie you'd order like a couple of hundred or whatever they'd sell out in a week and then he'd be like

25:13Olly Fawcett:whatever you want just do whatever you want and did you start to have a team being built around you or was it still started and right taken on yeah assisted was there any sort of weirdness around how younger you were and how the team around you what was that like he kept employing

25:29Stuart Trevor:people that were older than me right and trying to put them in and in charge of me but of course there's no way they could tell me what to do because i've got super adhd yeah and and they would they would confide in me and go like listen he's you know people that were working at paul smith would be would be employed and poached to come there to relieve the men you know which they were competing quite a lot then back in the day well no because they would just go i can't compete with you you need i'll just be here and i'll put anything you want into work so um and it was kind of funny like that and then what would happen is after a couple of months or six months he would get rid of them because he realized that you know why am I paying this geezer you know 40 grand a year and I've got this kid yeah he's doing everything

26:14Olly Fawcett:you know so what was the um what was the biggest lesson for you working with him he was really I

26:19Stuart Trevor:mean it went the business went through the administration and then it became you know huge success and you know I um we met these guys that were doing really amazing silk shirts out of Hong Kong and I said to David Wright I'm booking flights to Hong Kong and he went don't be stupid these factories won't make for us they want a huge quant and I went David we'll go to Hong Kong I want to find out where these shirts are made and I want to make bomber jackets and parkas out of here and we got booked the flights went to Hong Kong and um I was kind of we're in a hotel room I had no idea what to get and he said what what do we do now and I went we'll get the phone book out and I started looking under silk and it has in the Hong Kong phone directory back there that silk factories and it said something about the Hong Kong Trade Development Council so I rang them up and they said yeah come and see us we went there they gave us a list of people that made for Ralph Lauren and I think Jigsaw was a big making silk parkas and things like that for women I wanted to do things like that for men so they said oh yeah this factory in North Hong Kong at one of the new territories.

27:28Stuart Trevor:They make all the jigsaw production. So you've got a taxi, went there, in this sort of derelict industrial dump. And you come out of the town, David's going, don't be stupid. Who the hell have you taken in? I'm like, David, he says here. You get in the lift and you go up to the 26th floor and the door's open and there's this marble glass and stainless chrome. And you walk in and they're like, oh, hi. and they've got all the Ralph the Rings collection, the Jigsaw collection, the Donna Karan. And we basically started making all this stuff there. And yeah, just all of it just happened to kind of serendipitously.

28:15Olly Fawcett:Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. What did he teach you though?

28:18Stuart Trevor:Like looking back now? Drive, determination. Right. Whatever happens that you don't give up. if you know um but a lot of that was me just me because i would i just never i didn't have any sort of cut off point i just just always thought well i'm going to home you know there's no way you can do it and i'm going and we would go and do it and and and that was things i that's how things happened but he basically allowed me and so in my business life since then i think it's really important to listen to you know the younger generation and listen to other people and ask their opinion that i used to get in trouble with us a lot at all saints where i'd have assistant designers and i would would be in a buy meeting and we couldn't couldn't decide which leather jacket to buy and i'd ask the cleaner and they would get really mad and they'd go why are you asking the cleaner you know we you know i haven't done a degree atst martin's for nothing and i went yeah that's the problem mate you're all fromst martin's and she yeah is a normal human being i want to

29:22Olly Fawcett:know what someone who hasn't been atst martin's likes yeah so um yeah i think that exposure to other people's opinions is important yeah it's really important because we're not all you know all the customers are not allst martin's graduates no totally so you worked at reese till 19 20 28 28 i was there from 18 to 28 yeah wow and then 10 busy years yeah yeah and then what made you what made you want to leave well um i i don't know i just i had i wanted to do my own brand i'd been

29:54Stuart Trevor:offered several different roles i've been offered a job at joseph was the buyer but i didn't you know but i ended up giving getting my made the job and he ended up traveling around the world buying from you know helbert lang and all the coolest designers in the world and and i was kind of jealous of that But I wasn't, I knew that for some reason I had it in my head, if I ever do anything, it's going to be under my own thing. And one of the factories in Hong Kong that we had been doing all the production with came to me and said, oh, listen, we've got a 10 million pound order book and we're going to give you a 10 % commission if you become our agent and look after the UK.

30:33And I was like, a million quid.

30:35Stuart Trevor:That's big money, no? I was like, if you've got that much money, I've got a business plan. and I showed them the plan for All Saints. So they went away and they came back a couple of months later and basically on the day that they told me that they were going to fund my own label, I also got given a job, offered a job in New York with a company called Club Monaco. They were Canadian and when I went to the interview, I said, if you want to be a global brand, you need to open a retail design office in New York. I'm not moving to Toronto. If you open an office in New York, I'll move there. They rang me on the same day and say, you've got the job.

31:19Stuart Trevor:We've found premises in New York and we're going to, and I went, oh, fucking hell. And I said, I've been offered to do my own label. And the guy went, you know what, Stuart, take the offer because you know what, if you come and work for me, you know all you'll ever think is like i wish i'd done my own label and it was great advice so that was one of the best fair advice as well yeah really fair advice i made him about 10 years later this year joe of minbrand i met him in paris at previa vision fabric fair he came walking away went store my god you look at all sayings by that point was rocking yeah so he was like i'm so proud of you man and all this it was i mean that was quite a sweep yeah i also met paul smith uh shortly after i met him when i started reese at this fabric fair in paris and he was on a fabric booth and he was like stewart what are you doing here and i went uh i'm working he went where and i looked nodded at david reese and he just looked at me because they were arch rivals yeah um and then when i launched all scenes i saw paul smith at this fabric fair 10 years later whatever and he came walking all the way over and tapped me on the back i turned around and went congratulations mate good luck and well so that was very good that was really sweet yeah yeah really nice so

32:36Olly Fawcett:taking the jump to launch all saints so you'd obviously been a part of reese when it'd been through so much in 10 years yeah where did you start with it came to all saints what was the first step you think you took to starting that brand i know you've got the manufacturer and you got the partnerships in place but like what's day one well day one so you so you need this you know

32:54Stuart Trevor:from zero you've got to find premises to the design studio and i had a friend of mine who was ex part uh external tutor from nottingham she had a um a big loft space in shoreditch nice on worship street i'd already worked out that i was going to call it all saints right uh because my initials atst like simon templar the same the roger moore character um yeah i'm doing that because he drove a Volvo P1800. I bought one when I was 20, drove it around London, still got it. And everybody used to go, yeah, it's getting a major respray at the moment. Awesome. And it's the most beautiful car. If you get a clip of the car.

33:35Stuart Trevor:Yeah, definitely. It's the most beautiful car. And everybody used to call me the Saint. So I'd had a list of names like the Saint, Mr. Saint, ST, you know, I had all these. And when I was on Notting Hill Carnival one day, I looked up, it was All Saints. That's good. That's, that, that, Ryan's, you know, if you say, well, where's your jacket from All Saints? It's better than Mr. Saint or the Saint or whatever. So I registered that name, but then I got told that the NFL have the New Orleans Saints. You're not going to get it. So I found out that the NFL have an office in London, contacted them, went to see them, showed them the port with a guy, went, yeah, I love what you're doing.

