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The Interview: Stuart Trevor - the man, the myth, the retail legend behind AllSaints

Chloe Burney
30 January 2025

Stuart Trevor is not only a Scottish-born fashion designer, but he is also an undeniable character. With heaps of humour, Trevor told TheIndustry.fashion about how David Bowie was the inspiration behind AllSaints, how he paved the way for retailers such as ZARA and his plans to revolutionise the industry with his new label.

Trevor was the first-ever Head of Menswear Design & Buying at Reiss after he graduated from Nottingham Trent. He produced the first Reiss collection, securing the brand a place on the British high street for years to come.

In 1994, after coming head-to-head with David Reiss, the founder of Reiss, Trevor went out on his own to establish AllSaints, bringing rock 'n' roll l to the British high street. The brand shot to stardom as swaths of cool kids clamoured into his stores to get their hands on ‘affordable’ leather jackets and grunge galore.

After selling AllSaints, when it was valued at $17 million in 2005, he’s back on our radar with his new namesake fashion brand, known as "the clothing brand that doesn't produce any clothes". Yes, that’s right. Instead, the brand upcycles deadstock materials including Americana, Levi's jeans and everyday basics to turn them into one-of-a-kind works of art that promise to not add to growing textile waste.

This week, Stuart Trevor, the brand, has also been shortlisted for the 'Sustainable Sourcing' Award at the inaugural TheIndustry.fashion Awards.

Stuart Trevor, the brand, on the runway

You’re somewhat of a British retail legend. Can you cast your memory back to your university days? Was going down the retail route always your plan?

As a kid, I had no idea that you could do fashion as a business. When I was young, I became obsessed with finding vintage pieces and customising them. It’s funny because that's what I'm doing now. I discovered you could study fashion when I went to art school and that there was a whole business surrounding it. When I was young, careers teachers taught me about getting a job working for big accountancy firms, not fashion. It's something I think we need to talk to the British Fashion Council about because the arts are so underfunded and not talked about in our schools. In Great Britain, we're famous all over the world for having the most creative people.

So, I went to Nottingham Trent. For the first time, I learnt about designers like Paul Smith and Vivienne Westwood. I thought I might be able to meet Paul Smith or get a job working for him. I won a design competition and he offered me a job, but David Reiss approached me at the same time. He offered me a trip to Italy to go to Pitti Uomo and I went with him. To get me to work for him, Reiss bought me an £800 red Jean Paul Gaultier blazer, so, of course, I went to work with him over Paul Smith - it was a no-brainer. I mean, I was completely skint, how could I not?

You made a name for yourself at Reiss, can you tell us about your time there?

At the time, Reiss was a multi-brand retail store, mainly selling Italian brands, suits and ties and I created the first-ever Reiss collection. I launched it as a wholesale brand at Sehm during Paris Fashion Week.

I ended up working for Reiss for 10 years. By default, I was not only designing but also buying. I learnt the ins and outs of retail from my time there.

Let’s reflect on the 30th anniversary of AllSaints. You created the now mainstay on the British high street. What inspired AllSaints? 

There was a huge gap in the market. There weren’t any other young, small designer brands back then. It was either Selfridges or Whistles. ZARA and Primark didn’t exist.

I wanted to create a designer brand that people could afford, for people like me or for young rock 'n' roll bands that wanted something cool to wear. I started creating some cool, indie, unique one-off pieces when I was at Reiss. We produced them in limited quantities and they always sold out within days.

However, David Reiss was the type of man who would always wear a navy blazer, a Ralph Lauren shirt, a tie, a pair of beige chinos and loafers. He was very preppy and didn’t understand what I was doing when I was bringing in bomber jackets and little cropped blazers. We’d end up arguing about it even though they’d continue to sell out.

I thought, can you imagine if you had your own brand and you were selling it directly to people? And it was within reason, like a leather jacket for 300 or 400 quid, not £3000. So that's kind of what I set out to do.

I launched AllSaints during Paris Fashion Week and it was unbelievable. We had queues from every one of the best independent retailers in the world, including Luisa Via Roma in Florence, Barneys in New York and Selfridges in London. Buyers absolutely loved it because there was a huge gap in the market.

