Brands are taking a more responsible and proactive approach for their enterprises and outputs, and Vee Collective is one such example: dedicated to aligning the steps of reducing and reusing with the possibility technology can play in design.
The more we educate ourselves with different sustainable approaches to design the more we open our mindset for effective change. Twin caught up with the brand founders about how the brand came about and their responsible approach to design.
How did Vee Collective come about?
10 years ago we launched our first brand Lili Radu – handcrafted leather bags and jewelry at a premium price point. By working closely with stockists, customers and creatives, we found that there seemed to be a great quest and hunger for accessories that were more stylistically and functionally versatile. We constantly heard that people wanted a super lightweight tote bag, comfortable to wear, effortlessly transitional and affordable, but it proved difficult to source. We wanted to create an update on the concept of the universal tote, more inclusive, carefully created, responsibly sourced and built to last.
Photo by Andreas Waldschuetz
Can you tell us a little bit about the name?
Vee is a symbolic and a literal link to the V shaped pattern and weave on many of the products that we were creating within Lili Radu accessories. Journey and evolution is an important element of life for us and so to act as a continuous reminder of the route of this starting point we decided to include this as a nod to the focus of craft.
The process of creation is very collaborative and it is a democratic, community approach that we work across, so we felt it integral that the name reflected this too, so we included the word Collective to anchor our creativity. We wish to build an interesting community, a collective of people that feel similarly towards being inclusive, support open-mindfulness, freedom and embrace the pace and movement of life. When we collaborate with artists and partners, these partnerships are selected on these shared beliefs, and so become integrated and part of the fabric of the collective.
Talk us through your responsible approach to design
Creativity has always been a focus, as well as practicality. We grew VeeCollective from the brand ethos of everyday-unlimited. Like so many people, after becoming parents your vision changes and evolves. It became so apparent that the environment we create has such impact, past our immediate visibility. This concept of responsibility, in a broader sense became extremely important to us. We felt it necessary to start navigating ways to become a more contentious brand, exploring how to deliver our vision but with less environmental compromise. We do not only want to follow, we want to be innovative and lay paths to a better and more responsible format for a fashion business.
What are the biggest challenges you see the fashion industry facing?
Two challenges that can make a great difference to how brands evolve, survive and optimise contentious creation in fashion are re-thinking the format of traditional seasonal collections and also the process of sourcing sustainable materials.
It can take time to source and develop specific components, materials and manufacturing solutions or processes. We are lucky to work with a fantastic team who are very passionate in finding wonderful qualities in recycled or re-engineered materials and components, as well as collaborating with innovative textile developers who are trailblazing the life-cycle of fabrications, components and packaging. These can take two-three seasons to source and implement and close the sustainable circle. Allowing time for creation and implementing improved-ethical choices is important but also can be complicated to balance in an industry with specific traditional season-lead collections.
We work closely with our retailors to launch our capsule- core collections and also limited edition collaborations. By creating versatile accessories we allow for variation with consideration. We are proud to have been able to launch products when they are ready, aesthetically, functionally and when we feel confident they can also deliver the values we prioritise.
How is Vee Collective finding solutions to these challenges?
We are still evolving, adding even more optimization of practices and exciting solutions to our way of creation daily. Our goal is to make the best product possible in the best way possible. Our products are created in recycled Nylon fabric, linings and recycled thread/yarns. We use long-lasting aluminium hardware to extend product-life and recycled or no-trace packaging. We ship our products by sea to try to off-set carbon foot print and always look to find ways in which we can offer better with less-impact.
It is not just the product that we look to invest in, we also believe in supporting creative communities and social-sustainability practices too.
We try to approach change with little but honest steps and to be open in the conversation of change. It is a process.
What positive change can you see on the horizon between fashion and sustainability?
We feel that talking about responsibility is important, but it can also have so many meanings. The word sustainability needs to be un-packed- it holds so much. As an industry, we feel that we are all still learning how to incorporate or live the process authentically. Support around interest in change and transparency is now becoming more widespread and that makes problem-solving feel less isolating.
It can be far more expensive to implement the steps and processes needed to be a more sustainably created product, but now, due to the more recent demands and expectations by the consumer, this has helped to align the journey of the final price tag. We try to find ways that keep our totes functional and approachable in every sense including the price.