34:16Stuart Trevor:As long as you don't do American football shirts, you gotta go ahead from me so i said all right could you can i get that in writing and he went yeah yeah i'll send it my secretary and i would do you mind if i see you while she types it i wasn't going to leave the room just in case he changes mind well yeah you never know yeah so uh the dance signed it gave it to me we were oh mad you know and um so and then you so then you sit down in an empty room so i was in the corner of this huge derelict loft that this tutor had her collection Italian collection that she designed right within six months she was in the corner and I was it was my collection that was there I sat down and I so I had been buying vintage military sort of pieces like bomber jacket like this right a flak jacket parka um flak you know what they call cargo pants and I was wanting to limit it to a certain amount of fabrics so i had i had a nylon like this i had moleskin cotton moleskin and wall flannel and i basically did the bomber jacket in nylon moleskin wall flannel right the parka nylon moleskin and i

35:30Olly Fawcett:did and then i did knitwear of i chose two yarns and i put it is that from like a business decision as well as a star decision because you knew you could get the fabrics and make that stretch i knew

35:39Stuart Trevor:that I would be able to meet the minimums if I had seven styles in one fabric. And I didn't know whether nylon was going to be successful. No one really wore nylon. But Prada had just come out with the Prada rucksack. This was in 1994. It was the hottest thing in the world. But it was mainly a rucksack. But I loved it. I thought, I'm going to do a whole range in nylon, the Prada nylon. So we did. No one else had done it. max parkas bobber jackets you know field jackets cargo pads and we set it up in we did paris fashion week set it all up and i didn't have any money so i just banged a nail in the wall and put a hanger on it and a hand hung a bobber jacket with a scarf and the cargo pants underneath and i'd and i'd i'd got a guy contacted me and said oh i urge you're doing your own collection i can make really great boots so i made boots and i put them underneath so we had like eight outfits all lined up and i left on i think it was like a friday night it was like we you know you set up on the friday and then the first day is on the saturday we about 11 o 'clock at night that people are kicking us out with me and two two brothers called dean and dan kato they were they were launching the following day the day that i launched all saints they were d squared and they were opposite me but then we both got kicked out we remember walking to the security guards taking us to the exit going you know you don't miss you miss you you have to you know you have to leave you have to yeah um so we were just going oh well tomorrow's another day good luck and shook hands and we let the following day oh my god there were queues of people trying to get on our booth queues of people trying to get on these everyone else was dead we wow we were

37:26Olly Fawcett:wasn't much hype about what you were launching because obviously in the fashion world 10 years with reese like people knew you right british designers fine but in terms of like a wider audience was it was that a bit of a shock to the people going to that to that fair because they didn't know you're going to be there like what was the position yeah i didn't actually so i

37:45Stuart Trevor:with reese yeah people don't even know this but back then i launched reese as a an international wholesale brand and we sold it to barney's new york saxophon avenue um selfridges harrods harvey Nichols so all the buyers from there but I actually didn't contact them then because there was no you know social media right I I had their telephone number and and I did have a fax machine so it was you know you used to have to but I just thought you know what I'll go to Paris they'll all be there and it'll be a nice surprise right and I know some of the kids that my assistants that used to work for me at Reese were on the stand with David Reese and of course these buyers are japanese and the americans said come on and go where's the kid where where is he where is you know where's the man are you cool with david at this point i am no i wasn't then oh you weren't oh so you didn't even get sucked he was he said he's dead he's dead they were like

38:46Stuart Trevor:yeah he's dead he's dead he's like you know and um then the guys you know i had no idea this was going on yeah he told me that that night got it but the other guys came around and was still like the americans gonna start my dad he told me you're dead like this and i went no i said i'm dead to it and uh why was that do you want me asking a competition right he didn't want he when i told him i was going to leave actually we had a bit of a the action grab me put it through me he was flip he wanted he was fuming because he thought i was going to try and i went david i'm just trying I'm just a kid.

39:26Stuart Trevor:I want to do, you did your own business. I want to do mine. Please. Do you think he didn't understand that at the time? He just thought I was going to try and put him out of business. Right. But the problem with, problem with, at that point was, he was 100 % reliable on me. Right. I ran everything to do with design. So he was worrying. You know, he was just concerned what's going to happen to the business. He was just worried, how am I going to replace this kid? And I think they employed something like six people after all. I'm just saying,

39:54Olly Fawcett:it was kind of i get it yeah yeah so so you you get there in the morning and there's crowds everywhere yeah that must have been a nice feeling it was unreal the funniest thing was

40:03Stuart Trevor:there was a woman there was a buyer for one of the big department stores and i she was waving at me from the back of the crowd and i was thinking oh god my mom's told one of her mates and i you know and and i and and when and i just went sorry go you know you'll have to um i said i'll see you later and and i i was opposite french connection and the guy that owned french steven marx was there and i saw him laughing and my mate worked for him and he told me afterwards that he was going steve was going look at that guy's a fucking idiot he's told harris of fraser to to do one you know the guy's an idiot he's never going to get anywhere and of course she came back at the end of the day and then by that point i'd realized it was harris of fraser she came on the standard wrote a half a million pound order so it was how much did you do in orders in that debt 1.2 million

40:52Olly Fawcett:Which, for context... 1994. But that doesn't happen. No, never. No one ever does anything like that. How much would that be now?

41:01Stuart Trevor:Five million, some of that. I don't think we did it all on that day.

41:06Olly Fawcett:No, but at that event. At that event, probably at the event,

41:10Stuart Trevor:probably about half a million. But there were people like, she sat down and wrote the order, and how they did it is they write down an order, and they go, right, okay. And this has happened quite a lot. They'd write the order and you'd think, well, it's not a bad order, 10 grand. Yeah. And they'd go, but we've got 14 shops. So times that by 14. So you're like, oh, fucking hell, 140 grand.

41:31Olly Fawcett:Okay, great. But what are you thinking in that point? Because at this point, you're bootstrapping it, right? Well, no, I had the Chinese production company. So they were going to fund it.

41:39Stuart Trevor:But they completely jid themselves because they were like, how are we going to fund this? So they had to go to the Chinese bank and they borrowed money against property, you know, that they owned in Hong Kong. And then, so there was another part leads on to another story that in 1997, Hong Kong went back to the Chinese. Yes. So property prices devalued by 50%. So Hong Kong called in the loans and I was doing about 4 million, 5 million turnover.

42:12Olly Fawcett:Wow. In 1997. Yeah. Wow.

42:14Stuart Trevor:And all of a sudden they wanted a million quid off me. We were like, I'm running everything. Even though they're partners in the business, they knew. They were like, you can't pay anyone. I'm like, well, the only people I pay are you, HMRC, the factories and the fabric mills and the staff. And he goes, you can't pay any of them. Just pay your auto. And I'm like, I can't. So I went for business advice. I didn't realize that business advisors basically means insolvency practitioners. They said, basically, you're insolvent. If they're going to make you pay them the money, number one, it's illegal.

42:52Stuart Trevor:It's preferential payment. And number two, you're insolvent. So, you know, and I didn't know what to do. But at that period, the guy that used to be the retail director at Rees, he had fallen out with David. And he, David Rees. and he came to me and he opened, he wanted to open franchise All Saints stores. He was in Birmingham. So we opened an All Saints store under franchise with this guy in Birmingham. And so when the Chinese, when I was up with the problem with the Chinese and we had to liquidate the business, it was around 2000, he said, well, I'll raise some money and you and I will work together.

