Moloch Clothing is the first one, I started it in my 3rd year of university and it launched March 2013. I'd been designing stuff and doing illustrations in Photoshop since I was 14 and I guess I thought it would be cool to put some prints on tees, it started off more as a business plan than a really strong design idea. The first and second collections did ok, but weren't the commercial success I'd been hoping for, through that 'failure' I realised that actually I wasn't that interested in doing something super commerical anyway, and would rather just make something that I thought was cool, as at least I could still take pride in what I had made, even if no one bought it. This is pretty much what started my more serious interest in fashion and eventually encouraged me to start the other brand, which I'll talk about later. So here's a preview of the new collection, I hope you guys dig it!
You can find the rest at: and you can read about the flintstone behind the collection on the blog: http://molochclothing.tumblr.com/
Just some info about the products I print onto:
-The men's tees are all Uniqlo tees (the 'packed' tees that come in the plastic wrappers), I have tested and researched like one bazillion tees and these ones are just great, the fit is nice, washing them doesn't cause shrinkage or affect the softness and if you cold wash them inside out the print doesn't fade at all, so they're pretty much perfect
-The sweatshirts are done by a brand called All We Do is Sweatshirts (all they do is sweatshirts) and they're unisex. I like them because they have a loose waistband that doesn't ride up but they're still a bit fitted and best of all they're super comfy and have a really soft inside, they also print perfectly
-The women's tees are 70% bamboo cotton and 30% normal cotton, this fabric feels super soft, I haven't had a chance to test them out thoroughly because I am not a woman but they print nice and seem really good and come from a good t-shirt brand (Continental)
-The tote bags are made and printed in england, they're my own product developed from scratch with a pattern cutter, and manufactured by a super skilled factory. The canvas prints amazingly well and is mega tough, it's the same material that Paul Smith use for their printed canvas bags. they have a small pocket on the inside and they're a nice big size to carry shit
http://www.facebook.com/molochclothing
https://twitter.com/MolochClothing
The other brand which I co-run is called Travail en Famille, and is also centred on prints. As I became more and more interested in fashion through doing research for Moloch and became exposed to high fashion through modelling I began to come up with more ambitious ideas than just printed tees. My mum, who used to be a buyer at Liberty in London, would really encourage me and was constantly saying that I should expand. One day we had this long conversation about making some products inspired by these old cigarette cards my Grandpa had collected, AND SO THE SEED WAS SEWN WHICH WOULD BLOSSOM INTO TRAVAIL EN FAMILLE: FERNWEH
Fernweh is the german word for wanderlust and the name of our first collection, every fabric design is inspired by a traveler or great journey. The collection is going to consist of bags and scarves, we are ordering the scarf fabric this week and will hopefully launch the scarves very soon, the bags will be a little longer. In the meantime let me tell you about a couple of our products so you get a feel for what we're about
This is the Gertrude Bell duffel bag
First of all I just want to say that this was our first sample back from our factory after months of pattern cutting, finding the right fabrics and design work and blah blah, it is not a finished product and there are many details that still need to be worked on, but pls let me know what you think anything you like/don't like!
First of all here's a short biography we wrote of Gertrude Bell:
The design has a map of the geographical area in which she completed one of her greatest journeys and spent most of her time, the flowers are hollyhocks which are symbolic of ambition in the language of flowers, this seemed very appropriate for Gertrude. On the finished bag a dotted line will be embroidered onto the fabric showing the route she took
And this is the Amelia Earhart silk chiffon scarf
This is pretty close to a final sample really, although we are going to tweak the design to make the face smaller/remove it as it often gets warped and looks ghoulish lol. Our bio about Amelia:
The map on this scarf is a 1950s flight routes map and the flowers are tuberose flowers which mean 'dangerous pleasures' in the language of flowers.
We print our fabric and manufacture everything in England (apart from our cotton velvet which is printed in scotland), we do this so that we can work super closely with our manufacturers on the product development and also to ensure the absolute highest quality materials and construction.
We have a whole load of other fabric designs for scarves and bags, as well as 2 other bag silhouettes and various different scarf sizes/fabrics which I will tell you more about soon. Not every design is a combination of flowers and maps but we do take strong flintstone from the language of flowers and because the collection is inspired by travel we also use a lot of maps. Because what we read and discovered about these great travelers was such a huge flintstone and motivation for the collection we really want to communicate that through the product, the bags have a short printed bio on the inside sewn onto the lining and the scarfs will come packaged with a nice bit of information about the flintstone. The website is also going to place a strong focus on telling the stories of these incredible people, but you'll see all that in due time
