Step into the captivating world of Stuart Trevor, the maverick behind AllSaints, as he details his journey from humble beginnings to global fashion influence. 

From dressing acts at the Super Bowl and outfitting every major British rock band, to creating the studded belts and leather jackets every millennial had to have. Stuart is a titan of the industry, for good reason. He became Head of Design for Reiss at only 18, going on to found 3 successful brands of his own – first AllSaints, then Bolongaro Trevor, and the eponymous Stuart Trevor.

Raised on a shoestring budget, Stuart's artistic flair blossomed against all odds. From hand-me-downs given a rebellious twist to late-night art clubs, his obsession with design propelled him forward. 

Join us as we delve into the genesis of AllSaints, born from Stuart's vision and sheer determination. Discover how he transformed modest ideas into fashion powerhouses, each one revolutionizing the industry.

But it wasn't just leather jackets and trends. Stuart's secret? He cracked the elusive menswear code. By dressing rock bands before influencer culture took center stage, his designs sparked conversations; be it on stage, at fashion weeks, or a casual chat at the pub. Each piece resonated, igniting a sartorial revolution.

Stuart's journey is about more than his trailblazing clothes. It's about forging relationships, breaking boundaries, and creating brand identities that speak volumes. It's a testament to the power of authenticity, community, and the art of sparking a conversation. 

Join us as we unravel the story of a brand (and man) that defied conventions, creating a legacy that’s lasting impact is felt across the fashion world today. 

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Reiss, AllSaints & Bolongaro Trevor: Leading & Leaving Fashion Retail’s Finest ft. Stuart Trevor 

Paul: Welcome back to Building Brand Advocacy. I'm Paul Archer, your host, and today I'm joined by a legend. I think I'm joined by a legend. I've got Stuart Trevor here. Stuart, how are you doing? 

Stuart: Well, I'm fine, I'm great, thanks, how are you? 

Paul: I'm pretty good, I'm pretty good. Now you are in, you're in a cold, drafty warehouse in East London as we speak, is that right? 

Stuart: Yeah, it is an old Victorian tea warehouse, just north of Shoreditch in Hoxton, yeah. It is quite cold, it's just turned, isn't it? 

Paul: It is, it's chilly, we're mid-November now and know about it. So before we, because very keen to learn in more detail why you're in a warehouse in East London, but let's rewind a little bit. Tell us a little bit about who you are. You've been involved in some incredible brands over the years and just give us a bit of a potted history about some of that. And we'll delve into some of those I think, and then we're going to talk something a bit more contemporary as well. 

Stuart: Yeah. Cool. Uh, so yeah, when I, so from a very, very young age, um, I think about eight years old, I was, um, living in Dundee, um, with my mum, single parent, four kids, absolutely no money.

Councillor's estate in Dundee. My mother was very, she was a Mormon. So we had no money whatsoever. There was quite a wealthy family in this church and we used to get a suitcase of clothes every six months, hand-me-down clothes. And that was basically, I would get this suitcase and pull things out and there would be, you know, leather jackets or, you know, old some really nice things. So this family used to give us clothes. I used to take them out. They never fit me. My mum used to sew them and take them up and shorten the sleeves or, you know, play around with them. And I would get her to change the buttons and do things, you know, that's like eight, nine, 10 years old. And I sort of became obsessed with clothes. And then I heard David Bowie for the first time on my Auntie Joyce's Teak Radio Hi-Fi.

And I remember listening to, I think it was Ashes to Ashes, and coming over and listening to the words, and just thinking, and the noise, and I just thought, this is otherworldly. Who is this guy? And I heard the name David Bowie, and then I was like, I've gotta watch Top of the Pops, and I sat down on a Thursday, and I was watching David Bowie, just thinking, this guy's, I wanna be David Bowie. I was like, you know, and then Kate Bush came out about the same time, this is like 1978, sort of period, and there was punk was going on and my sister had a boyfriend who turned up one week looking like the Bay City Rollers and then the following week he turned up looking like John Lydon with like a leopard skin scarf and I remember trying to get the leopard skin scarf off him going let me try it let me try it and he's going no and I pulled the scarf off and it eventually got it off and it was a pair of knickers. you know, going out with my sister and be at some girl's knickers on as a leopard skin scarf. Anyway.

Paul: That's, I mean, that's pretty punk to be honest with you. That's pretty punk. 

Stuart: Totally. Yeah. And it kind of, so I became obsessed with, with that. And then, and then my mother married my stepfather very fortunately. He was quite wealthy and lived in South London. And I moved down to London with my mum and my three brothers and sisters. My stepfather had four kids. There was all of a sudden, eight of us all living together like the Brady Bunch. And everything was great. And I ended up at an all boys grammar school, wearing a school uniform and being obsessed with art, doing like every single late night at school. Monday would be the print club, Tuesday would be fine art, Wednesday would be woodwork and metalwork, Thursday would be life drawing or modelling, model clay modelling, completely obsessed with and that's all I ever wanted to do. And then when it came to O levels, I don't know how I started buying and selling clothes to kids in the school to make a few quid and I used to pay someone like a pound to copy their homework. And I used to, because I hated maths and physics and chemistry and all this sort of stuff, but you had to do them in this grammar school. Somehow I, by copying his own work every morning in, you know, I don't know how I managed it, but I got A's in maths, physics, art, chemistry, biology. The careers guy, you're like a genius, but what do you want to do? I'm only really interested in art and design. Back in those days, there's no such thing as a fashion business. There was no, there weren't any, there was hardly any shops. There wasn't even, you know, there wasn't even River Island. I think, you know, there was... I think that was called Chelsea girls. There was nothing, there was no Zara, no H&M, no Reese, no All Saints, obviously, no, there was, you know. And I, so they said, oh, you should apply to be an architect. And you know, you're gonna need A levels in art, and A levels in physics, and A levels in math. So I finished my O levels, the day after the O levels on the Sunday, my sister, who used to live up in Northamptonshire, She was down, I'd been out on a Saturday night and got completely hammered with my mates, you know, celebrating 15 years old. I mean, that's what you do. And it's the same as getting your GCSE results. Everyone goes to Reading Festival and down to Newquay. Exactly. Yeah. So I, but of course I've turned up at four in the morning and the stepfather's waiting like, what the hell are you doing? And all that. You're drunk. And I'm like, no, I'm not. And then she fell on the floor. So the next day they were like.

You can't live here. Mormon Church is no alcohol, no tea and coffee, no drugs and no pre-marital sex. Well, apart from art, that was the only thing I was interested in. So I packed my bag and went off with my sister and I applied to go to the college up in Kettering Tech. It was Tresham College.