43:33Stuart Trevor:How do you feel about that? Probably. me and uh and i went yeah great he came to me he went right what do i'd like to do these i'd like to do the accounts and deal with the staff and looking after the reader and i was thinking all the bits that i fucking hate i went yeah great yeah go on then and he came to me about a year later and he went yeah i'm fucking good yeah no didn't you because he basically he was doing all the shit jobs and i was you know designing collections yeah yeah how did you start to build that team in those early stages we'd like how we there was obviously quite a few people when

44:09Olly Fawcett:you're getting those big orders coming through right building your team was quite in the very

44:12Stuart Trevor:very beginning it was just me and then the funniest stuff was there was a girl so i used to go fly backwards and forwards to hong kong and the ground staff at ba uh used to greet me and uh one of them said i'm moving back to london and i'm looking for a job i went oh you can come and work for me So she came and was the first employee. She started, you know, and this was hilarious. You know, computers didn't exist back then in 1994. So we had a big old ledger and every page we had, you know, bomber jacket, nylon, colours, black, khaki, sizes, small, medium, large, extra large, Selfridges, 10, 20, 20, 10, 10, small, 10, 20, medium, 20, like harvey nichols five ten ten we had to do all that i can't do all she did all that so yeah so then we would collate all the orders everything done manually like in an old legend i kept these books for years because they were i used to put the little swatches of fabric in them and i used to i mean it was really really beautiful i used to keep a record of all the fabric swatches that i wanted to buy and then the ones that i did buy and put the collection you know and um but yeah there was one member of staff and then when i realized that that we had to get the production and then i needed a sales guy so i rang up somebody that i knew that a family friend that was working for armani or something and and and he came and he started doing the sales and yeah so you just built it was all every do you know what virtually every person i've ever employed is word of mouth i don't i've never used a hr what are they called like a indeed or a linkedin

45:52Olly Fawcett:or whatever like that. No, that didn't exist. Of course, yeah.

45:55Stuart Trevor:So it was, but no, it used to be recruitment firms. Yes, yes. Everybody used them, but I never trusted them actually. Now I know recruitment. I know people that run those sort of business. Well, they hire people and they sign you up and they get you a job. And two years later, they wing you on and go off quite another job. Yeah, that's where I was. People use that.

46:15Olly Fawcett:Yeah, totally.

46:16Stuart Trevor:I never ever did any of that. I just, everything was word of mouth. It was I'd meet people. They would ask me, I'd love to work with you. And I'll just make a note of it in my book. And then, you know, a year later, I'd be like, oh, hello. Remember me?

46:29Olly Fawcett:And that's it. In the early 2000s. So once you got through that kind of difficult time with all the finances and those elements and all the things at this point is really flying, right? There's a couple of years of it really starting to kick off in the early 2000s. What was driving that?

46:44Stuart Trevor:Just so we decided that we would stop the wholesale, that we would concentrate on retail because I had three stores. This partner had the one in Birmingham. He ran around finding empty units and did deals with landlords. We opened, in one year, we opened five, six stores. We opened Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow. Yeah. And every store we opened, and this is the funny thing as well, we had no money, but we'd get the store on six months rent free and a deer on it because the landlord, you know, needed somebody in the store. Yeah, of course. But we didn't have any money to do the shop fit.

47:26Stuart Trevor:So I used to go around like junkyards and get like, you know, old rotten, you know, old rusty cabinets and put PVA glue on them to stop the rust and put them. And that'd be the shelving unit. And we basically designed and created these industrial looking stores that were semi-derelict. and then we would make a really nice cabinet that would go in and that would be... And at the time, I did it because we had no money and we wanted to open quickly. But it became like the coolest store on the planet and everyone then copied it. Like, you know, you'd see Selfridges and Hugo Boss even, like putting in rusty shelving things.

48:07Stuart Trevor:This is all hilarious because we did it because you don't know our option. But there was a plan there. I'd been to Berlin. There was a nightclub in East Berlin called Cookies, and it was a bombed-out bank. That was, all the walls were holes in the wall, but in the middle of it, they had a bar that was gold with all the lights, and it was, I just thought, what a fucking cool shop that would be. So when we would go in and rip out all, I hated plasterboard as well, because that was when Zara first started opening it. They had these white plasterboard boxes. So I didn't want any of that, so I'd rip out the plasterboard, and then put chains from the ceiling to the ground and then rails on it and created a very unique looking retail concept.

48:54Olly Fawcett:Do you think that was a big driver of the retail success was the stores being so different? Because I remember, now forgive me because I was born in 96, so I do remember the Allstate stores around sort of being, going to secondary school is when I started buying Allstate. Oh, they were around 2005. Yeah, so yeah, five, six, sevens, the first trip out with my mates and buying clothes and that kind of thing, but it was so different. Yeah, there was nothing like it. Do you think that was a big, big driver? Yeah, 100%. I think that there was nothing like it clothes-wise

49:30Stuart Trevor:and nothing like it as a retail concept. Nothing existed like that. And so it was really unique. And we used to take pitches, you know, stores off pitch. so then we put the those like fairground lights with the all saints so that you could see it from oxford street you could look up to market square which was a sort of you know nothing that no nobody was retelling there yeah but you could see the name in lights and so people would be like what's that and yeah towards it so we did that all over the country yeah um and yeah it and we would it's kind of funny as well because we were sort of like i remember that shop in particular off oxford street is where all the you know top shop arcadia ted baker yeah all these other brands were all based around there and all the staff the designers used to come in on their lunch break and buy things and i would be there and i'd be like oi like that honestly i promise you i'm not ripping it off and i went well don't you don't don't you go telling that fucking steven marx that where you got it from and all that so maybe let you have an all-says bag and they would laugh and they would say i promise you i'd never and words were getting back to me that people like steven marks and ray kelvin from ted baker were going like who wears that fucking stuff it's like david used to call it cheap disco rubbish you used to why were they so against rubbish why were they why were they not do you feel that they weren't really accepting you as a designer they didn't understand it they didn't understand who would want to pay 100 quid for a pair of jeans full of holes or who wouldn't want you know t-shirts that i used to get shotgun and shotgun blast these t-shirts and then and hang them up and you'd get t-shirts that were all frayed up and fucked and people you know we used to hang the the shotgun cartridge ran on a chain around the neck of the t-shirt and sold a t-shirt for 200 quid or 100 120 or something and and people no one did anything like that i remember getting a phone call from a factory in turkey once so the guy went mr trevor you are a very horrible man i went what do you mean he goes you need to start paying your staff more money i'm like what are you talking about this guy here he's like a chimney sweep he's like a peasant every piece of clothes has holes in it oh it may that's the look like

51:50Olly Fawcett:he's gonna show you you've got to replicate that yeah no one could really understand the whole

51:56Stuart Trevor:idea of doing we we used to do like cut the edges of things and have raw edges and yeah no but that I was, I mean, I bet you would have a normal jacket that looked like everything normal, but just around the edge would be frayed edge, frayed random.

52:10Olly Fawcett:At what point do you listen to like what other people are saying about your art and your style and your designer? Because -

52:18Stuart Trevor:No, you don't listen.

52:19Olly Fawcett:No, no, no, totally. I'm just saying like, how do you digest it? Because I've always, I've always, as a creative person that you're so creative that you are, I always wonder for you, when do you listen to the criticism versus the opinion and how do you differentiate that?

