[Growing] A slow fashion label

Lydia Bolton on not following a fashion brand blueprint and what successful growth means to her today.

This is the first post from Broken Growth’s new series, Growing XYZ, in which we’ll get to know industry leaders choosing to grow businesses in ways that don't conform to traditional capitalist and patriarchal blueprints.

What are they doing differently? What do they want to change about their industries? What does successful growth look like to them?

First up is slow fashion designer and sustainability advocate Lydia Bolton. Everything Lydia creates for her eponymous fashion label is made from defective clothing, waste textiles and sleeping stock. Lydia's core mission is to educate people about fashion's impact on the climate which she does through empowering skill-sharing workshops and informative social content.

Hello! Give us an introduction to your business and explain your role.

Hi! I’m Lydia, my business creatively tackles textile waste. I am a fashion designer and sustainability creator highlighting how we can reuse the materials we already have and give them a new life.

I started my business in 2019 and it has evolved from being product-based to being a multifaceted brand encompassing workshops, brand partnerships, creative & educational content and some products. 

What does successful business growth look like to you?

Growth looks like lots of different things for me. Part of it is having new challenges and overcoming them - I like feeling that each year my brand/work has done something new or different from the year before. Since starting, my brand has been constantly evolving. While the values have always remained the same, my output is always shifting. For me, this is successful growth and makes me feel excited by my work as not only am I learning and improving skills in different areas, but it means the future of my brand is not set and can creatively grow in any direction.

I think successful brands adapt based on their community’s needs alongside social and environmental changes and the most successful are the ones leading the change.

Growing a brand in a different way to traditional blueprints is really interesting to me. It’s something I am continually trying to do alongside growing in the most sustainable way. 

What do you want to change about your industry?

How we measure & value growth! Growth is typically measured by sales and profit which has led to a wildly unsustainable fashion industry that exploits the people who make our clothes, vast amounts of overproduction, none stop messaging that we need a new XYZ item, 100s of mini trends and millions of textiles wasted each year (92 million tonnes end up in landfill each year to be exact). 

The constant need for more (from both a business’s perspective of more profits and a consumer’s perspective of consuming more) has destroyed our value towards clothing on many levels. We’re disconnected from the resources and people who make our clothing and have little attachment to it, so discard it without much thought for where it ends up.

I hear lots of conversations about degrowth. To build a more sustainable world, we need to readdress how we measure growth. Rather than it being about profit or even a continually improving state, imagine if growth was measured by how little impact was made to the planet?

How has your definition of success evolved as your business has grown, and what prompted that shift?

When I started my brand, I would have said (naively) that success was to get as big as possible while staying true to my core value of reusing. Now, my definition of success is growing while still doing all the things I enjoy. 

I’m a creative person and so managing someone else to do the creative work while I “grow the business” just doesn't make sense to me. I want to grow my business in a way that serves me and enables me to do all the aspects I enjoy. While my business is purpose driven, it’s also a partly selfish practice, where I get to do lots of things I love each day. I think this deep enjoyment I have for my work both on the creative side and how it aligns with my values is what makes me want to work so hard. 

This shift in how I view success has led to adaptations in the brand such as moving away from being solely product-focused and building a more personal brand. This has allowed me to maintain more creativity within my work and also be more sustainable. 

At times this feels like a bit of a challenge. There aren’t that many fashion brands that choose not to prioritise products 100% and I’ve had to stay focused on the importance of growing differently. 

What growth strategy have you implemented that others in your industry might consider too risky or unorthodox?

Prioritising educating and inspiring my community/audience rather than selling to them. I think this fits in with trying to grow my brand differently from others. I spend a lot of time creating content that my community will enjoy and benefit from rather than trying to sell to them or make products to sell to them.

By focusing on this instead, I’ve grown a good relationship with my community that isn’t purely based on consumption. It has also meant larger brands (like Nike, Adidas, Vans) want to work with me as they can see how I can create interesting content. 

Community has always been really important to me and has been at the forefront of how I’ve wanted to grow my brand. I want to have a brand where people can learn, be inspired and connect with the values. I do this a lot through the content I share; particularly with my ‘easy upcycle’ series so people can get ideas and learn how to upcycle their own wardrobe as well as with the scrunchie workshops which I host in my studio.

The workshops are small classes of 5-6 people where attendees learn how to make a scrunchie from 2nd hand materials. The workshops not only let me get to know my community really well but allow them to connect with each other. Everyone who comes is so sweet and we have a really cute evening together.

Images: Lydia Bolton

Name another brand with a fresh approach to growth who I should speak to next

Creative Ally! Founder Phie McKenzie is growing a talent agency that represents purpose-driven creators. She is passionate about how we can use social media to encourage positive change. I’m biased as it is my talent agency but Phie is one of the most values-driven people I’ve met and cares about doing things differently.

You can check out Lydia Bolton’s website and connect with her on Instagram.

Big thanks to Lydia for sharing her thoughts with us!

Speak soon :)

Matilda