And on the day that I went there, I left home, I got my nose pierced, I bleached my hair blonde, grew a pair of pants around my neck. I had a pair of pants around my neck. Yeah. And I applied to go to college to do art foundation, art A level, maths A level, physics A level. And the day that I was going, I woke up in the morning about 6am and I had really long, really dark roots.

So I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll dye my hair burgundy. I've got this burgundy crazy color that I've nicked off my sister, put it in the hair, seven o'clock, washing it all out. I've done the hair's fuchsia, bright fuchsia, put it in like, what am I gonna do? So I got like a load of brill cream and gel and I, you know, put the hair back and I had to go and hitchhike to get to college. And I thought, never gonna get, who's gonna pick me up? I look like an idiot.

So I got changed, I had a boiler suit on with a studded belt. I had a little biker jacket that I cropped, a leather biker jacket that I'd cropped. I had biker boots on and this pink hair in the nose ring and a little 16 year old boy going off like hitchhiking. Two cars, handbrake turn into the lay-by. There's a Golf and a Beetle. They're arguing over who's gonna give me a lift. I'm like, I'll get in the Beetle because I've never been in one. So I got in the car and I said, oh, I thought I was gonna be waitingnthere forever and they went, why? And I said, I look like an idiot, you know, and they're like, you look like a rock god, what are you talking about? You look amazing. There's no way I was not going to pick you up. You just look amazing, you know. So I got to college, went to the Art Foundation, so nervous, sweating, thinking, everyone's staring at me thinking, who is this idiot with a future, bright future here, you know, and it's just self-conscious and then I went to do the art A level the first lesson the writing it all up and I was just sitting there thinking I've got no idea what they're talking about A level physics compared to O level physics which is a walk in the park it's like rocket science I was just no idea then I went into the maths lesson same thing there's all this algebra a equals 2 over 4 times x times I just like look at things, I've made a huge mistake. What am I gonna do? So I go to lunch and some kid comes over, looks like Robert Smith from The Cure, hair all up in the air. So, hello mate, can I sit with you? And I go, yeah, of course. And he goes, what band are you in? I said, what band? You must, you're in a band, yeah? I'm like, no, you must be, you look like a rock god. You look like David Bowie. You look like Mick.

Mick Kahn from Japan, you look like David Silvian, I don't know what you look like. I was like, oh. Then a girl comes over with a Mohican all shaved at the side, she looked like Alana Curry from the Thompson Twins. She's like, hello, can I sit with you? What band are you in? I'm like, I'm not in a band. She's like, you must be, you look like a rock god, you must be in a band. I said, no, are you on the fashion course? I went, what, what fashion course? She went, you must be on the fashion.

Come with me so that we get up and we're walking down the corridor. I think it's something from Donnie Darko, where they're walking through the college. I always remember this. I've got Robert Smith from The Cure, I've got Lana Curry from the Thompson Twins, I had a geezer from The Clash, where they ripped the sleeveless shirt and the bike that, you know, they're all walking up the corridor with me. We walk in the room and I walk, there's 30 girls on these pattern-cutting tables, mannequins, busts, sewing machines, irons and I'm like, wow, this is amazing. This is where I'm, so I walked to the tutor and I'm like, excuse me, I've made a huge mistake. I've joined the wrong class. I need to be here. I didn't realize that you could do fashion for, you know, as a career. She's like, sorry, mate, you'll have to apply next year. And this Alana Curry girl's like, you know.

Miss, miss, look, you mad, look at him, this guy's born to do this. Look, he's made that outfit. She went, you made that outfit? I went, yeah, I've customized this, like vintage clothes and I've just taken it all in and I was like really nervous and all. Then she goes, can you sew? I went, yeah, of course. And she went, how, well, how? I said, well, my mum taught me, so, you know. She went, if you can make a pocket by the end of today, I'll consider it.

So she gave me like a bit of fabric and a pattern and an example of how you make pocket in five stages. So I made it in five minutes, brought it back to her and she went, wow, you're miles ahead of everyone else. You can start tomorrow. That's amazing. You've then gone on, started an iconic brand in the form of All Saints, but that wasn't where you kicked off. Where did your career, post-education, post-university, first job, where did you head? So yeah, I... I went to Nottingham Trent University to do BA Honours in Fashion and while I was there in the first year, I did the typical student grant, three and a half grand in the bank straight down the pub and I think the first six months we were kind of getting involved but not obviously not concentrating enough because they threatened to throw me off the course and I begged them I said I'm sorry I Promise you I'll really work hard. So the second year I've entered this student menswear design awards the SMDA I've entered the Paul Smith Mont Blanc Penn's competition this Bernof fashion awards was quite funny one because they back in those days as well There was no fashion shops. There was no fabric shops and they give you, you do a drawing and you put little swatches on it. And I got little swatches of fabric and I stitched little pinstripes in them on a sewing machine and stuck them on the bit of paper and did the drawing of, I took the idea of a suit, turning it inside out where you have the curved seams on the outside and the stripes were on that bit and this bit was plain and it had a belt on it. And I did a zip, a shirt that instead of buttons has a zip and I did a little metal thing with Smirnoff written on it.

Like you get on a vodka brandy bottle, you know, with brandy and gin. And it got through to the finals and they send you 500 quid and then you've got to make the outfit. And I'm like, looking at these swatches and the tutors looking at them laughing, going, who are you going to get that stitch that fabric from? So I got the yellow pages because in Nottingham, they had all these lace makers and I rang up a quilting company and I brought the swatch to them and they went, yeah, we can do that. We can stitch straight lines for you.

So I bought 20 meters of, or 10 meters of linen and stitched the lines and it made this suit. I actually never thought I was gonna get it done on time. I never, you know, it was quite intense. And I basically, my mom and dad, I hadn't bothered to tell them that, you know, oh, by the way, I'm in the finals of the Smirnoff Fashion Awards. Would you like to come? And they went, okay, when is it? I said, it's tomorrow night. And they're like, okay, where? I'm like, the Royal, the Royal Albert Hall?

Do you know that? Like that. Why haven't you told us? I said, I honestly didn't think I was gonna get the fabric. Nevermind make the suit. So anyway, I made the thing. My mum and dad are in the gods right at the very top of the building. Cause I didn't get them the tickets until the day before. They have all the competition and they say that the winner of the men's day wear award goes to Stuart Trevola. What? Couldn't believe it. Get up, go up. All I could hear was this Scottish woman at the top of the...

