Spell co-founder Elizabeth Abegg and Outland Denim founding CEO James Bartle detail the process behind their collaborative partnership.
How did this partnership come about? What was involved in getting it off the ground?
James: Owing to our close proximity along the east coast as well as our shared values, this collaboration began very organically.
Spell was seeking a more sustainable way to offer denim to their community, as it can be one of the most environmentally harmful garments to make, and approached us.
It was really an honour to work with Spell, collaborating on designs that would serve both the Spell and Outland customer, and introducing our product to their close-knit community.
Elizabeth: Some collaborations are difficult, they take a long time to find their feet.
You can feel at the beginning of a collaboration if it's going to flow, and this was one those times.
We’ve been following Outland’s story for years and I’ve crossed paths with James on the sustainability speaking circuit and have always admired the work they’ve done sharing their story.
We’re a fun and colourful brand, flowing here and there but Outland is laser focused and I always found that so impressive.
Denim has always been part of our brand DNA, it's the heart and soul of a good vintage inspired outfit so it's always paired back well with our pieces but on our journey to plug more responsible fabrications into our supply chain, denim was always the most difficult to transition to a transparent and ethical supply chain.
So, we simply started to move away from it.
We wanted to do a collaboration with a denim brand and make it completely transformative, so it had to be Outland.
We hit them up and from there it flowed so easily, even with COVID in the mix we didn’t give up on it.
What does this partnership signal to the wider fashion industry about sustainability?
Elizabeth: It's not new to say that cross pollination is crucial to shifting the dial in areas of supply chain sustainability and responsibility but I think a huge part of change will come from consumer sentiment and the community that rallies around a brand making big changes in their consuming behaviour.
So having something really substantial to talk about with our community has come from this perfectly aligned partnership.
They’ve lifted us up through offering our community a taste of their transparent supply chain and we lifted them up by introducing our millions of followers to their brand.
I think partnerships in this sustainable space can help brands take huge steps when before they may have only been taking manageable steps.
James: For us this collaboration, and collaborations in general, are so vital.
Brands need to stop approaching sustainability so individually, or like a marketing slogan.
No one is going to win the 'race to sustainability'.
We are not going to change the world with a handful of really responsible brands.
We need to collaborate, and not just on a product level, but on a supply chain level too, where we can collectively make a real difference in the lives of the people involved in making our clothes, right down to the segments of the supply chain that are the most opaque and therefore vulnerable such as cotton farm workers.
The beauty of this collaboration, and all of our pieces, is that it is truly the customer who is making the impact, making a positive change.
We and Spell can make all the denim we like, but without our community, nothing happens.
It's about making fashion by the people, for the people.