52:31Stuart Trevor:Well, we never realized what we were doing. But at that time, they came up with a name for it. And I was, they called it, what's it called? Reactive buying. I never realized what that meant. Reactive buying. Right. Because what I would do is if I wanted, so I'd have a bomber jacket like this.

52:50Olly Fawcett:Yeah.

52:50Stuart Trevor:And I would get a couple of them and just cut the cuffs and cut the hem myself and fray it. And we'd put it in the store. And if on a Saturday people bought that, you know, and what was happening was people would pick it up and go, my God, I'm bringing some great till. So then we'd go, right, we've got to get that made with the raw edge. So we would test the water all the time and we'd never commit to huge amounts of stock of anything. We would try it and if it worked, then we would go in deep. We started off with a leather shirt. I called it the rock shirt. I always wanted to be a rock star. So I thought, what does a rock star wear?

53:26Stuart Trevor:Where's a leather shirt? So I'd done, I did this leather jacket with studs and it was blind, but it was like a granddad shirt with a sawtooth pocket, pressed studs. And I think I ordered something like 50, 100 to start with. And I remember the partner, the guy from Birmingham going, they sold in one day. And he was like, I said, well, you better order like 500 of them. And he went, no, no, you'll have to come up with another design. I went, fuck off, I'm ordering 500. So we ordered 500 and they sold in a week. So then we were writing, we're going to order 1 ,000. It was worrying because you never knew.

54:03Stuart Trevor:When it stops. Yeah, with a biker jacket, that was the same thing. But as you remember, there's still their best-selling jacket

54:09Olly Fawcett:three years later. Wow. So what was your favourite year of all sense for you? I think around 2005, 2000,

54:21Stuart Trevor:I got in touch with bands like the Kings of Leon and they came in, they'd got dressed head to foot and I was backstage with them and Mick Jagger and Chrissie Hine from The Pretenders and hanging out with, you know, going out, Natalie Umbroglia and Radiohead and, you know, going out and to clubs with them and things like that. And then, you know, so a lot of, there was a lot of fun. So I wanted, I wanted to be a rock star and then I ended up dressing all of them. So, and hanging out with them. So it was, you know, almost like the next best thing.

54:54Olly Fawcett:So yeah, that was a lot of fun. And you left in 2007, right? Can you tell me why you left?

55:00Stuart Trevor:Oh, so I had someone who was supposedly my best mate. I'd been hanging out with him for a couple of years on and off. Even went on holiday with him and his family and my kids and Christmas Day. He was the husband of Karen Millan. Karen Millan, he built it up with her, sold it for 60 million to the Icelandic bank. When did they sell that in the early noughties? 2003 or something like that. And so he basically was there, had nothing to do. So he used to ring me up and go, how is it going? And we had shops that we opened, actually. I remember, actually, we opened a shop in the Bullring in Birmingham.

55:45Stuart Trevor:And they rang me. I was round his house on a Saturday evening. And they rang me to say, guess how much we took? And I'd go, good. I don't know. He goes, guess. and I'm like I can't you know just tell me guess you did 25 grand last week so you must have done more because you're bringing me 30 grand keep going I'm like 32

56:11Olly Fawcett:so wait they did 25 grand the week before

56:13Stuart Trevor:and on a Saturday night on a Saturday

56:15Olly Fawcett:on a Saturday sorry

56:16Stuart Trevor:and then this is the following week

56:18Olly Fawcett:yeah

56:18Stuart Trevor:so the rate of they just getting it and I'm like 50 and they're like keep going I'm like you're fucking joking he's like 55 grand because we did 55 fucking grand. I'm like, Jesus Christ. And Kevin is this guy who's going like, how much money did you take? And I went, she won't believe it. We did 55 grand in Birmingham today. Because what was the average

56:37Olly Fawcett:selling price of a product then? Between what, like 100 to 300 quid? Leathers were 300 quid. Right. So we were selling, we'd probably sold

56:46Stuart Trevor:thousands of leathers. 100 leather jackets that day. 55 grand.

56:50Olly Fawcett:That's 100 leather jackets at 300 quid was like 30 grand.

56:53Stuart Trevor:Yeah. So maybe, I don't know. But there was, remember there was men's wear there was women's wear yeah yeah there were jeans that were shoes and stuff at that point boots the boots i've done these boots yeah they were like this but i put a zip on the inside no um no one had ever done that before i got a pair of u.s paratrooper jump boots uh from 19 world war ii uh and they had a zip down the inside so that if you jumped out the airplane and you broke your leg they could unzip yeah yeah so i put this zip on the inside of the boot yeah fucking hell we couldn't get enough we were selling 100 pairs of them a day what made it go from 25 grand one week and then 55 grand a day just we opened one week it did 25 grand the following week it did 55 grand and then and then it kept going yeah it just and then we had shops in in leeds doing 60 grand on a side we ended up putting two tills and then we ended up putting We had two on the ground floor, then two on the upper floor.

57:53Stuart Trevor:It was a phenomenon. So he's hearing this conversation. He heard this conversation. Now, he rang the Carabillin. It must have been before he sold it because he rang the Carabillin shop next door and asked them how much they'd done it. She said, hey, you're crying. You fucking sacked. And he sacked the girl. And I didn't hear any of this, but my mate brought me back and he goes, are you with that guy from the Carabillin? And I went, yeah, why? he goes because the managers just come in crying her eyes out he said apparently you told him that we that we did 55 grand i went yeah he's friendly he's a mate and he went he fucking sacked her i had that he's rang her up he's we rang her up and screaming and i flipping out i was like and i went kevin have you said he went yeah because i of course i did he goes i want your manager i was like so there he wanted to become he wanted to get involved with me and he was like listen you're you're onto this this is fucking believable i want to be your partner and i'm gonna you know we were doing about 15 million um is i'm gonna get to you to 100 million and a million

58:55Olly Fawcett:in what 2007 yeah right wow big even big for them right yeah 50 million still a i'm from a

59:02Stuart Trevor:council estate yeah 1 million quid's a lot of money yeah yeah so it was it was

59:09Olly Fawcett:you know do you think that there was a lot of like for you because i i can't imagine how overwhelming it must have been i know that you've got your mindset of like you just run with stuff right i can tell that yeah but you begin to get worried surely you're a bit like this is getting

59:22Stuart Trevor:out of hand well it was a little bit worrying because then you know starting off doing ordering 100 leather jackets and you're now ordering a thousand and you've got no idea whether you're you know it might not carry on and i knew that there was a recession coming because i'd been through it with david reese and i'd seen that was the 90th recession right yeah it is more well it

59:42Olly Fawcett:was 2009 was the big one wasn't it yeah but the one with reese must have been the night oh that

59:45Stuart Trevor:was uh late nine yeah yeah no no no any round when i know when it would have been i don't know it was i know that i had to weather it yeah and but i i we did amazing i did amazing with david reese but that's what i was nervous about that this guy came along he told me he's gonna build the business to 100 million did you believe it yeah i mean i because he asked me at the time actually he said how big do you think all saints could be and i just said bigger than virgin and he went really and i went why not and it's in richard yeah yeah the most successful yeah that's his business in britain you know so and he went oh fuck off don't be stupid and i went why not i did a vodka for christmas i got seriously vodka or something i got them to give me like 500 bottles and I did a label that was a cross made out of skulls and a skull made out of crosses.