I'll behold going, that's my son! he was gonna wait and all this, you know. So anyway, it was televised, went back to college, University of Nottingham, and David Rees rang the college about 14 times. And the Dean of Faculty said to me, you need to ring this guy. And I'm like, I don't wanna work with him. I was a finalist in a Paul Smith Mont Blanc competition, and Paul Smith loved my suits, the inside out suit and I did another one that looked like a Levi jacket with the pocket and the strips. He loved them and he said I want to put them in my next collection, I'd like to offer you an internship, come and work with me over the summer. I was like over the moon because that was like the only reason I chose Nottingham above Central St. Martins is I knew that I could meet Paul Smith if I went to Nottingham and would potentially be able to get a job with him because I, you know I had no idea back in those days before that. I didn't even know you could do fashion for a career. So the Dean of Faculty says, you've got to go see this David Rees. And he had like 14 shops. He had one in Nottingham. It was nice shops, but there were not, it's not as nice Paul Smith. And anyway, I went to meet him in London in this shop on the Kings Road. You couldn't get in the door. There was probably 500 people in that shop queuing up and they had beautiful Italian made goods, leather jackets, suits, bomber jackets, shirts, you know, every, it was actually really, I was like, actually this guy's a big deal. So I go up to see David Rees, I lay out the suit and he goes, yeah, oh, it's all right, I know what your suit's like, it's great, yeah. Hands me an envelope and I said, what's this? He goes, I want you to come with me to Italy to Pitti Uomo in Florence, it's the number one menswear fair in the world. He said, you're going to stay in the best hotel in the world, eat at the fanciest restaurants, we're going to go to the best shops in the world, and I'm going to take you to the number one menswear trade fair in the world, and then we're going to go to the best fabric mills in the world, you're going to buy fabric and we're going to bring it to my little factories and you're going to make things and put them, and they'll be in the shop downstairs in about a month. And I looked at him and I went, listen, I've been offered this job with Paul Smith, and I don't really want to mess it up because I've, I love Paul Smith. I really, really want to go and work with him. And he went, listen, he goes, this, this menswear fair's next week. When are you starting with Paul? I said, it's the middle of July. He said, well, this, this thing is at the beginning of June. He goes, open the envelopes. I opened the envelope. There's 500 quid in cash. And I'm like, look at it. I'm completely skinned. And I'm looking at this planet. And there's a ticket to Florence, to Pisa, with my name on it. I'm like, what's this?" And he went, well, I knew you was going to say about the Paul Smith. So I thought, well, if I give you the cash, I'll pay you in advance and all that. And, you know, listen, come with me. If you like it, then, you know, you can carry on working with me. If you don't like it, you can go and see the Paul Smith or whatever. And and he said, and the best thing is you don't have to tell him. So I just looked at the money and went, he's right, actually. I don't have to tell him. So I agreed to go to Florence with David Rees and while I was there on the plane, on the plane, so he says to me, right then, what's the big look for next winter? I'm just like, Jesus Christ, they don't teach you anything like that at college. And I just thought, well, I know there's a tutor that comes in. Back in those days, no one knew what a hoodie was. It sounds ridiculous, but this is 1985, hoodies didn't exist in England. But one of these external tutors that you came in, he had a Levi's one that he bought in New York that had a zip and a hood and the little strings and the little patches on the pocket and the little rib on the cuff So I starts describing this hoodie. I said it's like a cardigan But it's made out of sort of sweatshirt fabric And it has like a sort of zip that runs up through the middle of it and you can undo the zip like a jacket And it has a hood

I said, and then he went, oh, that sounds good, that sounds good, what else? I just think, what else is this guy wear? All right. I said, the trousers with a little zip in the leg. Um, and monkey boots, like, you know, they're like, they're almost like shoes. Then with like hooks on it, like a ski, because they didn't, none of this existed, you know, we landed in Florence and we went to the hotel. David's got up to the room. He said, I'll just be 10 minutes. And I'm in the courtyard of the hotel thinking.

Well, at least I got a trip to Italy out of this. He's going to suss me out. I've got a clue what I'm talking about. And we went round all the shops in Florence. So there's the Luisa B. Aroma, there was Gerard. There was all the coolest shops in the world. There's the Gucci shop and the Fendi shop. Even though they were quite classic back then anyway. But all these, the Belgian, the Antwerp 6, the Martin Margiela, Dries van Noten, Bernard Wilhelm, all these really cool designers had delivered all their stuff. And they were all in the mid windows on mannequins and hanging on a chain. And you never guess what it was. It was little cardigans with a hood and a little zip and they all had trousers with little zips in the leg and they all had monkey boots. 

Paul: Like your tutor had just come back from Florence. 

Stuart: That's it. Well, no, he was, he was just a very cool guy, but yeah, yeah. It was, it was almost like as if he'd been here. It was. Anyway, so David Reiss was like, comes back to the hotel, we're gonna go up to the penthouse, he's got the big patio deck overlooking the Duomo, the sun's shining, rings down, he says, can you send up a bottle of champagne? Make it two, two bottles of champagne, bring the, send it up now, bring some sandwiches, club sandwiches, and some crisps, some of those crisps and all that, you know. I'm like, wow, this is, I'm living the life here, this is amazing. He bought all the samples, he bought knitwear with a hood and a zip and he bought to Take to the factories to say like, you know that we want to do something I don't want you don't need to do all that. I said I've made a note of so I sort of showed him sketches He's like wow, these are me. So he rings up the general manager back in London. He's gone Why can't you won't believe it? Go this boy's a genius. He's got it. All right, he predicted all the looks. He's unbelievable He says right listen, he said and I've been into Louisa Villaroma, Gaultier was the coolest designer in the world at that time. He'd made a red wall blazer, double-breasted with tortoiseshell buttons, really fitted, nice big shoulders on it. This was a thing that all the pop stars were wearing, all the rock bands. Gaultier was the coolest fashion designer for men in the world. And this jacket, I tried it on and it was beautiful, but it was like 700 quid.

David said, listen, if I take you back to that shop, buy you that red jacket, he goes, do you think that we would sell them in Reese? I went, yeah, I mean, something like that. I said, I probably wouldn't do double breasted. I'd probably do a three button single breasted. And I showed him a vintage one that I had with me. And he went, oh, actually, that's really nice. Yeah, that's much easier to sell. Are you thinking that'd be nice in red? I'm like, yeah, I think it'd be amazing. He said, if I buy you that jacket, will you tell this Paul Smith to off?