Recently we have been selected as one of the brands to be included in the fantastic Selfridges Project-Earth campaign. This is a great initiative to foster and lead questioning on how things are made and to give everyone more earth-conscious, interesting options to explore in luxury retail.
It is exciting to connect and partner with so many other creative-leaders who are exploring how to reinvent the fashion industry and to help close the loop on waste.
Collaboration as the core of creative vision: Colville founders Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy discuss the cultivation of an authentic vision with Marte Mei and Viviane Sassen for Twin.
There is never just a single solitary eye in fashion. No isolated roving thoughts, or an action not inspired by another. Colville might be named after a street in London, but its name feels drawn from the family of collaboration, cross-pollination, creative inspiration.
Founded by Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy, there are so many creatives, resources, ideas at play it feels like more than two: it is a river of thoughts, streams pulling in and rolling through.
In anticipation of their most recent collaboration with Marte Mei and Viviane Sassen, we spoke to the four respective collaborators about the freedoms of sharing visions and the interconnectivity of the creaive landscape.
If 2020 has taught us anything, do you think it is the vital importance of collaboration and creative cross-pollination?
Lucinda Chambers
I think I have always felt the joy of collaborations, not just during this time. I truly think no man is an island and it is one of the greatest pleasures to have a criss-crossing of minds, hearing others’ point of view and expressing ourselves creatively. Also, as I get older, I let go more, not needing to hold on to my ideas or my way of doing things. I enjoy the freedom of collaborative work, and I feel very fortunate to have identified amazing collaborators to take the journey, and some have found me!
Molly Molloy
Absolutely, I think the incredible moments that happened for me during the first lockdown were the ideas and collaborations that came out of it. We worked with people all over the world to knit squares for blankets that we will eventually auction next year for a women’s refuge here in Milan. It was moving to involve so many people and to read the letters they sent along with the squares. I also took part in a group talk with BoF and many other designers, everyone coming together in a think tank to exchange ideas and make changes. These and many other projects we started during this year have reinforced our vision of collaboration. This was something we all talked about at the beginning of Colville: we all have collaborative natures and it just makes the creative process fresh and inspiring.
Marte Mei
I think 2020 has showed us how fragile our systems are. The interconnectivity of our global economy but also as a species within the ecosystem. Hopefully it has also showed people how much we depend on a healthy ecosystem around us, and how much we depend on that as a species to survive.
Viviane Sassen
I believe the vital importance of collaboration and creative cross-pollination is something of all times.
How can fashion cultivate authentic visions in a creative climate in flux?
Lucinda Chambers
Now more than ever creativity flourishes. You must be authentic these days – people’s money is precious. They want to know where it is going and what the journey was. There are so many good stories out there and I think things are being scrutinised in a way that’s never happened before, and that’s a good thing. So, the more authentic you are, the better tale you have to tell.
Molly Molloy
To quote Louise Bourgeois “Tell your own story and you will be interesting”. I think what stands out are designers being authentic and working from their hearts and creating what they believe in.
Marte Mei
Fashion to me has always been about making something that triggers a new vision, sets a new tone or creates new examples. In the context of this project, it was all about freedom about coming together as a woman-only team. We also worked very local and with low carbon emissions and a very small team. The shoot took place in Amsterdam, the clothes were sent do us by mail, and nobody had to travel for the job apart from biking to the studio. I hope that becomes the new norm of creating within the industry.
Viviane Sassen
By embracing true and original creative minds and give them a platform. Like Marte got through her collaboration with Colville!
How has this image series come about, and do you think it expresses a convergence of unique viewpoints that come together as a greater whole?
Lucinda Chambers
Molly contacted Marte Mei. We have worked with her from the very beginning of Colville. One of the beautiful things about Colville is the friendships we have all made along the way, for years now, way before we dreamt of having our own company. We have gathered around us a band of really dear and important friends who are creatives. Collaboration and giving everyone a voice is something that is very important to us, always has been. It’s about relationships, friendships and respect. In that sense we feel that Colville is a real collective. A meeting of the minds.
