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The Interview: Cassie Holland, founder, HADES

Lauretta Roberts
07 November 2021

Cassie Holland founded her knitwear label HADES five years ago, along with her sister Isabel (pictured above with Cassie on the right). What began as a creative project – with Holland creating short-run collections of sweaters featuring some of the designer's favourite punk and post-punk bands – went on to become a cult hit.

High profile style influencers, such as Alexa Chung, were seen sporting her knits and the label took off. Five years on Holland has created "band knits" celebrating icons such as X-Ray Spex, The Smiths, The Slits, Devo, The Cure and, as part of its fifth birthday celebrations, David Bowie. As popular as the band knits are the Alphabet sweaters with cardigan versions recently added.

In keeping with Holland's sustainable visions, the knits are hand crafted by a family firm in Hawick, Scotland, and are made to last. Limited runs of each design are produced and, despite calls for designs to be repeated, Holland says she prefers to look forward than back. We find out about her journey and what the next five years might hold.

Congratulations on your five-year anniversary! Before we talk about that, can we go back to how the brand started? Can you give us some insight into your background and what inspired you to set up the brand?

Thank you! I began HADES as a creative project in my late twenties. I was getting frustrated by the lack of choice when it comes to knitwear, most knitwear seemed either frumpy or garish.

I’d just read Viv Albertine’s book “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys”, which I really enjoyed and I was encouraged by the can-do DIY punk ethic that Viv vividly describes in the book. The idea that even if you’re not classically trained you can still have something to offer, it gave me a licence to do it myself.

I created a really small run of thirty-two jumpers in pure wool, using £1,200 from my personal savings. Five years on and we’re still working with that same manufacturer!

What was the first knit you launched with and how did you get the brand on the map?

I originally made knits with some of my favourite post-punk banks emblazoned on them (you can see these in our first collection, “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”) and I shared them with a very small circle of friends, less than ten, at the same time I put them on Instagram and they propagated from there. I’m not sure it would happen now since Instagram has become such a commodified platform, the algorithms and monetised approach punish anyone who doesn’t have large marketing budgets.

They were worn by a number of musicians and celebrities quite quickly, including Alexa Chung at Glastonbury. And we were lucky to have the support of Liberty London for our first collection, the second collection was premiered by Vogue USA.

You are known for celebrating counter-cultural figures and bands – where do you get your inspiration from and how do these collaborations come about?

I take influence from an assortment of places, eras of history, cultural movements, literature. The books I’m reading usually, music that I’m listening to, places I visit. Right now I am taking inspiration from Marianne Faithfull’s new album ‘She Walks in Beauty.’ A series of songs with the words of the Romantic poets and constructed with Warren Ellis. And the dances of Lea Anderson’s Cholmondeleys https://www.instagram.com/leaandersonscholmondeleys/. We always work with bands that speak to us personally, so they’re reflective of our own taste. It’s a pleasure working with artists we love and forming a bridge between craftsmanship and their iconography.

Which have been the most popular collaborations and do you ever re-issue any knits from the back catalogue? (Personal request, please do Devo again as I missed it!)

We get asked this a lot. I know HADES fans are still interested in our first edition band knits. We’re not opposed to the idea of re-issuing knits but we want to continue to evolve the brand and collaborate with bands in new ways. We are working on a new collaboration now, for this collection we have drawn so much inspiration from the band (they have phenomenal and seminal iconography), developing new silhouettes and styles for HADES. It’ll be out next autumn!

Do you have a personal favourite?

Probably our "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" knit. I discovered X-Ray Spex when I was a teenager and getting into alternative music. The first thing that struck me about Poly [Poly Styrene, the X-Ray Spex frontwoman] was that she seemed to exist outside the confines of even those in the punk movement. She questioned every convention of society and resisted the pressure to conform throughout her whole life. We worked with Celeste Bell, Poly’s daughter, and took the typography on the knit from a handwritten sketch by Poly. Although each collection is endearing to me in one way or another, each collection we include a new technical innovation or a different form of design.

Your latest collection is perhaps the ultimate, a celebration of David Bowie. Can you tell us a bit about how that came about and how it’s going down?

With previous collections we’ve been lucky enough to work directly with artists. With the Bowie collection this obviously wasn’t an option. We did however get to work directly with his estate and archives. Bowie has such a huge catalogue of images, colours, ideas. He famously played extensively with his image. We opted to be faithful to his colourways, fonts and the spirit of his artwork. The collection has been incredibly popular, we are delighted! We’ll be re-releasing sold out styles soon and we hope to develop additional designs.

What else are you doing to celebrate five years of the brand?

