Designer Ellie Vincent has embarked on a journey to create a start-up, comfy fashion brand that sustains the right message

“The women’s sportswear stuff is always pink, or sparkly. I don’t want to wear a pink T-shirt or sparkly Air Force Ones. Like what century are we living in?”

Ellie Vincent has long been stealing her partner’s clothes, frustrated with the lack of street and sportswear options that certain brands offer on the high street.

“I’ve never really been a very girly girl,” she says. “I would always steal his tees and hoodies. I guess streetwear brands were much more male-focused. And I think they were always marketed as menswear. Why isn’t it gender-neutral because who says a girl doesn’t want to wear a big hoodie or a big T-shirt and this kind of stuff?”

As many did, Ellie used the pandemic lockdown and a work redundancy to her advantage and scratched the creative itch by developing a sportswear brand for herself. Almost three years on from its first drop, Sustain Sportswear (@sustainsportswear) has stockists, has had national coverage and has a legit baggy (but not too baggy) collection that is going to be right up a lot of your streets.

Working in the creative marketing industry, Ellie, who lives on the borders of north Kent and south London, set out with a goal to create a product that, one, she would wear and, two, was sustainable and, three, promoted a positive message.

“My personal style has been something that I’ve always loved to explore and I guess through that I realised a few years ago a lot of issues within the fashion industry, with sustainability being such a big problem,” she says. “Obviously, it’s something people talk a lot about now. How can it be that you can buy T-shirts for £1? How does that make sense? So part of it was wanting to look more into that and the damage that garment production actually does to the planet.

“Also, there was a feeling of being a bit left out, I guess, in that [sportswear] space. I think this is a space for everybody and not just for men’s fashion and men’s cuts. I guess both those different things came together in Sustain - wanting to make an option that was for everybody.”

With a hint of the ex-sports 00s, and Madchester 90s feel to the pieces, Sustain got a nice break when it featured in GQ Magazine’s online list of new brands to check out after a friend was spotted wearing the brand. Within the piece it suspects the apparel to be influenced by the iconic Choose Love tees by Katharine Hamnett - the British designer known for championing sustainability in fashion.

“I hadn’t spoken about Katharine Hamnett specifically, but I talked about protest T-shirts being something I’ve really been inspired by,” says Ellie. “But I wanted to be a little bit more, I guess, maybe subversive than that. I mean, I love her tees. Obviously, they’re so loud with the message blazoned on the tee, but I wanted to be a little bit more cheeky. I thought it would be quite funny if you didn’t realise that you were wearing something that had a protest message - an underhand one.”

Mentioning the work of the artist known as Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives, who targets corporations using their own campaigns and logos against them, Ellie was on the lookout for an illustrator with a penchant for the alternative and eventually collaborated with Maidstone artist and ‘cene favourite Rebel Yuth.

“There’s a Gaia drawing that he did,” says Ellie. “I really liked his style and thought it would fit really well with the idea that I had in mind for the graphic, which was for it to be inspired by folklore and paganism. I really looked at a lot of woodcuts, and really quite like medieval depictions of Mother Earth and Gaia, being goddess of the earth. We spoke and I sent him a deck of references that I liked and he then came back with that design, which I loved. And so I’ve done it across two tees and a sweatshirt more recently.”

After months of research and sampling, Ellie began using a supplier of 100% organic cotton textiles to build an initial run of products for the brand to kick things off.

“It’s completely natural fibres. So, there’s no microplastics and, when washing it, it’s not going to release anything into the water,” says Ellie. “And it’s fully compostable at the end of the day.”

Ellie is also hot on her suppliers being GOTS and Fair Wear Foundation Certified, meaning there is a legally recognised standard of working conditions for employees with fair pay and without discrimination.

Garments are screen-printed using water-based, chemical-free ink that is certified by PETA as vegan. The printing partner also runs its production entirely with solar power and is working towards carbon neutrality. And all that comes before finding the right garment.

“I thought it would be quite funny if you didn’t realise that you were wearing something that had a protest message - an underhand one”

— Ellie Vincent

“The cuts of things are really important to me, it can’t just be like a tee that’s got a saggy neck. I need it to be a nice fit,” says Ellie. “The shoulders have got to sit right, the sleeves have got to be the right length. It’s got to not sit on your hips if you’re a woman, or not be too clingy on the chest. There were a lot of things that I kind of had in mind.”

The first release came at the back end of 2020 with just a pair of T-shirts on a modest first run.

“It’s a struggle between wanting to grow the business and not wanting to become a place where you’re just producing for the sake of it,” says Ellie. “So I’ve been doing things in capsule collections. I think I did three T-shirts and a hoodie after that.”

Ellie’s latest drop has included the Icarus Joggers and Gaia Sweatshirt. “That for me feels big enough. I think the most I would ever add on to that might be, like, more affordable, like accessories, like socks and a cap, for example.

“It feels a good balance between hoping to get the brand out there, providing different options to choose from and, you know, being able to play a little bit with a few more designs.”

Having initially taken the brand to outdoor markets paying for pop-up stalls during the Covid years, Sustain has now got two official, physical stockists in creative outlet store Atelier100 in London and conscious-shopping store The Good Supply Co.

INFO: sustainsportswear.co.uk