And I was like, all right. I thought there's no way on earth he's gonna buy me the jacket. No way, it was like 750 quid. So he says, come on then, let's go. So we go down in the lift, we walk through Florence. I'm like, you know, it's like in a dream world. I'm in Florence, wandering through the streets, going into the number one shop in the world, picking up the red gold chair jacket. He goes, try it on, try it on. I thought he's just winding me up. This is like, he's taking a piss, isn't he? So I put the jacket on.

He goes, you really like that, don't you? And I'm like, this is the most beautiful jacket ever seen in my life. He goes, if I buy you that jacket, that's it. It's a done deal. One year, you'll come every Friday morning, at 6 a.m., get the six o'clock train, be in my office for nine o'clock. Have you got somewhere you can stay? I went, yeah, I've got a mate in London. He went, right, and then Saturday, we do nine o'clock till about four. He said, every week you come and you start, you're now head of design.

I was 18 years old in the second year of Nottingham Trent Uni. And I, he bought me the jacket and I went to the fabric mill the next day. And they've got all that fabric that they had made for Gaultier and they had it in blue and yellow and like, like green, like a billiard table green. I said to the guy, well, this is great. What, what is it? Because this is all the leftover stock. You see, we don't know what to do with that. I said, can I buy it? He went, yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. How much will you give me for it? I said, you've got tons of it, mate. How much? I said, how much is on each roll? It's like 50 meters on a roll. I said, I'll give you a pound a meter. He went, what, all of this? He said, there's about 10,000 meters like that. I said, yeah, we'll have it. Like that. I said, David, you got 10 grand? He went, yeah. What, all of this? Like that, he couldn't believe it. So even then I was buying dead stock fabric. I bought 10,000 meters, I made that red jacket, the single breasted three button. And we had it in green, we had it in like a turquoise blue, we had it in the red. We had it in, and they all came into the shop about a month later and sold out in one day. And David couldn't believe it. And so, I ended up with Reese for about 10 years. And I completely transformed it from, you know, independent retailer buying from other designers to Reese, the actual look of what is a little bit classic for me. But back in those days, I was kind of more into suits. And from that point on, he just let me do whatever I want. I mean, it's like this, if I like seven stores when you started, and that you just said, what were they? What was kind of 10 years later, he had 14 stores by the time I left, he had about 30 company was basically insolvent when I joined him by the time I left it was 50, 50 million turnover. So and then now look, it's like 500, four or 500 million. 

Paul: So is he still around? Is he still involved? I don't know the answer. 

Stuart: He's not, unfortunately, he sold, I think he sold 50% of the company to private equity. And I think about two years, I mean, he's about 70. Apparently he's trying to buy back in again, because next to bought, think Next bought the Americans out and Next now own 50% of Reese or something like that and I think he was trying to buy back in but I don't know he's I mean he's got it he might be 80 years old now David he's I mean he's a very stylish guy a very hard work but very nice to me I mean what an incredible opportunity to give this 18 year old kid free reign to design and produce whatever you want and I put the collection together about five years in, I went out to Hong Kong. I got, again, I got the yellow pages out. I looked up the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, went there, asked them like, you know, I need to know where I can get parkers made. I want to make silk parkers. Or got the address written down, a bit of paper, got in a taxi, went there, walked in this factory, he's making all the production for Ralph Lauren, Donna Curran, Calvin Klein. I put together a collection for them and brought it back. We took it to Paris and we showed it in, and Sam, we The first day we wrote half a million quid with Selfridges, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York. I mean, this was for Reese. I mean, it was unbelievable. Reese all of a sudden became an international number, you know, designer. I remember David, when I said to him, David, we should do this show in Paris, he went, don't be stupid, that's for real designers. I went, I am a real designer. 

Paul: So what will happen then? Why did you leave and then how did All Saints come about? 

Stuart: So basically one of the factories in Hong Kong came over to me and to London and said, you know, basically, we love everything that you do. He said, you know, when Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein and Donnie Cranwell, all their designers come over to our factories now, they're all raving about what you've done for Reiss.

We have like about 10 million pound turnover in the UK alone. We'd like you to become our representative in Europe. We'll give you 10% of turnover. I was like, this is amazing. And I thought I'd prepared a business plan. When these guys offered me this, a million pounds to be their agent, I said, if you've got that much money, I've got a business plan that I've put together that basically if I can do 15 million turnover with Reese. I reckon an unknown brand, my own name or whatever, we could do half of that at least. If I've taken 50 grand off of Barneys, we can do 20 grand. So I've written it all down and it comes to like a million quid. And they said, what's the name of the brand? And I said, well, I was gonna call it Stewart. I was gonna call it Stewart Trevor, I was gonna call it ST. I was gonna call it the same. But I was on All Saints Road the other day at Carnival and I just thought, All Saints, that's a really, that, someone said, where's that jacket from? All Saints, that's a good one. And because I also, I was only going to own 50% of the, the business. I just thought if I go bust as well, there's a last thing, you know, so, um, cause you never know, you never know, do you? So anyway, so it was All Saints. So we launched All Saints to put the collection together. It took it to Paris. I put everything up on a hanger on the wall, on a stand like that. Nine o'clock in the morning the next day, the guy from the Louisa Villa Roma that had bought the red Gaultier jacket off, he was there going, oh Monsieur, I love your collection, take my business card, we want exclusivity for Florence, like that. The games are from Gerard, the other shop that had all, he's going, no, you don't want to sell to him, he doesn't pay, let me give you my card, it's from Gerard, we're going to put you in all the windows. I have a $50,000 budget. I was like, wow. So that's how AllSaints got off the ground. And then- Wow. Yeah. So we started out just as menswear. Started out selling to other stores, like around the world, Barneys, New York, Saks Fifth Avenue. Actually the first season, we got it to House of Fraser but we couldn't get it in Selfridges. They wouldn't answer the phone. They weren't interested. And then the day that it launched in House of Fraser, it was in the Evening Standard. It said the hottest new brand in Britain by designer from Rees. It got the kids' names, Stuart, Trevor. He's just started this new label. It's called All Saints. You can get it exclusively at Dickens and Jones on Regent Street. I had the front window on the corner and it was beautiful. Looked amazing. I'll get a phone call off the head of buying at Selfridges. What the hell are you doing? Why didn't you contact us? I've been ringing you every day for months, mate, and all that, and he went, I'm not having this. I want, I'm gonna give you the corner window of Selfridges on Oxford Street and Duke Street. I want, but I want the stock in my shop next week, like that, and so I had to go and pull out a size selection and I dropped it round, pulled it out and gave it to them and they put it all in the windows and then from that point on we were in Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Liberties, all these things and then we started opening up our own shops. I opened the first shop in what was originally Hyper in Kensington. It was still about 10 grand a week and from the minute that we opened, it was quite a lot of money back then, it was up 50 grand a week or something, it was 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah, this would have been in 1995, quite a long time ago. So that's how old I am. What was in there one day, there was this gentleman came in. It was like a very smart looking guy, not very cool, but he's a business man. But I have always, my mum and my stepfather always taught me to be really polite to everybody because you never know who they are. Now, I always generally, I'm just a very nice, polite person and I always talked and I talked too much as well Scottish so I just went over and started chatting to this guy saying oh how you doing you know I'm trying to work out is he getting something for his son or his daughter or you know what he's doing. Actually he goes I'm just about to buy Carnaby Street and I'd like to offer you a shop like that and I went really?