1:00:40Stuart Trevor:And I put them behind the till and you could get a free bottle of All Saints vodka with every purchase of 500 quid. And we put it behind the till in November or whatever. And I think by mid-December, they'd all gone. And I was like, we need to go to booze. We were giving our way. But we were also people within, they'd come in and buy the leather jacket they would think, oh, fuck it, I'll get a pair of jeans on there. And they would, because they wanted, I remember going to a party once, and after somebody's house would go back, and they'd go, guess what I've got? They didn't know who I was. And they pulled in, look what I've got.

1:01:16Stuart Trevor:And they pulled out, and they went, and everyone was amazed, going, that's his business.

1:01:21Olly Fawcett:That must have been a nice, moments like that must mean something, right?

1:01:24Stuart Trevor:It was, yeah, to me, it was beautiful. Insane, yeah.

1:01:28Olly Fawcett:Insane, yeah. That moment of like, people, I don't, it's not me anymore. I've created something that's not fully me, do you know what I mean? It's bigger than me in that sense.

1:01:37Stuart Trevor:Yeah, and I remember, you know, going to, taking my kids to school. Yeah. And I never told anybody anything. I never. Why was that? I don't know, because I don't, I just, I never, I don't like this sort of flash. Yeah, I get it. I wouldn't, I'd never, I didn't want, I didn't really, I don't know, I just didn't, you know, I didn't, they didn't need to know. and I, you know, but then someone found out and I think they'd, I think I'd, there was some an article in the Times and all of a sudden everyone at the school it was like it remember turning up after then it was like being it was when Beckham and Posh and Bex were going it was like that suddenly they think everyone looked at us in a different way and it was kind of like a little bit uncomfortable uncomfortable because I just I just wanted to do my thing yeah.

1:02:27Olly Fawcett:So the idea that it could get big that was what was sort of sold to you then is that what you're saying so it was the idea of growth and being bigger. Did you feel it was an idea of support as well? I needed support, yeah.

1:02:37Stuart Trevor:The idea was, I'm going to come in and I'm going to help you and we're going to take this and this is what the business, and as a businessman, what you should be thinking about is the business, don't you? And what does the business need? Well, what the business needs is someone to take all the pressure off me and I can concentrate on design and they will build the business and scale it and I don't have to worry about anything other than designing clothes. fly around the world and open shops in New York.

1:03:03Olly Fawcett:Did it feel like you were being sold the dream for you personally as well then? Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:07Stuart Trevor:I mean, yeah, because it was a stress-free living and all that. And I wouldn't have to worry about any of the other parts of it, just designing. Were you quite burnt out on the other parts that you didn't like? No, because I had this other partner that was kind of doing it.

1:03:20Olly Fawcett:So you had that bit.

1:03:21Stuart Trevor:But I had someone else that could take it to another level. And what happened? He bought out the guy from Birmingham. and then there was a silent partner. He bought him out and then he had, unfortunately, then he had majority share and he basically ground me down over a year to a point that it was either him or me and he obviously had a whole lot more money than I did and he made me an offer and it was a bit like a gun to the head sort of moment where I didn't really have a choice. And so I, and also was worried about that point that, you know, what happens if there is a huge downturn? And what, you know, 15 million turnover, whatever, you know, if you're 10 % down, that's one and a half million quid.

1:04:12Olly Fawcett:You know, we'll - Those get big and scary, don't they?

1:04:14Stuart Trevor:Yeah, it's just, it's a little bit -

1:04:17Olly Fawcett:When you came in, did you have a different perspective on designing? Did it change what you were designing and how you wanted to design? No, because it was just - Same thing.

1:04:25Stuart Trevor:I was, you know, but he started bringing in new people that had worked at places like French Connection, thinking this is how you need to run the business. You need to work to, I can't even remember what they're called now, but you have to, they have all these different steps. Everything needs to be done in a certain way. I never ever did that. I was just like, you know, always, you know, running by the seat of my pants and, you know, analyzing because you never knew. It was fun. I wasn't really interested in, I wasn't really bothered about the money side of it. And I wasn't really, but I had also, if you remember, I was opening the five stores in one year.

1:05:08Stuart Trevor:They had one new store every, you know. So all the money was getting, I wasn't really paying myself huge amounts of money. It wasn't really, at that point, I was thinking at that point, maybe it'd be nice to have a lump sum of money in the bank. and you know and then it all happened and I thought well do you know well I've done it

1:05:25Olly Fawcett:once I can do it again so day one of being out of it do you remember week one I got on a flight

1:05:31Stuart Trevor:to the Maldives that's the best thing you could have done probably I went diving for a month

1:05:35Olly Fawcett:really so yeah

1:05:37Stuart Trevor:did you kind of need to do that at that point no I booked it in advance and it just so happened that the day he planned it that it was you know boxing no Christmas Eve or something we were leaving that afternoon, that evening or whatever. What do you mean he planned it? He said that basically he wanted to buy me out and then kind of manipulated it to that point. It was kind of evil. He was manipulated to that point that if I didn't agree to what he was going to do, they were going to liquidate the prisoners and I would get nothing. So I had to, they made me an offer and then they carried on. And what, they were going to do it because if they had liquidated it over the Christmas period, all the big, you know, businessmen like Richard Branson or, you know, Philip Green or whatever, they would all be in Sandy Lane in Barbados on holiday and no one would know and he could, you know, basically, Nick, steal all things from me.

1:06:31Stuart Trevor:So I might get a deal.

1:06:32Olly Fawcett:About buying out of where it would be.

1:06:34Stuart Trevor:So it was all horrible. Listen, it's, he, they, they, they borrowed 198 million about two years after that and then blew it in four years and then they, And we're on the verge of bankruptcy when the people came in and the current owners bailed them out. How do you look at the brand now? How do you feel about it when you see it? I don't really look at it. But people say to me, God fucking hell, they need you back. It's so boring now. But it's a huge business now.

1:07:04Olly Fawcett:At least it's not shit. Yeah. I mean, it's still part of your legacy, though, right? And that's important. And you did so much. I'm very proud of it. I think it looks great. And they do actually credit me every now and again.

1:07:17Stuart Trevor:They do say, you know, talk about the, you know, the original vision of Stuart Trevor. So that's, you know, it's nice to be, because I never got that. When that guy bought it from me, they tried to write me out of the equation for... That must be tough. No, it was annoying, but, you know, you just, what can you do?

1:07:34Olly Fawcett:No, true. So even after all that, and after a bit of time in the Maldives, you were ready to go again?

1:07:39Stuart Trevor:Yeah. Almost immediately I started another,

1:07:41Olly Fawcett:Almost immediately, yeah. So what did you want to do next, and what did you want to do differently?

1:07:47Stuart Trevor:I wanted to make everything in the UK.

1:07:52Olly Fawcett:I wanted to use Italy or Portugal. Okay. What was the reason for that, sorry? Just because?

1:07:59Stuart Trevor:Just because I, one of the reasons I, another reason I sold All Saints, because he moved all the production to China, and I was fewest. Where was it before that? We used to do about 20, 30 % in the UK, about 10 % in Italy, about 20 % in Portugal.

1:08:15Olly Fawcett:Yeah.

1:08:16Stuart Trevor:And we would make things like leather jackets in India and beaded dresses and shirts and hand embroidered stuff in India. Yeah. And we'd make fine gauge knitwear in China. Things that you couldn't make at the right price in Europe. I love working with, I used to love when I worked at Rees, virtually everything was made in Italy. So I used to love flying to Milan on a Sunday night and going right from Como to Biela to Brescia to Bologna, staying over each night and going to a different restaurant with a different factory, a different fabric mill. It was fucking beautiful.

