Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Phoebe English’s studio in a former school in south London is a bright space with three sewing machines under large windows, sills lined with vibrant plants. On a garment rail at one end of the studio hangs a delicate white top, constructed from cut-out hearts made of waste silk, part of a custom bridal suit for a client’s wedding this summer. At the opposite end of the room, four mannequins wear pieces from English’s archive recently acquired by a major American museum. All are made from discarded fabric; one square-shaped, layered silk dress is overdyed in a shade of chartreuse, a colour obtained from the yellow-flowered ragwort, an unwelcome weed on farm land, pulled from a farm in Warwickshire.“We’re really interested in colour right now,” says the 39-year-old designer, sitting at a stool at the studio’s large cutting table. “Not just the particular hue, but the components that have gone into making the colour. Obviously, we’re in an urban environment,” she says, pointing to the car park outside the window, “so we find the most effective way that we can be in contact with nature and with people working in ways to increase biodiversity, water health, carbon sequestration, is by linking with dye plants and botanical dyes.”Occasionally, though, nature finds its way to them. The studio manager Clara Jedrecy recently brought in a buddleia brush blown down from a railway arch during a storm. They threw it in a dye bath, stems and all. “It made a lovely dark green colour,” says English.Creating her collections from surplus materials and natural dyes are just two of the ways in which English, the quiet warrior of British fashion, is seeking to detoxify the fashion industry, or at least her small part of it. This month, as part of the Victoria and Albert Dundee museum’s new exhibition, Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, English has collaborated with Zena Holloway, an ocean photographer turned bio-designer, on an ethereal stitch-free dress, grown from wheatgrass roots. Holloway, who was moved to work in natural textile development after seeing the increasing amounts of plastic waste on the seabed, grows the roots onto templates carved from beeswax, creating a flexible yet durable textile she has named Rootfull. Last year, Rootfull invited English to design a dress for the exhibition.I began to see the enormity of damage that the fashion industry does on a planetary scale“It’s constructed from this bouncy root-grown lace which Phoebe has cleverly framed and attached with a ripped cotton strip bodice,” says Holloway. It relies solely on the binding together of the roots and a series of knots and ties for construction. “We tried various experiments to get to a stage where Phoebe thought it was suitable for the body. The finished dress is a beautifully light structure with apertures, very wearable and there’s a tie waist to adjust for different sizes.”For her part, English sees the Rootfull dress as both a valuable piece of research and development into alternative textiles — the material is grown from seed over 12 days, using only light and water and is biodegradable — and an important information carrier. “It encourages dialogue and, most importantly, action around alternative ways to work in design,” she says. “Through the dress you receive information about Zena’s scientific exploration and it prompts questions: What are my clothes made of? And is there a different way?”English did not set out to be a sustainable fashion designer. She launched her eponymous label in 2011, straight after a BA and MA in Fashion Design and Knitwear at Central Saint Martins, where she was tutored by the late, renowned professor Louise Wilson. Immediately lauded for her mastery of textile craft and a winning design aesthetic that plays with the decorative and utilitarian, she has shown continuously at London Fashion Week, won the Leaders of Change Award at the British Fashion awards in 2021 and has had work acquired by institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.The studio had been in business for almost seven years when, in 2018, English had a climate realisation, triggered by the combination of America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, activism by Extinction Rebellion and Stacey Dooley’s BBC documentary, Fashion’s Dirty Secrets. “It sounds stupid because it’s more generally known about now, but I began to see the enormity of damage that the fashion industry does on a planetary scale,” she says. Rather than giving into feelings of doom and leaving the industry, she decided instead to take action. “History shows that art and design reflect the reality of the period it is created in,” she says, “so I decided to respond to the times we are living in.”We are living in a time where there are communities physically drowning in our waste clothesWhile at one point the studio was designing four collections a year for both men and women, scurrying to meet wholesale buyers’ demands, today it sells direct to consumers and presents one gender-fluid collection each year created with a circular design approach. This considers the full life cycle of a product and its effect on the environment and natural resources, from the design stage through its fibre and component content, production, packaging and a garment’s biodegradable potential. “We are very lo-fi,” says English, who works with two part-time employees (the studio recently switched to a four-day week) with two to three more freelance staff taken on when required. “But I’ve always been an advocate of the idea that just because something is small, it doesn’t mean it’s not relevant or important. I think that’s a response to being part of an industry that has so much excitement around bigger is better — big shows, big collections. For me that’s never been a priority.”Collections are made entirely from pre-consumer waste textiles from the studio’s “alternative fabric sourcing network”, which includes UK-based bridal businesses. “We are living in a time where there are communities physically drowning in our waste clothes,” English says. According to the Textiles Market Situation Report 2024 by WRAP, an environmental action NGO, about 421,600 tonnes of used textiles were exported from the UK in 2022. “How do designers respond to that? We see our collections as an opportunity to use waste and reissue waste back into circulation.”Over the years, English has come up with a responsive design process for the varieties of unwanted textiles they receive — anything from 500 metres of silk to tiny offcuts. “With large quantities of fabric, we can approach something with a more voluminous silhouette or implement design features like pleats,” says English. “Smaller pieces we can use to build onto surfaces in our patchworking category. We’ve done so many different versions of that.” The heart and shield-shaped cut-outs of the most recent collection are an example.It’s trying to make a garment with the potential to be decomposable and compostable, returning to the earth in the safest wayThe studio’s “mono fibre” approach — using a single fibre content rather than any blends, which can be difficult or impossible to recycle, and zero components made from plastics and petrochemicals, such as zips or fastenings — considers the end life of the product. “It’s trying to make a garment with the potential to be decomposable and compostable, returning to the earth in the safest way,” she says.While reluctant to reveal company financials, over 14 years the studio has built up a loyal customer base that together with consultancy work, educational projects and design collaborations with brands and partners such as Rootfull, keep the business viable. The bridal category is expanding as alternative wedding attire gains appeal and more people reject the idea of synthetics for their special day. “We attract people who want something that is made with intention and can have an extended life,” English says. “We have a list of natural dyers we can connect customers to if they want to change their garment’s colour.”Even in the face of extreme politics, climate denial and sustainability fatigue, English remains optimistic. “If there are no alternative frameworks for people to reference then there really is no other option,” she says. “We’re never going to move away from a structure that doesn’t fit into the realities of our planetary boundaries. For us, it’s really not about the activity that we complete in the studio alone. It’s about passing information along and seeing how the next generation might reinterpret that.”English is one of a small cohort of eco-minded British fashion designers trying to tackle industry issues with similar techniques, including Bethany Williams, Amy Powney of AKYN, Paolo Carzana, and Chopova Lowena’s Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena. But generally, English says, designers need to be working harder. “We are trained problem solvers. We can use those skills to think beyond silhouette, colour, fit and pattern.” In her own quiet way, English demonstrates how.Follow us on Instagram and sign up for Fashion Matters, your weekly newsletter about the fashion industry