Molly Molloy
Marte has worked with Colville from the very beginning, I worked with her creatively in the past and Lucinda and I love her vision, use of colour and sensitivity to what surrounds her. What’s amazing about letting go of control is what it brings back to you and how it surprises you. We didn’t give Marte or Viviane any constraints, they created something together that was for us completely unique and took the clothes somewhere else. It was an incredible privilege to work with two such inspiring women.
Marte Mei
To me, the process felt like a chain reaction of appreciation and admiration. Both the textile design collaboration, the set design, the image making, all felt like an overlapping patchwork of creation without clear borders. I found that really special in the way that Lucinda and Molly approached me for the textile design. They asked if I wanted to create a special follow up of an artwork I’d made in the past. I find it fascinating that they acknowledge potential within that sculpture from paper and wood, to become a piece of clothing. To see their brand as a space without borders, entering the field of art and going beyond their set team of designers by having me as an outsider creator woven into their collection.
Viviane Sassen
It was a super organic collaboration; I have known Marte for years and we’ve worked together so many times – she’s one of my muses so to speak. The whole process of working on this project together was very intuitive and smooth and a lot of fun. It is also a matter of mutual trust and understanding, that makes for a good collaboration, and Marte and I absolutely recognize that in each other.
What does fashion and photography come to learn from another?
Lucinda Chambers
I think they are totally intertwined. As is art and fashion, theatre and fashion, music and fashion. Fashion can be expressed so beautifully through photography. Fashion and in particular clothes are the tools we use for storytelling. The narrative and dialogue that fashion and photography has can create something wonderful, standalone images or a drawn out tale. Clothes facilitate that. And they can also be the inspiration, the beginning of the photograph.
Molly Molloy
They are ever evolving together, it’s so exciting when you see the two combine in original and unique ways, it’s such an incredible feeling when you see a shoot that’s inspiring, it will stay with you for years if not ever. It’s like moving image and sound, the two go hand in hand and can really evoke emotion.
Marte Mei
I think that it was a revolutionary experience for me as a former model, to take on a different role within the dynamic of the team I really look up to. Having designed the textile, and the set design, but also modelling within the project. On a personal level I still think there is a lot to learn in being comfortable within that role of being both the creator as the subject of creation. For instance, when we were working with the clay on my body, I wanted to just trust the image of Irena within applying it to me, so when she asked for my opinion to guide her, it was hard for me to switch between having a creative vision to the outcome of project but also being subjected to her creative expression in the project and onto my body.
Viviane Sassen
I’ve always perceived my fashion photography as a great way to express myself; to play, to experiment, and to collaborate with other creative people. I also work as an artist and that is a much more solitary process, so I love working as a fashion photographer too, as it enables me to work together in a group, have a mutual goal, and create images together with others who are often super inspiring. In that sense, I feel I’ve learned so much from collaborations with stylists, designers, models, hair & make-up artists!
What does fashion and photography come to learn from another?
Lucinda Chambers
I always learn from Molly and everyone really, we have an incredible team, Danny, Alice and Luisa. I think I’ve learnt from Molly to try things out even if they are out of my comfort zone, out of my field of vision, to give things a go and see where it leads or takes you. Also not always getting my own way and that’s fine. I’ve learnt to let go. And to like vegetables more.
Molly Molloy
I’m learning every minute of the day being a founder with Lucinda we are both on a huge learning curve having our own business and bringing people in to Colville that constantly keep it evolving and exciting.
Viviane Sassen
I really love watching Marte work, the refined gestures she makes and the thing(s) she creates, both while modelling and while working on her own art; it all comes from the same source, the creative energy which is within her. I recognize her inner drive to create beauty, and I admire her sense of colour, texture, and shape. It’s a true joy to watch her work evolve and refine over time!
What was the last thing that made you feel inspired?
Lucinda Chambers
Well, everything really, but probably the leaves on the pavement tonight coming home, I wanted to collect them all, the colours, shocking reds and yellows, blowing around. Beautiful.
Molly Molloy
Heavy Metal by Osamu Matsuo, I hadn’t seen it for a while and forgot how beautiful it is!
Marte Mei
Nature is a limitless source of inspiration to me, being inside due to corona and wintertime limits the possibility of going outdoors, so for me this is a time for reading and thinking.
Viviane Sassen
A few documentaries I recently watched about climate change, and how some new technologies and (futuristic) solutions will be able to help humankind towards a better, more sustainable future.