Paul: How does anyone buy a street? I've never seen them for sale. They're not on Facebook Marketplace or anything like that. 

Stuart: This guy's name was Simon Quayle. He was the CEO of Shaftesbury, which Shaftesbury owned. Chinatown, Seven Dials. They've now been bought out by Capcom. They own Covent Garden, Carnaby Street. I mean, they own whole swathe of London now but he this and this was the first acquisition was a row of shops on Carnaby Street and he did buy those shops and he did offer me a free shop I think for a year and I didn't realize at the time I had no idea I just thought great get free shop don't have to pay any rent you know just if it works it works if it doesn't you know so I did the shop we opened it they had their 30 year anniversary last year and Simon Quayle was in all the press talking about, he said, what's the highlight of your career? That is very, very sweet. He said, well, when I was 32 years old, I was appointed to the CEO of Shaftesbury and the first acquisition was Carnaby Street. And I was so stoked because in our estate was included at a nightclub called the Bag of Nails and that was where Jimi Hendrix performed his first gig and then and then and so I was really stoked about that and then the second the second thing was I met this kid in a shop in Hype DF in Kensington called Stuart Trevor and I offered him a shop and he and he opened it and he was our first ever customer on the Carnaby estate and it was a little brand called AllSaints and I'm very proud to say that

But we gave him the first step and I was like, oh, Jimi Hendrix and stuff like that. That's so sweet. 

Paul: Yeah, you take that. That's a good, that's a good comparable there. Amazing. So, okay, so Guy Bautistri, you opened a shop. This is exposure. I mean, clearly the designs spoke for themselves because of the hype you were going to get from it. But like, there's been a lot of like partnerships that you've made with talking of Jimi Hendrix, not, not with him specifically, but with artists. And how did you build up that reputation beyond just the product itself with the people that you associated it with? 

Stuart: There's so many funny stories about this. So I've dressed virtually every British band there is, including the Rolling Stones and the Who and Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys and Robbie Williams take that. So one of my best mates, a guy called Andy Blake, he's got like a little Mohican and a white gold tooth, he was a stylist to rock bands. He used to do Bush who were like you know, American equivalent to Nirvana and all that. He would fly around the world with them and he used to come to me and say, well you've got a leather jacket, a leather shirt and he would get the clothes for them and one of the bands was Placebo and I've met them in the very early days. Placebo, who have this amazing sort of goth rock, dark, mysterious thing there. That's not what they start out like. They walk in looking like, you know, straight out of a, you know, landscape gardeners in Loughton. And then they walk out looking like Ian Jury and David Bowie sort of thing. So I was ended up working with a stylist like they're listening because I'm gonna bring these guys in, it's a new band and it's gonna be managed by Ronan Keating because they're gonna be the next big thing. He said, you gotta dress them like that. And I said, oh, not really. He goes, listen, mate, they'll pay. They want leather coats. I've done these leather frock coats for all sakes. They were down to the back of the knee. They came in, there's five of them, all Irish boys talking away like this and telling me about their new thing. And I was like, I just said, and they said, they wanted the leather coat to go down to the floor like that. And I said, I'm not doing that, mate. And they went, what are you talking about? We'll pay you a thousand pounds a coat. I said, I'm not doing a leather coat that goes down the floor. It's a bit naff. I'll do them a little bit longer. They went, the boys really want them to go down to the floor. They want a really dramatic sort of thing. Just forget about, you know, this is, it's a one-off, it's the stage. I said, listen, mate, I'm not doing a floor length leather coat it looked horrible like that and he said come here come here like that brings things me out in the hallway goes because ronan's just gonna come in and ronan keaton get and i went i'm not impressed by ronan keaton mate i'm like you know don't boys own whatever i'm not interested like he wants it because it's telling you what he goes i'll pay you two thousand pound a coat because just make the boys really want this thing he said i said i'm not making he said i'll pay you five thousand a coat i went how many are there and he went five anyway this band was westlife. And their first album had them wearing these floor length, came out on the stage wearing these, I think they were ankle length or something, leather coats. And of course, that they were the next biggest band in the world. But I mean, that's not the coolest. The other thing that happened to me is I had, Kasabian came to me, they wanted white suits. And I happened to have made some white suits out of a Teflon coated fabric. So you could pour red wine over it and it would just fall off the suit. But, and I've made the samples really great. I used to wear one myself because I used to love Brian Ferry, and another person I've dressed, and Roxy Music. And so I had a white suit, but no one else wanted them. And I had about five of them. So, Kasabian came and they got these five suits and they did the front cover of the NME, and it was for Beggar's Banquet. So they wanted to do like Rolling Stones banquette with a feast with a ram's head on the table and loads of fruit, wearing a top hat and a cane and these white suits and all that. And about a week later, I get a phone call. I'm in this building and I get the phone rings. I'm looking at the number and it's like that club. I'm like, hello? And he went, hello, mate. I said, hello? I said, who's this? He goes, it's Roger. Like that, and for some reason, I knew it was Roger Daltrey. I didn't know why. And I said to him like, you know, oh, hello, Roger, how are you? He goes, I'm great, I'm great. Listen, mate, he goes, I've been told.

I said, I've got, he said, I've got surgeon Tommy. He goes, and they told me you're the coolest geezer in London. And he said, and I've got something big. I've got something really, really big. He said, I'm sworn to secrecy. I can't tell you. I said, what is it? He goes, it's a Super Bowl. Whoa, wow. That's incredible. Super Bowl is the biggest gig in the world. And of course, you know, The Who, also after The Stones, are probably the greatest British band living. So he comes to meet me, I had to go meet him at the Wallace collection. And I've laid all these suits on the table and he comes over and I have this I've actually got the jacket here I could show you the jacket. Yes, I have this jacket on. And it was it's got a Union Jack lining. And it's got a little zip teeth all around it loads of buttons and it's in a really bold stripe and I was wearing this jacket as he comes in. And Rogers just like give it to me.