1:08:52Olly Fawcett:That must be some of the nicest evenings you had.

1:08:54Stuart Trevor:I remember I used to plan it so that I could get to Rimini or Riccioni, which is on the coast. and this would be in the winter time and i would stay at the grand hotel or johnny uh which is where they filmed um federico fellini filmed uh otto mezzo right one of the best it's a huge beautiful grand hotel and i would get the king's suite and it would be like 30 quid a night because no one else was there it was fucking freezing but i had this enormous halazzo wow um and i i used to

1:09:26Olly Fawcett:love them and touring around like even italy like the from a design perspective that must also

1:09:30Stuart Trevor:must influence a lot of creativity yeah that must be a very key element because if it's all out in

1:09:35Olly Fawcett:china it's you know it's a longer commute and what's you know how's the influence there's no inspiration yeah so was that a big part with your next thing you wanted to go back to what you

1:09:45Stuart Trevor:you purely love i wanted to go back and do this go back to making things in in the uk and europe and I'd had enough of flying 13 hours to Hong Kong four times a year. Yeah. And I had kids by that point who were 10, 6 and 2. And so one of them wasn't even born. So we had the youngest one was born two years after I started, Bologaro Trevor, that was the next brand. Yeah. But I didn't want to travel because I wanted to be with my kids. And I didn't mind, you know, going to Italy or to Paris, France. I mean, actually, when I think about it now, you know, you asked me earlier about how did you build it?

1:10:32Stuart Trevor:I used to spend, we would fly to Hong Kong four times a year, fly to Paris four times a year, fly to New York twice a year, LA twice a year.

1:10:42Olly Fawcett:I mean, I just was... Was it like 35 weeks minimum traveling out of the year?

1:10:46Stuart Trevor:just all the time. I don't know how I managed to do it. And I used to remember as well, whether the time you would go on those trips and I would be desperate to get back. I would never stay for an extra week on a holiday or whatever. Because I just wanted to get home. Be home. So yeah, when I launched Bologara Travel, I wanted to be, I didn't want to travel the world anymore. I don't know a bit. Yeah. And so yeah, so we did that and we built that. And that was amazing. We had, we dressed up. Are you building that in the recession? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And I, but we, yeah, we, we, we, because we had that relationship with all these bands.

1:11:27Stuart Trevor:Yeah. When I launched Bolagaro Trevor, they all rang me. So all these other bands, we dressed Kasabian, The Who, Depeche Mode, Placebo, Prodigy, Destiny's Child. They used to turn up and, and, and I, you know, dressed the who for the olympics for the uh super bowl yeah um loads of so that was kind of fun as

1:11:51Olly Fawcett:well so you know i had a lot of fun doing that with the with that brand did you want to keep that a bit smaller as a brand than the bigness that all saints had got to was that was that ever a thought it was never anything you just to pay you know is your role with it yeah you're not

1:12:06Stuart Trevor:gonna you're not gonna not as you build a business yeah if the business goes huge then you know what you're gonna do you can't no so you just do whatever you you know uh but i i wasn't i wasn't really ever i also kind of remember the stress that i'd been under of not i wasn't really stress i just didn't i you know obviously wanted to be success but it wasn't about money it was more about you know um just i just want to create and yeah and enjoy myself and you look at i always compare myself to david bowie um as in like you know he had a period of the thin white juke and and uh you know ziggy stardust or you know he would go through differently you get bands like radiohead tom york goes off and and creates another band called the smile yeah because he's sick of playing creep and and stadiums he wants to play small gigs or whatever i quite enjoy the first five years are the most enjoyable of building a business i mean because once you get to about five minutes it's easy you don't even have to turn up you've got everyone they'll do it but it's boring yeah so i mean um so we're now at that period with steward travel we're we're you know

1:13:21Olly Fawcett:building a business it is great fun i'd love it so how long sorry how long were you doing that for

1:13:25Stuart Trevor:so from 2008 i did that 2007 to 2017 16 17 wow and sold that to i had had some middle eastern company that came in they wanted to open stores in the middle east and and through the recession yeah um business you know we realized the word in 2010 selfridges for instance we were quoted as the fastest growing brand in menswear and they increased their order from 100 000 to 250 000 for to wait to 2010 and at the last minute they turned it into sailor return and so did about everyone told me that god you know there's no recession as far as bollingara trevor's concerned we fucking sold everything you know so we were like they were doubling the orders and i was like i need guarantees they were like guarantee don't worry you're the best selling you're where i'd sold paul smith your way i sold westwood you'll be selling more than armani you're we're going to give you a whole section all this sort of stuff and then they and then they didn't want to pay for because 2010 Selfridges went from a, you know, 800 million to 700 million.

1:14:38Stuart Trevor:And so it doesn't matter how much, how well they were doing with buy. They couldn't afford to pay everybody. So that, the Middle Eastern people came along and they helped fund the business through that period. And then they wanted to open it. I didn't want to do it anymore. I'd kind of lost, I wasn't, I was having split up with my ex my wife at times now my ex-wife she was the women's wear designer I was the men's wear designer she was the women's wear designer at All Saints well you know when we were young we did that yeah

1:15:11Olly Fawcett:and so I just didn't want to I didn't want to do that anymore I thought was the fashion space changing in the 2010s?

1:15:19Stuart Trevor:yeah well yeah because you know online came in yeah wholesale started going down You couldn't get paid by people like Selfridges and Harvey Nichols and Barney's New York went bankrupt. Oh, and, you know, people, hundreds of millions over the world. And it just became, all of that was like, we started doing online. I mean, I've launched Bolagara Trevor online. We were doing 20 grand a week within six months online. And it's 20 cents. Yeah. Wow. So, yeah, we replaced what we'd lost. You know, I had all that stock that I'd made for selfies. And so I had to sell it. So we built a photographic studio.

1:16:02Stuart Trevor:I had models in every day, photographed it, put it online and started. And that was when Twitter, we would, I had about eight stores or six stores at the time. And H1 would have a Twitter like, you know, Bolingaro Trevor Soho. Really? On Twitter? And they would be on Twitter tweeting out this. and people would turn up off the back of tweets and buy stuff. And then online.

1:16:25Olly Fawcett:Coming from the Allsaint stuff where you really cared about retail and space and physical and that kind of element, to then move online, did you feel it was translating the vision? How do you look at that?

1:16:37Stuart Trevor:Yeah.

1:16:39Olly Fawcett:Does it lose a bit of that for you?

1:16:41Stuart Trevor:It does, yeah. And that was another reason why I listened. We got offered a load of money and I took it. and away from that fuck it you know with a plaz no i i we were thinking i thought about moving to australia i thought about buying a winnebago and driving to japan with the kids awesome and then i realized that the kids were by that point about um 15 12 or 15 10 and 5 or something so i realized you know what i can't really take them out of school for six months a Yeah. They never really... It just didn't work. It didn't work. So in the end, I had split up with my wife. I started doing consultancy work for brands like Pasha in Ibiza.