The brand that culminated from three relationships founded at Marni is one of beauty, strength and a contemporary elegance.
Colville doesn’t have a brand bio, it has a manifesto: a dedicated vision, that it hopes to instil in those who encounter it. A meeting of three fabulous minds, Colville was consummated from a Venn diagram of insight, expertise and experience. From Lucinda Chambers, the stylist and ex-fashion director of Vogue UK, to the Marni designers Molly Molloy and Kirsten Foss, this is a label that has not entered the market light-handedly. Striding into familiar waters, this time with no obligations, Colville feels like a giant sigh of exhilaration: a long time coming from three impressive women who have spent decades strengthening and celebrating visions. Now they can carve out their own.
With the name a reference to a street David Hockney frequented in the 1970’s the initial associations are set before one even claps eyes on the clothes. Colour, modernism, a uniqueness of touch and ingenuity of vision: all aspects we see this brand emanating, and thus paying homage to a history of modern art, thus three lives also spent exploring and adoring the arts. It’s a smattering of London too, rooting their designs as a sort of cultured and cool friendliness – the love of a half pint in Francis Bacon’s favourite pub as much as his works that hang in the Tate.
Colville commenced with an AW19 collection in 2018, a collection of depth and brevity. With graphic hand drawn prints, unexpected shapes, cropped lengths, drawstring tightenings and thickly overlaid silks draped in voluminous and generous furls around the body.
The woman they design for are neither expected or stereotyped caricatures on the fashion track. Described in their manifesto, they are “hunters and gatherers, odd and individual: so are our women. Building their own reality as a product of the imagination and living it.”
It would be too easy to pull the similarities between Marni and the near-intergalactic jewellery, like proud UFO sculptures, the ruched and determined bold layering of Lucinda’s oft mimicked styling, This would be lazy. Of course, their past will enter this brave new future: after all, they all helped carve Marni’s instantly recognisable aesthetic for so long.
Talking to the three creators, Colville is only furthered in the mind as an intelligent label, creating collections – exclusive to Matches Fashion – that are joyful celebrations of colour, considered balances of separates, and brave designs of unique jewellery, bags and accessories that not only appeal to women of substance, but push the boundaries out of noteworthy shapes, formulation and aesthetics. Hooray for Colville: a brand that thinks and acts for the woman with brains, culture, art and creativity at her core.
How has your collated, extensive and reputable experiences resulted in Colville’s aesthetics and the manifesto of the brand?
I think our collated experience has what has helped us shape and Colville, our collective knowledge and strengths have bought a brand together that we didn’t perhaps expect. We started designing a wardrobe for the 3 of us, really that’s what it came down to. Something for each of us, 3 aesthetics combined.
Why do you call your brand a sum, rather than a mix of ideas?
It’s a sum as it has a unique and distinctive voice and vision of its own, Colville. When we are talking through ideas we often say, that’s very Colville, and we know what that means. It’s a certain freedom of expression, bold and quietly beautiful at the same time, the mix.
What does Colville draw inspiration from?
We are inspired by anything and everything.
We look at so many corners of life and its offerings to feed our collections. As three working together, it is important for us to be receptive to mixed references.
Tell us about the brand’s inception
We knew we wanted to continue our working relationships when we all left Marni. We couldn’t imagine not continuing our creative collaboration, it made sense and then suddenly one day we are doing it on our own and it’s growing!
Do you feel there are paradoxes at play in your collections?
Yes probably purely for the fact that we are 3 women with different aesthetic tastes that come together. We can do a tailored coat in black but then we love a drawstring bold floral print dress. We all see the point of each other’s ideas; I think that mix is what makes us unique and perhaps paradoxical.
Is Colville a direct manifestation of art and culture?
I think it’s a direct result of what we are feeling in that moment, it’s more of an emotional response to what we want to wear, having said that we go to exhibitions and films etc and those experiences permeate into our collections subconsciously.
Does music hold any relevance in your collections?
Well we are always listening to it and it’s important to all of us, I think we can remember the music we were listening to while we were emailing late at night replying to emails!
What was the last thing that made you excited? Lucinda: the last thing I was excited about was two minutes ago thinking about a shoot…. and who was going to do that.
Molly : Working at the bag factory this morning and seeing the new prototypes.
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