I opened my first AllSaints store in 1997 and it was a huge success. So I opened another one, and then another one, and then five years later, we had 15 shops. We were opening three or four a year. I didn't set out to become a retailer, but I ended up doing that.

The first-ever AllSaints photoshoot

How did you develop AllSaints’ aesthetic? This was a switch up from the ‘sophisticated elegance’ Reiss is known for.

David Reiss couldn’t get his head around the indie piece I was making for his brand and I was sick of arguing.

When I joined Reiss, they were going under administration and were basically insolvent. However, by the time I left, Reiss was making around £50 million in turnover. I thought if I could do that for him, I could do this for me and I wouldn’t have to argue with someone every day. I think that was the beauty of it.

I didn't have any money or men telling me what to do. I just wanted to create what I loved to wear and what I loved to buy.

When I was 16, we were in the post-punk era with really cool bands like Duran Duran and I wanted to dress these bands. My obsession has always been David Bowie. So I wanted to create clothes that he would come and buy from me. That was kind of my drive and determination. And of course, millions of other kids wanted to also feel like that, and nobody was catering for it.

Where did you get the name AllSaints from?

It stems from my initials. St is like a saint, and funnily enough, ‘The Saint’ was also my nickname. I was going to call it that or Stuart Trevor. But, I didn't want it to be my name, because if I ever wanted to sell it, I didn't want someone else to own my name, so I wanted to come up with a pseudonym for me.

When I was at Carnival, I looked up and realised I was on All Saints Road and I thought: "AllSaints that’s a good one".

When was the moment you thought ‘aha we’ve made it’?

I still don't think I've made it. I still get up everyday thinking, right, I've got to make it. I've got to get going. I've only got a few years left. Joking, I'm old enough, but not that old.

Back when I opened AllSaints in Spitalfields, I remember some of the mums and dads at my kid's school asking what I did, and when I said I designed for AllSaints, they thought I meant the band. I ended up suing the band and won because they tried to launch a clothing brand with TopShop, but I owned the name. The funny thing is, they had to go on tour with a merchandise collection that read 'AF' instead of AllSaints on a t-shirt.

I tried everything to get them to collaborate with me because I thought they were quite cool. It would have been a huge success, and it fitted me perfectly.

Finally, when the mums and dads realised I meant the fashion brand and not the band, they’d say "Oh my gosh, are you that really cool designer? I love what you're doing". When that started happening more and more, I thought, wow I've made it.

Do people know about AllSaints the brand rather than the band?

Why did you decide to sell the brand in 2005?

I had a silent partner and a working partner. The silent partner sold out to a guy who had just sold Karen Millen, Kevin Stanford. He was the husband of Karen Millen and he loved AllSaints. I spent about three years hanging out with him, and he would give me advice on how to build the brand and how to streamline things. He's a businessman, but not a designer. I'm a designer who happens to have a good eye for business. He got involved and bought out the second partner.

Then things started to go south. He implemented some policies like banning intercompany relationships. We had area managers from Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester all suspended on full pay because they'd been sleeping with each other.

We had 15 shops with the coolest kids in each city around the country. Of course, they're all going to sleep together. I'd rather they were sleeping with each other than someone from Ted Baker or Reiss.

 

He eventually offered me a huge amount of money to buy me out and after years of not paying myself much and investing profit back into the business. I decided to take it. I thought, I'll just take the money and run. I could do it again.

Reflecting on the current climate and environmental crisis, you founded your eponymous line in 2023. Why did you decide to go back into fashion retail?

About three or four years ago, I was mentoring young startup brands that had a positive social or environmental impact. We spoke about the issues with the fashion world, from high street to luxury brands, that were filling up countless landfills. Brands dump their textile waste in Africa, Chile and Indonesia.

On social media, we’re bombarded with adverts and brainwashed into believing we need more of everything. Then you bite. Then you get home and you realise you couldn't get any space in your wardrobe and dump old stuff. I thought, "I've got to do something about this".