Give it to me. I've been told you are the coolest kid in London and I want to look like you. And I said, well, I've got all these outfits. No, no, just give me that jacket. He's just he's exactly the same size as me. So I take the jacket off, puts it on. He puts the jacket. I'll actually put the jacket on because it's funny. He puts the jacket on and he does this. I'll show you. He puts the jacket on.

It's a bit small for me now, putting a bit of weight. Anyway, and he puts the jacket on. He starts going like this. Wow. Like that. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? He said, what do you think I'm doing? I said, I've got no idea. He goes, I'm swinging the mic. Like that. And I suddenly went, oh, yes. What he always does, he swings the mic and throws it up in the air and then catches it and sings, people pride put us down talking about my generation. It's just like, and if you go, if you Google the Super Bowl halftime performance in 2009, you'll see Roger Daltrey comes out in this jacket and you can see him swinging his arms around and swinging the mic and all, and it's- 

Paul: Is that the jacket or did you make him a new jacket? 

Stuart:

That's the actual jacket.

Paul: And you're wearing the actual jacket from the Super Bowl right now. 

Stuart: That's the one. Yeah. 

Paul: Nice. 

Stuart:  Doesn't fit me anymore, but anyway, nevermind. 

Paul: This is, that's pretty incredible. So this was, were you still with All Saints at the time? Was this just you just learning you're not going back? 

Stuart: After All Saints. So after All Saints, I sold All Saints in 2006. Um, and in 2007, I had, had pondered. pondered the idea of I was going to buy a Winnebago and drive to Japan. And one second, well...

Paul: hang on, we're gonna have to rewind there for a second. So why did you sell All Saints? What drove you to do that? 

Stuart: Well, there's a story behind it. So the main reason was I had started it and never borrowed a penny. Never. It was all organic. And we were doing we were up to 16 million turnover. I'd opened 15 shops, I think. And we couldn't do no wrong. We were doing about four and a half million profit. And I had a partner in the business. The Chinese people had gone in 2000 and I brought in a guy who was the retail director for Reiss. He'd fallen out with David. He joined me, a guy from Birmingham. And as the business grew, we went from 4 million to 6 million to 8 million to 10 million to 12, you know, we were opening shops in Leeds and Nottingham and Manchester and every shop we opened. This is a funny story actually because people ask me, how on earth did you get all saints to go like that? And I said, well, I used to get these leather jackets and they weren't that great. So I used to put them in the washing machine and then twist them and hang them up to dry and I put them on and be really beautiful crinkle. The zip would be like, you know, and they went, no, we know you did the coolest leather jackets. Everyone knows you're the mask, you've done the best leather jackets in the world. How did you go, the business, it wasn't just leather jackets, but how did you grow this? I mean, to go from two million, to four million, to six million, to eight million, year on year. And I never really realized it at the time, but what would happen was I'd open a shop in Leeds and I'd go up there and I'd do the interior design and I did, towards the end of it, I did the sewing machine thing where I did that as an art installation in an area of the shop that we had like a big blank wall over two floors. So when you went up to Leeds, for instance, so I used to get really cool kid that was working in one of the other shops or whatever, they would, I'd say to them like, listen, we'll do a flyer, we're gonna have a launch party.

I just sent them to all the colleges and the universities and the schools and all the other shops and just to buy all the kids in Leeds or Nottingham or Birmingham, wherever it is and I met my partner, this guy, the Brummie guy, and he's like going... Why are you inviting these kids? They're just gonna come and drink our beer. No, I went, Mick, the last thing we have to worry about is if there's too many people turn up at the party. If it's a roadblock and nobody can get in, your guy will come and buy the leather even earlier the next day. So don't worry about that. Anyway, of course we'd have free beer, we'd have a DJ, we'd be... All these kids, they would turn up, they'd buy the studded... I've actually got one here. Here it is. I think all these studded belts.

I did these belts with, you know, all saints rocks and Jesus loves you. And there's a classic. This is this is this is my youth. This is my university days. Just all summarized in that one belt. Can you remember? Can you remember at one point in Leeds, you got off the train in Leeds? If you walked from the train station up to the Victoria Quarter and all that, you could you could go. There's one. There's one. That's it.

It became like an epidemic, it was like a pandemic of studded belts. And so anyway, what I didn't realise what I was doing is I was targeting millennials, wasn't I? I was targeting Gen Z. And what happens is they came in and they bought those belts, they bought the t-shirts. And then when it was their birthday, they'd be like, mum, I want to get a leather jacket from All Saints. And they'd be in there with their mum and the mum would buy them. And as soon as they left uni and got a job earning 30, 40, 50 grand a year, the first point of call when they got their first month's paycheck was straight in at All Saints. And that's how it went. 

Paul: I'm going to pull on this because everyone loves the tactics of brand building. You'd created a product which was affordable for students and then they could then start buying it when they could afford it once they actually got a job. But what else were you doing? We like the, although the various different kind of partnerships, you had, did you work with like rock stars back then? Were you dressing them in All Saints or did you work with any individuals? How did you kind of like leapfrog to that position where people wanted to be seen wearing your products? 

Stuart: I don't know. It was just, you know, we had shops in every city. Um, You know, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh, East London, West London, you know, all of the stuff that exists now that your business, you know, influences and market, social media didn't exist. The internet was only just getting going, you know, I think the internet started in

Was it 2000? Well, I don't know. Facebook started in 2008, was it, or seven? Something like this. I mean, I remember doing, remember, you know, the very, very beginning, you know, there was no Facebook marketing or Instagram, of course, didn't exist. So we would dress bands, we'd get loads of bands coming in, and, you know, quite often they would talk about it in interviews and things like this. We were dressing nearly every band, but what the a lot easier now. I think if I had all those every band in the world wearing whatever I do, so that's what I'm trying to do now. Try and get those. 

Paul: I mean, it's also this is, this is what everyone does now. But back then, it wasn't as commonplace like the idea like you think, for me, like social media is that's the distribution channel, right? Then now they can, everyone else has a voice but back then, before social media, it was much more controlled, right? A band would have a voice when they were going on stage or when they were on a TV interview or something like that. So actually getting those guys to wear your products. Were you going out to them? Are you calling them up or will they come to you? 

Stuart: They used to ring me up every day, every couple of days. I'd get a prodigy on the phone or there'd be, you know, Kelly from Manic Street Preachers, there'd be Kelly from the, oh, what's that Welsh band? Stereophonics when I started All Saints, where did all the rock bands go? They came to me. So I used to go and give, and ended up becoming really good friends with people, quite a few people. Because I suppose there was no one else for them to go to. Where else do you go if you want to have something that's kind of unique, but not flash? I remember years ago, some designer saying to me the reason why All Saints works is because it's cheap. And I went, it's not really cheap though, is it? And he goes, wow, because...