1:17:34Stuart Trevor:I was putting collections together for them. Did you like that stuff? Huh? Did you like the consultancy stuff? Do you? It was kind of weird. No, because you're not... You know, I'm not used to having anybody telling me what to do. You put a collection together. it was funny with this passion i put the collection together they wanted me to move to ibiza i didn't really want to do that again because of the kids um and uh so i put this collection together and then on before all the samples turned up they you know there was a phone call they were like we decided that we're you know we're not going to go with it and you know and i was like okay why that we don't like you know we we just want t-shirts with cherries on it I'd done that whole thing with like a Hawaiian shirt and matching shorts and I did it in you know something with cherries on it I did I mean all different variations of it they really didn't and this was you know this this thing became fucking huge in around 2018-19 so it was around that and anyway the samples turned up and I got a phone call like yeah Mr.

1:18:36Stuart Trevor:Treville can you get on the next flight and I'm like what's up because the samples have arrived we absolutely love them so I flew into Ibiza the next I was creative director of Pasha again after being sacked about a month ago before it was fucking nuts so I didn't enjoy it just wasn't you I didn't I didn't really like I didn't like I you know I'm used to doing my own thing so I did enjoy it though it was kind of fun they were nuts though they would be they would be like you'd fly they'd go right okay we're going for dinner tonight corporate dinner I'm like okay where are we having dinner they say I have Pasha and I'm like but it doesn't open till midnight and they the restaurant and I'm going well what time are we having dinner I think in 8, 9 they go at midnight and I'm like we're having dinner at midnight and then you'd have dinner at midnight and you'd be thinking this is nuts 2 in the morning they go come on we're going in the club and I'm like we're doing the presentation tomorrow we're talking about no you come with me bottles of vodka they were and then of course you'd turn up at the studio the next day you'd present the collection none of them turned up we were all in bed with a hangover.

1:19:43Olly Fawcett:And then after a couple of years, you decided to go for the third time with what you're doing now.

1:19:48Stuart Trevor:Well, I had a period where I was mentoring young brands that have a positive social environmental impact. And I'd met a guy who told me he was running an impact accelerator and I didn't know what that was. I thought it was the brakes on a car or something. Impact accelerator means that brands that have a positive social environmental impact, they take these young brands and they help accelerate growth. So he had, you know, there was bakeries with victims of domestic abuse. They would, you know, bring them on board and get them out of a violent talk about it so that, you know, primarily women would stand up and say, oh, you know, my life was ruined by an abusive, you know.

1:20:29And because a lot of people go through

1:20:33Stuart Trevor:a horrendous abusive relationship and feel guilt and don't want to talk about it. and then there was a coffee roasters that had employed ex-offenders taught them to become baristas so that two schoolmates were in jail for selling beak and when they came out they'd teach them to become a barista, they'd get a job all over the world so they'd stay out of jail and there was a denim company that were taking vintage jeans and customising them she was like this girl a company called Fanfare Label Esther and she was like you know we we don't need to make another pair of jeans ever again and you know there's more jeans on the planet than this there's 150 billion gamas a year in production and uh and all these other statistics like every seven seconds there's a pile of clothes the height of mount everest going in a landfill so i researched it all and i'm like every seven seconds there's a pile of clothes the height of mount everest if you but where does it go like I just don't know.

1:21:33Stuart Trevor:How do they fit it in? Where is this all going? So companies like ASOS, 970 million turnover, losing 150 million a year, year on year. They've got warehouse in Milton Keynes with 2 million, 5 million garments in it. And they were burning it and they were sending it to Ghana. Charity stores are dealing with 90 tons of waste a day. I've been to sorting centers in Kettering for Salvation Army. They've got, you know, all those food banks, those banks in Sainsbury's and Asda car parks. They're emptying them three times a day. People are buying clothes that they don't need,

1:22:13Olly Fawcett:having to empty out, you know. I remember coming out of COVID and just going past those recycling centres and even like coming to book the old tip and skip because they were getting so filled out with people's, you know, IKEA stuff. But you go past the clothing ones and they are just like overflowing.

1:22:28Stuart Trevor:I mean, I've been to Ghana.

1:22:29Olly Fawcett:With labels still on as well.

1:22:30Stuart Trevor:Yeah, yeah, a lot of it. A lot of it is fast fashion. But then there was companies like Burberry's, but they got called burning£28 million worth of stock. And there are new EU law directives coming in that everyone has to abide by.

1:22:47Olly Fawcett:Well, from a brand side, just so I can understand it a little bit, what's the reason why that happens? Is it just purely they order too much stuff, they make too much, they've overordered? Is that purely the problem?

1:22:59Stuart Trevor:If you go back to the reactive buying bit that I would say, when I ran All Saints, I would test the waters. And if something sold, I would plow it in order 500. They don't. They just order 500 of everything. And of course... Why? Surely there's such an amount of cash they're losing? Or is it just so minuscule at that point? They don't care because they're making it all in Bangladesh out of polyester. It's cheap as chips or cheap, you know, they don't care. And then the online thing, everybody's buying, you know, women and men are buying, you know, they see a jumper or, you know, they buy a small, a medium, a large, and an extra large when they know that they're an extra large.

1:23:37Stuart Trevor:But they're hoping that they might fit in a small. And then they return it all. And at one point, companies like ASOS and, you know, or Nextdoor, all of them, all of them were, it's cheaper just to send it off to cherry stores and send it off to Ghana than it is to pay someone in England to iron it and fold it back up and put it back in the shelf and then send it out. But, you know, it was because it's all, they were producing things, you know, a billion pieces in Bangladesh for two pounds an item. So it was cheaper to, you know, it cost them two pounds to process it in the UK. It's cheaper to get rid of it.

1:24:17Stuart Trevor:What do you think has to change at the time?

1:24:19Olly Fawcett:All of that's got to change. But how do they change it?

1:24:22Stuart Trevor:Regulation? By teaching the general public. So that's what we, that's what I set out to do three years ago by launching Stuart Trevor. but what about a clothing brand that doesn't produce any clothing? I was taking those young startup brands to investors trying to get them funding. And all these investors, several of them were like, I used to love All Saints. I don't like it anymore, but why don't you do another brand? And I'd be like, the last thing the world needs is another clothing brand. And they're like, but All Saints is kind of boring now. I want to look like you. And I'm like, well, this is just a bomber jacket.

1:24:58Stuart Trevor:and I made some patches and my daughter, I was teaching her how to design things and custom my upside. They're like, I'd love that fucking bomber. And so I went away and I thought, what about a clothing brand that doesn't produce any clothing? These bomber jackets and 90s dead stock. I've got warehouse in north of England that has about a thousand, two thousand of these in different colours. They've been sitting there for 10, 20 years, 30 years. Brand new, yeah. And so I get hold of them.

1:25:27Olly Fawcett:I print these patches

1:25:28Stuart Trevor:I sew them on I have a little label that I I've got my little Stuart Dresd ST David Bowie inspired awesome label and then I have a a little white label that I zig zag stitch on it and I sign it yeah the view by your name goes on there the date and so it's that's like like almost make creating love walking works bar yeah so they're almost like it's a little bit over the top some of it's plain we do a plane bomber as well yeah so There are thousands of these, but these guys didn't know what to do with them. So not only these, they've got, you know that military stuff I was telling you about? I used to buy it and I used to buy all these military jackets and take them to factories in Italy and fabric mills and copy the fabric and copy the pan and get them made and order 500, 1 ,000.