I was introducing investors to the startup brands I was working with, but they kept asking me what I was going to do next and if I’d start up another brand. I thought the last thing the world needs is another clothing brand.

I always wear vintage. I often wear jackets I sew patches on, and then one day, one of these investors said: "I love it! Can I buy it?" So, I started selling parka jackets like the one I was wearing. I thought, what about a clothing brand that doesn't produce any clothes?

There is far too much clothing in the world. We don't need any more. What if I just take all these vintage pieces, because I have access to warehouses that have a million vintage Americana, and create one-off pieces?

In September 2023, I decided to set up shop in an empty building I owned in Hoxton. I started putting out this vintage military stuff with the patches on, and then I met an artist who wanted to paint on them, and I got him to paint on them. I decided to host a fashion week party in September 2023 and registered the name Stuart Trevor.

The launch party was on a Friday, and by the Saturday, one of my investors sat me down with a website developer to turn Stuart Trevor into a brand. From there it went ballistic. Every day people are ordering from the site.

We take existing stock and we customise it, so we don't produce loads of stock. Each order is bespoke and one-of-a-kind. Every garment comes with a label that I sign and date. Each product will say it’s ‘1 of 5’, for example.

My daughter came up with that idea. She said, "If Vivienne Westwood and Michael McClaren had signed the stuff they created when they invented punk, then they’d be worth millions".

I want our Hoxton studio to become like Andy Warhol's factory but without the heroin.

We encourage artists to come and hang out and they can paint on the clothes and we’ll sell them. We even have bands coming into practice. Plus, our four university interns are always hanging out while creating new upcycled designs.

We're never going to stop people from buying things. People want that dopamine rush that you get that comes with buying something new. At least with Stuart Trevor, they’re not buying something new.

We’ll never participate in Black Friday sales and all that rubbish. It's the worst thing that ever happened to the fashion business. Who's going to buy anything in the two-three weeks before Black Friday, and who's going to buy anything in the two-three weeks after Black Friday? I think our industry needs to take a hard look at itself.

Where do you source deadstock material?

There are millions of unused materials. There are warehouses all over the world. Friends of mine, from the ex-CEO of Diesel USA to the ex-retail director of Ted Baker, ask me where I’m going to get stock from and I laugh. That's the last thing you have to worry about, there’s hundreds of millions of garments out there. The US military alone spends $5 billion a year on clothing every single year and since Ferell Williams did camo for Louis Vuitton, it’s fashionable again. So, there are millions of pieces of Americana in warehouses all over the world that no one wanted two years ago. I can get it for very reasonable prices and then we just customise it.

I encourage everybody to utilise these untouched warehouses, even if it means that I end up without a supply of denim or whatever, then I'll do something else.

What lessons did you learn when creating AllSaints that you’re applying to this new venture?

I run it in a very similar way. When I ran AllSaints, I didn't overproduce anything. We didn’t have much money, so if we weren't selling trousers very well, I wouldn't do trousers the next year - I’d put that money into T-shirts and leather jackets. I remember my partner at the time saying, "Don't be stupid. We can't not have trousers. We will be the first shop in the world that you walk into that has jackets and t-shirts and jumpers but no trousers". I said, "Mate, we're not selling them. Go somewhere else and buy a pair of trousers".

What are your plans for Stuart Trevor looking ahead, are you looking to expand into brick-and-mortar retail?

The studio that we work in is a beautiful old Victorian tea warehouse. We encourage people to come there. We're always having parties and events.

Moving forward, the big problem is rent prices. Unless something cool comes along, that’s the perfect spot for an experiential shop, we won’t do it.

When we do open a store, we want artists painting in it, someone sewing on labels and patches, and a rock 'n' roll band playing in the evening while snacks and drinks are handed out. We even want a repair shop within the space. So, if anyone out there has a space, there's a guy out here looking for a spot…

We also want to create a space where people can even bring their old garments to us. We encourage people to come to us with a suitcase of their old clothes, and we'll give you a credit note.

We have a couple of different mottos but our number one messages are "the future is in the past" and "life is fun". When people come to our place, we have fun. We want to make sustainable clothing that is fun.


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