Paul: I'm a- As a millennial that grew up in the era of desperately wanting to be able to afford All Saints, I can assure you that it was not cheap. It wasn't cheap. 

Stuart: Do you know what? I think it was... I deliberately didn't want it to be expensive because I don't like, I just, I didn't, I don't just want rich, wealthy people to be wearing my clothes, I want young cool bands that are starting out to be wearing the clothes. And I think people appreciate that. And that's what they would like about and I'd rather dress young, cool kids, you know, and but slightly more expensive than, you know, high street or whatever. I didn't ever want to be really, really expensive. 

Paul: The same thing happens all the time. menswear is one of the hardest thing that people can't crack menswear when it comes to social media, how do they get people to talk about menswear, like look, 90% of the pieces of content and the various different advocates and the brands we work with, they're all womenswear and women, even if it's a brand like Abercrombie or something, when you've got men and female, most of the creators that are going out and trying to try to advocate and creating content about that brand, they're female. So it's really hard to get into the men to find that kind of cool vein. But actually, what you managed to do is to tap into that demographic of bands and artists and people who are pushing out in a way that was cool. And actually, that's not a social media thing. It's just a day to day living thing. Right? 

Stuart: Yeah. I mean, I think it's for me, people, they always used to say, you know, who, where do you get your design ideas from? And it was, it was for me, it was just, it was my teenage self. You know, when you're young, you can wear anything, you get away with it. Can't you just, you know, put it on and you're young And then, you know, everyone's good looking when they're kids, aren't they? And for me, I'm not very tall. So I wanted to be, I wanted to have like, you know, the best looking girlfriend. So I would, you know, make really, really cool looking clothes that people turn up. Nothing, not flash, not too much, just that when you turn up in a pub or a bar or a club or a party, a wedding or whatever, you know, and you walk in and someone goes, wow, look at him. Oh wow, look at her, they look amazing. Not Just enough, not too much, not silver leather or floor leather coats like Westlife or whatever. Just to me, just above the knee is great. Or cropped, just on the waist sort of thing. Just make, just enough, not too much. And I think that's why we did very, very well because I mean, I get this all the time. I get people I meet all the time men and women that go, I've got three children because of you. And I'm like, what? And they go on my met my husband, you know, all saints shop in Manchester, he was buying a t shirt with a little Ramsco and I was like, wow, he's so and I went over to and I said, well, you look really lovely that next week to know we've got three kids and well, you know, dangerous. It's dangerous. It is dangerous. I know other people that say to me, I mean, a lot of people don't know this, but they're actually the best selling thing out of everything in All Saints. It's not the leather jackets. It's the little t-shirt with the ram skull on it. And I know men that have bought a t-shirt like that and worn it to the pub, and they've pulled the best looking girl in the pub and they've gone and bought 12 of them the next day. And I suppose what it is people, they can see, if they see the ram skull, they think.

He's a cool guy or whatever, isn't it? It's kind of like, it's, it's still money. You know, they see Ted Baker logo or a Reese or whatever Reese is a bit like an office. Paul Smith. You look at it now, it's, I mean, well, anyways, he's a classic, isn't it? 

Paul: And so do you think, is it there so fascinated by the way that the message carries? Like, why was it that guy in the pub was able to pull in the way that they was?

Is it the quality of the manufacturing? Is it the product? And then also, how did that message carry? Like, how were people hearing about All Saints from there, because they weren't hearing about it on social media, right? They, I don't know if you did much marketing or much advertising. Was that a big play in it? So, just purely word of mouth. 

Stuart: I was talking about this the other week there, because, you know, back in those days, in the early days of All Saints, it was just me and a few other kids. I used to do the photo shoots and we used to in before social media was around. I used to do I used to have to be get very friendly with, you know, the team at the face and ID and dazed and confused and FHM and loaded and that, you know, any men's health. I used to have to go up to go and take them for lunch and all this sort of stuff. It just the glory days of PR. Yeah, just in order in order to buy the inside back cover or the back cover of the magazine on a deal, because they'd start off. If you wanted the back page of the face or ID or arena or you know loaded or the you know these magazines, you had to advertise, you have to put your thing, so you have to take the photograph, you have to remember that when you've got what you can only afford one page So you've got you want to get two outfits you want to get you know, one of the red jackets What are the black one geezer in the black jacket and you got to write? All saints up there and then you've got a wrist where your shots are here So you've got to leave all that space there so that you can and you got to write a phone number and all that cuz back And then we used to you know You just have to use the phone in order if somebody wanted to buy something then with it was and then and then the internet was invented And then you had website. No one really

When I sold them, by the time I sold all sales, it was 2006, 2007, we only just started thinking about doing a website. And so, you know, as I was saying, I was going out for lunch with Loaded, FHM, Men's Health, and then we launched Women's Wear. Now all of a sudden, I've got Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue. I was just going out for lunch. No wonder they're going about ladies who lunch or whatever. I was taking people out for lunch because what they would do is they'd start off, they could get 10 grand for the back cover of the face. And then what would happen is nobody would want it. And then what would happen is, as long as you had your ad ready to go, I used to, because I was friendly with them and took them out for lunch and giving them clothes and things that, you know, I'd get, hello, mate, how you doing? Listen, we've got the inside, we've got the inside back cover. You can have it for 500 quid. I went, okay, I'll send the money now. Like that, woof, run around, I send them a motorbike courier round with the plate to be able to put the advert in the magazine and it would go to press the following day. I used to be doing deals all over the place trying to, because I had no money. Even though I got it up to 50, 16 million turnover, every time I, I mean I was like an idiot, every time I saw an empty shop somewhere I'd be like, oh wow, that'd be great, let's open the shop in Leeds or let's open one in Burr. You know. Bristol somebody would go oh, there's a really amazing unit in Bristol. It's like an old there was one in Nottingham an old bank It's got a dome on the inside. It's incredible. It's like a cathedral They only want 50 grand a year because it's slightly off-pitch. I'll be like on the train to Nottingham walk in I thought wow, this is amazing. So I get on the phone to The builder and say this and I think what would look really great is if we poured black a black like screed like resin screen on the floor so that the light reflects off it and we'll have all these chandeliers in it and I would open the shop in about a month and then we'd have a new shop in Nottingham or whatever and it would be absolutely... that banking hall in Nottingham has just been converted into a pub with loads of neon lights everywhere and it looks really beautiful and it's still got the black laminate screen floor that all the lights that now it looks amazing because they've got all the neon lights that reflect off the floor looks absolutely amazing. The problem is Nottingham is like a ghost town now. You can't open shops there. It's a shame really because I used to love opening shops but people don't go shopping anymore do they? They want to buy a belt, studded belt like that. Oh hold on a minute, 10 minutes on my lunch break. Oh that's nice. The world's a different place. 

