LIFESTYLE

Slow fashion is marching on the high street. Anna Britten meets Bristol’s leading ecowear pioneer Charlie Boots.

What do you think of when you hear the words ‘ethical fashion’? Hippies in unwashed hemp T-shirts? Social workers in vegan maryjanes? Mrs Bono, maybe? Probably not figure-hugging, boardroom-friendly dresses, boned pencil skirts and sharp jackets. Probably not Charlie Boots.

“In the 90s, ethical fashion was about beige hemp clothing,” explains the Bristol-based designer-maker (real name Ruth Harrison). “It wasn’t design led, and it came and went. If you do nothing but preach the ethical angle, people find it preachy. But I’ve seen things turn around in the past four or five years. People Tree is massive now – although I’m not keen on their designs. But I’ve noticed a lot of smaller companies coming up, more design led, and competing with the high street, prices are coming down – I’ve heard Tesco and Sainsbury’s are going to start stocking eco ranges. I think it could well start to get a lot bigger.”

Charlie Boots is very much a part of that national trend, and one of the few sustainable womenswear designers working in Bristol. After completing a fashion degree as a mature student at Bath Spa University in 2009, she started trading her handmade, limited edition pieces online from her home last July.

“Designing clothes comes quite naturally to me. When I was studying I wanted to be working for myself, I never really wanted to work in the fashion industry. I don’t feel I’d be contributing much to the world if I was just making clothes and contributing to consumerism. I was interested in slow clothes, clothes that are design-led, but not ‘of the season’. I wanted to be part of the ethical fashion movement.”

All her pieces are made using fair-trade, reclaimed, organic and/or vintage fabrics and bamboo (luxuriantly soft and breathable, apparently). A favourite material is 1930s ‘feedsacks’, reused for clothes by American housewives in the Great Depression, and now highly sought-after by eco-fashionistas. Naturally, there’s a limit to how far these materials will go – and so there’s a 10 item limit per design. “It’s about giving something unique. You don’t want to go out and see two or three people wearing the top that you’ve bought. That’s why I use vintage fabrics – sometimes there’s only enough for five of one garment.”

In addition, Charlie is reluctant to follow the industry’s two-big-collections-a-year convention: “ I’ve resisted it so far. I don’t want to give the impression I’m coming out with more designs every six months – this is slow fashion. I tend to use fabric and designs to make clothes that can go through the year.”

The current range includes soft, drapey jersey tops collared and cuffed in old printed fabrics; semi-fitted cotton T-shirts with raglan sleeves and panels of vintage kimono or feedsack; dresses with couture-style binding that take a 1950/60s Balenciaga aesthetic and run with it; reversible tailored jackets; boned skirts; and accessories, some of which are by other ethical designers. It’s a gorgeous, wearable line at the affordable end of the handmade designer market (tops, for example, are around the £80 mark) and deserves to do well.

“I would like to start having my label in shops,” admits Charlie, when pressed on her long-term ambitions. “I would like to have a known label, making good, interesting work.”

The mission to the high street begins in typically Bristolian style this month with the launch of her pop-up gallery/boutique at the old Windows 204 artspace on Gloucester Road. Called Charlie Boots @ 204, it’s intended as a showcase not just for Charlie’s line but for any “local designers who work in an ethical way – there’ll be clothes, accessories, jewellery, bags, scarves and some homewares and artwork.” And not a smelly old hemp vest in sight.

CHARLIE BOOTS @ 204 LAUNCHES MID-FEB AT 204 GLOUCESTER RD, BRISTOL, BS7 8NU. FFI: O77227 813532 OR WWW.CHARLIEBOOTS.COM
 

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