Aristocrats, Dundee
As a fashion house we are re-examining our part in the climate catastrophe and asking everyone to re-evaluate the values on which we buy and discard clothes. What makes a t-shirt less valued than a couture jacket? What makes it easy to throw away an E-bay bought garment but keep your grandmothers’ hand-knitted cardigan safe? How can we use a product to its full potential?
Fast Fashion has been the industry’s approach to mass-producing clothes for a long time and its environmental impact goes beyond what is immediately obvious. We believe that by following the slow fashion approach and making our product circular we will provide unique, high-end products and accessorise them with sentimental value, longevity and versatility at affordable prices. We do this by choosing to reject the trend-led approach to fashion. Slow Fashion is a movement of designing, creating, and buying quality garments for longevity and versatility. Like all circular products slow fashion is holistic and considers the lifecycle of the product, all its components and ethically preserving all aspects of the environment and economy.
At house of Aristocrats we look at the connections between raw materials, the environment and human labour through the lens of circularity. We are re-designing and re-thinking how clothes are made and worn by sourcing textile swatches, off-cuts, end-rolls, sampling yardage, damaged textiles, unsold or second-hand clothing and textiles. By practising circular strategies of design for low waste, low impact products and processes. With the products’ end-life in mind, we increase the longevity and recyclability to improve the lifecycle of a product and enable circularity.
The past few months have shown just how fragile and temporary we as humans are in the face of nature and our methods of extracting and distributing materials throughout the planet has to change, but first we have to examine and accept our being as part of the problem and make changes to reverse that. The fashion industry produces 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions, is the second-largest consumer of the worlds water supply and irreversibly pollutes the oceans with microplastics damaging life and ecosystems everywhere. 
For us, sustainability is not only about protecting Earth’s natural resources and ecosystems but people and their needs. This means when it comes to fashion, we prioritise environmentally friendly practices throughout the production process of the product and educate everyone so that future generation will have the things they need to continue living. Post-pandemic the new normal for fashion should be circular. To offset the current continued growth of the fashion economy, circular fashion needs to fast forward and become global. It allows young designers, creators and entrepreneurs to not only incorporate the quintessential human experience in making garments but also allows them to source and create ethically and freely for the consumer. Directly adding values and sentiments to the garments makes it easier and possible for a circular economy to become an international movement.
The first thing people think when hearing about circular and/or upcycled products is that it is either second-hand or for hire only but circular products can have many different faces depending on where they fall in the circular economy model. At house of aristocrats we are successfully introducing style, sentiment, design, values and ownership with our custom-made, completely new, upcycled circular products. We collaborate with and update the client throughout the process letting them enjoy the process of their clothes being made from reclaimed garment waste. Through a combination of circular economy methods such as hire and lease, incentivised returns and collaborative consumption, guarantee and repair, local resources can circulate back into the community with re-purposing and re-branding. An estimated £140m of clothing goes into landfill annually, or worse they are incinerated.
We have a vision to disrupt the linear, traditional cradle-to-grave journey of a product and open garment waste collection centres, Aristocrats sewing studios and workshops around the country giving a career to local designers, promote the circular economy and support planetary sustainability
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