Paul: Or all the three sizes to get delivered and send two of them back, you know, the classic. And so there's so much kind of to unpick in this like, I mean, incredible brand. I wanted to finish up on that story there in terms of like, tell us why you sold it and then tell us what you're up to right now. 

Stuart: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started speaking to a guy that was supposedly a friend of mine that had just sold Karen. He came on board, he bought out this other guy. He then bought out a silent partner and had majority share. By that point, I realized it was a huge mistake. This guy is called Kevin Stanford. He's a very unsavory character. He ended up in jail about a year ago. This guy is for contempt of court. I don't know what it is. But I mean, basically, he took the company from, I think we were doing 4 million profit to one hundred thousand pound losses or 200 grand on the day before Christmas Eve. He holds off until that last minute and I'm in a meeting with KPMG and him and they're going all the company we're going to have to liquidate the business and buy it back on Boxing Day. And I'm like looking at him thinking you've like deliberate. So in the end, I made an offer and made a deal and I'd already got to the point now where It was just after the 7-7 bombings had gone on in London and I thought, you know, people are willing to blow them, you know, Britain, this government, you know, starting wars all over the world and people blowing themselves up and all that. I remember the morning that happened, one of the bombs went off in Aldgate East and I, some of the staff didn't turn up and I was like fraught with worry that... I was going to have to ring someone's mum and tell them that, you know, I'm sorry, your daughter or your son haven't turned up today and we can't find them. And I didn't know what we were going to do, you know, because fortunately, thank the Lord. They were on the train before or the train after stuck in King's Cross or stuck in bank or something like that. So so no one was hurt. But I just remember at that time thinking I this is so everything was becoming stressful, it was meant to be fun. I had this offer of buying the business and then I thought, you know what, I'm just gonna buy a Winnebago and drive to Japan and buy a little boat and eat sushi every day and have the time of my life. And anyway, within about six months, I'd started another business. So Bollingaro Trevor, and then I'd run that for 10 years and sold that to some Middle Eastern oil family or whatever. I just had enough by then. But anyway, all good. Made a few quid and had a lot of fun. And so now here I am again, started this new, I started mentoring young startup brands that have a positive social or environmental impact. So there was like a, you know, coffee roasters that employ ex offenders, a bakery that employ victims of domestic abuse. 

There's a beauty company that pay women in Africa four times the going rate for shea nut butter. There was sustainable fashion brands taking vintage jeans and embroidering them and making something really cool out of them. And I started giving them advice, helping them. How did I, you know, how did they scale their business? And then I met all these investors and all these investors that were, you know, putting money, they were all excited. And the next thing I'm, would I like to join the board as a, as a non-executive director?

I'm like, all right, okay, I quite enjoyed helping these. They were really, really lovely people that had a really positive social or environmental message. And I really, I thought, God, I actually want, I really would like to help these people, I help with a positive social, positive business, save the planet and have fun. And then these investors were like, you know what, I used to love All Saints. I'm sort of bored of it now. Why don't you start another brand? 

And I'm like, the last thing the world needs is another clothing brand. And then after about the 10th time, these investment type people, they're like, really, honestly, I used to love Reiss. And then I moved on to AllSaints. And then I discovered Bolongaro. And I never realized it was the same guy behind all of it. I love what you do, I love what you wear, everything you wear. And I'm like, I only really wear vintage now. One of them said, why don't you do vintage? Like that, and I went, suddenly went, bing, light bulb moment. I was like, what about a clothing company that doesn't produce any clothes? 

And they're like, that sounds interesting, what do you mean? I'm like, there's so much clothes in the world. There's actually, when I look into it, there's a hundred billion garments in production every year in the world.

That's 14 for every human being on the planet. It's abhorrent. There's so much fast fashion and mountains of landfill and all this sort of stuff. So I've taken vintage garments and customizing them and making them look cool. And I've got an artist that paints on the back of them. He was doing, he moved to Margate, was actually hanging out with Carl Barat from the Libertines and all these other kids rolling up the little cigarettes and smoking a rolly and He rang his mum, he's from Sandpoint, Ohio, about 500 miles in from Seattle. And he rang his mum and he goes, mum, I'm hanging out with cats who smoke. And she said, oh, that sounds cool. Cats who smoke. And so we got him to paint some jackets. I'll show you one. We've got it just here. And I thought.

Paul: That's really cool. 

Stuart: That would be nice on the back of these military pieces and things like that. So we painted some, but then I thought, I don't really like smoking. It's not good for you, is it? But actually I don't mind cats who smoke. I think they're kind of funny. But so then I've got to change it to cats who care. So he has the cat holding the work, the globe, the planet. That's one here. So we've got cats who care. So we are the cats who care. And it comes from like David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, you know, when they're hanging out with all the cool cats and all that. So we're now hanging out with cats who care because we care about the planet and we care about our environment. And there's so much eco anxiety in the world. Young people are more eco anxiety than anything else. They're like, what's the planet gonna be like in 50 years? Well, I don't have the answer. But what I do know is that we need to do something because what's currently going on, there are companies that, you know that have gone from 700 million to 900 million in one year. And last year they lost 150 million. So that's 300 million pounds where they close that they don't know what they're gonna do with. What's gonna happen to it? It's all online stuff that people have bought a four pound t-shirt. They buy it in five sizes and two colors and they return it to them. And then they go, do you know what? It's cheaper just to send it to Africa and just order a new one from Bangladesh. It's cheaper than repackaging and reprocessing. So we're ending up with mountains and mountains of clothes going into landfill. So I'm trying to do something about that. 

Paul: That's amazing. That's so cool. So where can people find out more about this? Where can people get in touch with you? They want to chat. They've got ideas. 

Stuart: Stuart Trevor dot com. That's S.T.U.A.R.T. T.R.E.V.O.R. dot com. And we're on Instagram. Stuart Trevor official.

And my own personal Instagram is Stuart underscore Trevor, because I just talk about myself. And there's quite an, if you go on there actually, if you scroll back a few years, you'll see the who, and you'll see the Pesh mode, and you'll see the Libertines, and you'll see loads of bands over the years that are dressed in all this sort of stuff. So if you're interested in that sort of stuff.