We worked with SJ Hockett at Wonder Room Studio (wwwonderroom.com) to refresh our logo and redesign our website. In September we released a limited edition 5th anniversary scarf emblazoned with the HADES logo in pure lambswool. And more personally we celebrated with family and friends with an intimate dinner and an informal party.

As a small team we don’t have a lot of opportunities to stop and reflect, it’s been great to look back and celebrate what we have achieved, as well as thank everyone for their support and encouragement - fans of HADES have played such a crucial role in our success.

Outside of the band knits, tell us what else is in the collection.

This season is our most extensive yet!

We have expanded our band collections to include knitted accessories in the form of a "The Cure" and "X-Ray Spex" scarf.

Our signature Carrington Cardigan is available with 3D printed buttons in the form of Greek mythology figures, surrealist iconography and crawling beetles.

The Alphabet collection has evolved from our initial lettered jumper to include scarves and cardigans. The scarves will be available in two colourway options; one on our online store and the other across Selfridges UK stores.

Finally, our marco double way scarves, knitted with the pastimes and slogans; "Dancing in London", "Sunday Morning", "Autumn" amongst others.

Of course, it isn’t just what is on your jumpers that is interesting, but also how you make them? Where and how are they made and are they made to order or in small quantities?

We support the knitwear industry in Scotland and the historic craftsmanship that has existed there since the 18th century. There is precedent for this in England, William Morris championed craft in the 19th century through the Arts & Craft movement. The movement was a response to the Industrial Revolution, it worked towards promoting the well-being of individuals by creating a union of art and labour. It was against exploitative commercial expansion, cheap products of manufacturing and poor working conditions.

Outsourcing of knitwear production overseas saw a number of closures of historic manufacturers in the UK during the 1990s and early 2000s. Many advanced economies have not properly taken care of their manufacturing and clothing production base. There are only a small number of manufacturers left, if we don’t protect these skills, these jobs will die out and the communities that surround them will disappear.

We produce our collections in very low quantities, this avoids unnecessary waste and means we can continue working with our local partner rather than moving production overseas. Our knits are made from pure wool. If well cared for, wool garments can last a lifetime. Our products are made to last. We do recognise that it is difficult for people to always buy sustainably and it’s important for us not to preach, we are not without fault and do not believe in making people feel guilty, however we are also aware that fast fashion benefits from the consumer not understanding how their clothing is made, in an increasingly automated and globalised world, people are disconnected from how a garment is actually made - we want to change this.

It’s obviously been a tough time for all brands in the past 18 months, how has it been for you?

We saw a slump in wholesale income, stores had smaller budgets in anticipation of reduced footfall and lower economic activity. This meant buyers were less able to take on new brands as they had to reduce the risk in their buying portfolio.

Initially we were very worried but a large percentage of our business model is direct to the consumer and we found that people were rallying to support small business during this difficult time. We were so grateful for the support we received from consumers and press.

Loungewear and knitwear also remained desirable throughout lockdown, unlike occasionwear, which we were lucky to fall into.

Overall, outside of personal tolls, we fared okay the past 18 months. Although uncertainty and anxiety remains, with rising costs to households we are unsure as to what individuals buying power will be in the coming months.

But we do have the most loyal customers and are so grateful they continue to support us.

You must have a community of fans around the brand that keep you going, how do you cultivate that and communicate with them?

It is important for us to know our customers feel empowered in our knits and proud to support an independent brand and local manufacturers. We do this through irreverent design, championing craft and ensuring our knits of the highest quality!

You are still an independent brand, run by you and your sister Isabel, is it important that you remain so?

Definitely. Small businesses add so much to the creativity of industries and the character of a place, we bring originality and variety to what can often be an overly corporate and chain-store saturated world. Furthermore brands that historically were design-led are increasingly compromised by demands for ever increasing growth, more and more I see designs that are clearly predicated on their ‘instagram appeal’ rather than the integrity of their design. We value our independence and the ability to prioritise creativity and quality, we would hate to be constrained and pressured to be more commercial.

Are there plans to expand the brand into other categories moving forward?

Next spring/ summer we’ll be releasing our first non-wool products.

It has been important for us to grow slowly and sustainably, we feel ready now to expand our offering and are excited to showcase the new styles. The spring collection, like our knits, draws inspiration from history juxtapositioned with a contemporary feel. It features skirts and dresses, all made within the UK from 100% natural fibres.

What advice would you give someone setting up a brand today?

This might not be advice for everyone, but I started HADES as a creative venture with the aim of creating idiosyncratic clothes. When you start working in the restraints of the fashion industry it's so easy to be sucked into corporate ways of working; working five days a week, feeling pressured to create multiple collections a year, maximising profits etc. We personally don’t want to be part of that. Resisting that pressure is hard, coming from outside of the industry has helped us. It’s still something I struggle with today, but don’t be constrained by the current standards. Do what feels right for you!

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