1:26:18Stuart Trevor:I go to these warehouse, they've still got a million garments in there. And I could go in there and I started, you know, started off doing some sort of flak shirts and I cut the back out. I put this sort of beaded sequined sort of fabric on it. Or I got these denim shirts and I added embroidery like this onto it. And yeah, people, and it's all garments that are sitting there that already exist and we just made them cool. Epic. And people love it. So, you know, because the one thing,

1:26:48Olly Fawcett:the one thing we're not going to do is we can't stop people wanting to buy clothes because

1:26:52Stuart Trevor:everybody you know what you know it's addiction isn't it it is an addiction but also addiction everybody wants to look even computer nerds nowadays what know that they need to you know even steve jobs or whatever he knew he used to wear an isimiyaki turrleneck but he knew that he had he defined his own look and he might wear the same thing every day but everyone knows that if you don't you know if you wear interesting clothes you have an interesting life that's a Vivian Westwood quote but if you if you don't if everyone takes care of how they look and everybody wants to buy something well they come to Stuart Trevor if you look on our website StuartTrevor.com everything is it's made from clothes that already exist so it's guild free

1:27:32Olly Fawcett:so you're not actually

1:27:33Stuart Trevor:we don't produce anything so everything it's all upcycled it's all upcycled every single thing and there's we did runway shows we did the world's first ever designer runway show that had every single item was upcycled from clothes that already exist. And people flew in from all over the world to St. Louis, Missouri, a lot of them vintage collectors to see it. And they were like, yeah, I've seen it all before. And then when it came out, they were like, fucking hell, that is incredible. All these parkas with these extra patches on or embroidery or beaded. And we had hand paintings on them and things like that.

1:28:10Stuart Trevor:And it just, it's a total. all so when i started doing that about three years ago everyone thought i was insane i even thought i was insane i was like people were like how are you going to scale this i had no idea but i did know i'm not i'm i'm not stupid i did know that if i was to announce that i was doing a new label no one's going to write about it because there's far too many clothing brands in the world but if you were to announce what about a clothing brand that doesn't produce any clothing i'm going to create a whole collection made from clothes that already exist yeah people have done that sort of thing before but most of it's rubbish most of it is you know a jacket made out of a random stuff as well random weird what i do is less is more and and it's it looks really cool i'm actually i was people ask me all the time you know you're the coolest guy to work you did reese you did all sage did bottom guard i used to buy it i never ever thought i was cool was always striving to be cool i wanted to be cool so i produced something and i never ever thought i was even with all states now i look at what i'm doing and i think fucking hell that's cool it's it's i'd

1:29:17Olly Fawcett:walk in do you feel like it's your almost your proudest brand yeah you create yeah everyone does

1:29:22Stuart Trevor:yeah everyone that anyone that's in the fashion business i get everybody that i've known in my career or my life for even me go fucking mate you what you're doing is incredible and i honestly can actually laugh and go i thank you i yeah i i honestly believe i'm because it because it's you wouldn't believe some of the stuff i get is so i go i have a relationship with some of these 70 80 year old 70 year old men and women that have contracts with the ministry of defense and they have been buying clearing out x army x ref x royal navy stuff for years and they don't know what to do with it so and and i go in there and take it and customize it and cut it into little cropped jackets and skirts and and it looks beautiful now we've got all the rock bands coming to us going oh my god you know this i'll say it's in the brit awards next week there's about five different bands have come to us for different things it's really cool fantastic for

1:30:18Olly Fawcett:you i want to get some advice from you for um those entering building brands building fashion you've done so many different brands now and you found something that you're clearly so passionate about what what do you think the biggest piece of advice you could give to someone starting a

1:30:35Stuart Trevor:fashion brand don't somebody used to say to me how do you make a huge pile of money in the fashion business and i would say you start with an enormous pile of money and if you've got a huge pile of money after two years you're on the right track what's the what do you think i mean take away the

1:30:49Olly Fawcett:money take away the business side of it to become respected in the space by audiences consumers but

1:30:56Stuart Trevor:also the pairs in the fashion world or any i think you have to put sustainability at the forefront of everything you do i think it is our duty nowadays to buy from sustainable brands to shop locally to to support young startup brands all that you know that's another reason why i called it steward trevor rather than a pseudonym like all saints because people don't trust brands anymore all these billionaires like you know billionaire brands like nike and asos and you know primar they're like billionaires chasing trillionaire status and and they're they're willing to they've got people in little factories in china that are you know living in in concentration camp style billets they sleep uh you know they sleep 10 hours or eight hours at night and then they get up in the morning they do a 14 hour day on a sewing machine or pressing and then they go and see their family once a year during chinese new year not only it's it's like human trafficking yeah and why could why would anybody buy clothes that are made in these sort of like horrendous conditions but you know all of that needs to stop so we need to educate the general public to stop buying fast fashion it's not just fast fashion as well as super brands you know years ago Louis Vuitton Dior you know they were all supposedly luxury brands that had like beautiful quality now they're all made in the same factories in China and all it's all the same stuff and they're producing billions and they're now multi-billion dollar

1:32:32Olly Fawcett:businesses and they're

1:32:34Stuart Trevor:chasing multi-trillion dollar status and it's there's nothing special about it actually makes me feel sick when I walk through somewhere like Westfield and you see Zara and all these millions of garments and and all of it is made from plastic and polyester is it is polyester shirts and knitwear and everything is it's all made from plastic bottles they pull it so fine yeah very microfiber and they knit it but that's why you sweat that's why and all these sportswear companies everything is made from polyester they say that it wicks the sweat away that's bullshit it's plastic it just this the water doesn't stick to it because is plastic yeah so and everybody knows that you know you've got running and your clothes stink

1:33:18Olly Fawcett:because you're wearing a plastic bag yeah a polyester is actually we're actually allergic to it when i'm wearing an island bomber jacket but these are this is this is this is actually

1:33:28Stuart Trevor:a u.s um a u.s army flight jacket really so yeah yeah this is all military space amazing

1:33:36Olly Fawcett:so what what's up for what are you doing for the rest of the year what's the what's the ambition for 26 uh well we're we're trying to build this business yeah 100 up on last year wow congratulations

1:33:48Stuart Trevor:yeah we're doing that's amazing everything's you know we're doing it's all available on stewardtrevor.com we have a studio in hoxton we invite people there awesome uh to come and go shopping there but we're i mean i never in the beginning i mean obviously i want the business to become it we're about break even now we're we're i wanted to come into you know profit next year this year um but we're we're 100 % over last year we're building it and and and it's really enjoyable it's really that is we're you know I'm designing and creating new things all the time yeah and uh and it's it's fun and I you know it's enjoyable so yeah just want to carry on doing that and get it to a point where it's not all me so we you know as a we're in the early stages now we'll probably hit a million this year and then next year too then that you know but then i'll be able to employ people and try and i do a lot of speaking a lot of the reason i'm here today is to get the story out there to encourage young people to to when i say when you ask me what what advice would i give and i'm like don't don't or whatever um i think yeah i think we need to encourage the youth to to go out and um and do something and create new there is if you have the right idea and the right you know facilities and the right method and one of the most important thing i would say right now is to put sustainability at the forefront of everything you do fantastic

1:35:15Olly Fawcett:well steve it's been an absolute pleasure and thank you it's been some incredible stories some hilarious stories and some deeply fascinating ones so thank you so much you're welcome um a true inspiration i appreciate your time best of luck for this year yeah hopefully another 100 for the year and I'm sure we'll speak soon yeah cheers, thank you very much

1:35:32Stuart Trevor:cheers