Our new crush, the label we wish we’d found sooner

You probably already own something designed by Stuart Trevor, even if the name is new to you. In 1985 he co-founded AllSaints, the label that gave the British high street its rock-’n’-roll uniform. Before that he was the first designer at Reiss; at nineteen he’d been named designer of the year. He spent decades being extremely good at making new clothes.

Which is what makes his current project so interesting. Stuart Trevor, the eponymous label, is built on the idea that fashion already has enough stuff. So he makes very little that is new: he works with dead-stock fabric other brands over-ordered and abandoned, with vintage and reclaimed garments, and with GOTS-certified organic cotton, reworking and reprinting it into pieces that look like nothing else.

At Verdrobe, we love Stuart Trevor not only because we believe in sustainable fashion but also because the pieces are genuinely uniquely Stuart, infused with creativity, rebellion and mischief.

Below are our favourite pieces and we hope you will fall in love with them too.

The Party Back

Trevor’s signature is the Party Back, a shirt that looks ordinary or even business-like at the front but throws a party behind you: a sheer panel of art-deco sequins across the shoulder blades, the part of an outfit everyone sees as you walk away and almost no designer bothers with.

The Party Back Shirt in gold Art Deco sequin is the one to know: worked onto dead-stock denim from old Levi’s, Wrangler and Lee, the blue base has already lived a life before the sequins arrive. There’s a black-cotton version with a gold star sequin if denim isn’t your default.

And the Party Back doesn’t confine itself to shirts. The Party Back Bumster Sweatdress takes the idea somewhere softer: GOTS-certified cotton jersey, the same sequinned sheer back, cut low and named, surely, for Alexander McQueen’s Nineties “bumster,” which dropped the waistline to argue that the base of the spine was the most beautiful part of the body. The Party Back Aircrew Jumpsuit takes it somewhere braver: a reworked vintage military flight suit, all utilitarian pockets and zips at the front, sequins where you least expect them at the back. Both are the sort of thing you buy for the sheer joy of it: practical and disciplined until the moment you turn around and they become the most memorable thing in the room.

The Saint pieces

The other signature is holier, and cheekier. The Saint pieces take a rock icon at his most fallen, that impossibly elegant 1976 mugshot of David Bowie, and canonise him, “Saint” lettered across the top like a halo. It’s a lovely piece of mischief and, if you squint, a nod to the label Trevor built and left behind.

The ‘Saint’ Vest is the simple hero: a relaxed graphic vest in a blend of GOTS-certified organic and recycled organic cotton. At around $80 it’s the easiest way into the brand: wear it under a blazer or over denim, and let the saint do the talking.

Or pick the Saint Jeans if you’d rather wear your icon below the waist: genuine vintage Levi’s 501s in a soft, light wash, printed with the same mugshot and reworked in Trevor’s East London tailoring shop. Because each pair begins life as someone else’s deadstock, no two are identical.

Our own favourite, though, is the MA-1 Patched Bomber: a reworked military flight jacket layered in patches, each one carrying a little history the last owner never knew they were leaving behind. It’s the piece that does the most for the least effort: warm enough for a real winter, loud enough to lift a plain outfit, and versatile enough to throw over everything from the Saint vest to a slip dress. If you buy one thing from the Saint family, make it this.

The quiet, useful ones

Not everything here is a statement you have to be brave for. Some of the best Stuart Trevor pieces are the quiet, practical ones, the sort you actually reach for on a Tuesday, and wear to work without a second thought.

The M65 Military Field Jacket is the staple piece: a genuine, reworked field jacket, the kind of neutral outer layer that goes with your whole wardrobe. The Tartan High-Waisted Skirt is the desk-to-dinner piece: a genuine vintage Ezella wool skirt, given a flattering high waist and a second life. Wear it with a tucked knit and boots for the office, or a fine sweater and heels after. And because it’s true vintage wool, it’s warm and it lasts.

For him, or for stealing

The menswear runs on exactly the same ideas: the Saint graphics, the military reworks, the salvaged denim, which, as we’ve argued before, makes it eminently steal-able.

The men’s ‘Saint’ Patched Field Shirt is the standout, the Bowie motif patched onto a military shirt. The MA-1 Patched Bomber is the heavier sibling of the women’s version.

For everyday, the band tees do the talking: the ‘We’re Into Chaos’ tee borrows its slogan straight from the Sex Pistols, while ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ hands the same honour to Joy Division: music history worn plainly across a GOTS-cotton chest. And for the quieter days, the Vintage Naval Long-Sleeve T-Shirt is perfect: a classic blue-and-white naval stripe, reclaimed and reworked.

A final word

There’s a neat irony in the man who helped build one of fashion’s great machines spending his second act insisting that we make less and use more. But that is exactly why it lands: Stuart Trevor isn’t a newcomer who has just discovered sustainability, he’s an insider who decided the most radical thing he could design was almost nothing new at all. Buy one of his pieces and you aren’t only buying a jacket: you’re buying the fabric that would otherwise have been thrown away. And you know that it is not the purchase you replace next season. It’s the rarest thing in fashion now: something genuinely one of a kind, that also happens to be one of the kindest choices you can make.