Designers and consultants Malin Ekengren, Miles Johnson and Sue Barrett have been friends for many years. They discuss how the industry is changing, how the pandemic has shifted the goalposts and how they’d like to see things develop in the future.

Sue Barrett: We all worked in Brussels and I think the uniqueness of that, the close-knit aspect, is something I’ve always experienced and it took me a while to realise that that was unique to the denim industry as opposed to the fashion industry. I came from a trend forecasting house in London where one of my clients was Harvey Nichols, and it was all about black suits and very official. Then I moved into the denim industry and the more laid back you are and the more dishevelled you look, the  cooler you are, and I thought, well, I have arrived! There’s just something so welcoming and soulful about the denim industry. In lockdown, there’s been a WhatsApp group of London denim designers that have pinged messages of support and talked about innovations.

Miles Johnson: How much of that is because denim is worn by most people, the industry is a reflection of that, so it has to maybe be a bit more friendly?

SB: I think it’s also because there’s a collaborative spirit, you’re talking about passion and the alchemy of the process and I don’t think that happens in a fashion arena in the same way. On the retail floor they have really tight deadlines and it’s a very different energy, whereas with denim you’re exploring a process and it’s a different perspective.

Malin Ekengren: How do you think the UK industry compares with other countries’? We obviously cross paths with people globally, especially now, with us doing a lot of work online.

SB: I would imagine that in Italy it’s very similar to the UK but I guess it depends on what side of the industry you’re on.

MJ: I like to think that we are a little bit ahead in the UK but with the pandemic it’s difficult to see what’s happening, because we’re not obsessed by retail anymore, it’s just necessity. Malin, I wanted to ask about the impacts of the denim and clothing industry on the environment and what can be done possibly to balance out some of those impacts?

ME: I think transparency is key as well as respecting nature and natural resources. The whole supply chain needs to be simplified. We need to educate people about how the process works, be ethical, and everyone needs to know who makes the denim and how jeans are made. We need to rebalance the way that we create product because it’s not only about using organic cotton or recycled content; it’s also about workers’ rights, the supply chain on a whole and how you can trace the product. We should also be working towards reducing fossil fuel usage in everyday life. I don’t think people are aware how oil-derived products are used in denim in different ways. It urgently needs to be addressed because denim production also uses up a lot of natural resources. The pandemic has shown we need to speed up this process and progress faster to working in a different way and think more circular. Make better and make less.

MJ: I think words like circularity and regenerative are all part of the same thing and designing product now is not just about selling and making money, this is about doing something which is low impact and we have to be able to design product which is designed for disassembly and is easy to recycle at the end of its life.

One of the reasons I think we all love denim so much is because of the ageing process. The garment is designed to age and should look better the older it gets – if you really value the authenticity of it as a product you should be able to wear it for the rest of your life and hand it onto someone else, but eventually it does have to pulled apart to be recycled. There should be investment put in place so that recycling product is easier than it is at the moment.

ME: We really need to work on the whole process, make everything clearer, cleaner and simplified. As designers we need to create product with a longer life cycle, using less polyester and less chemicals.

MJ: I think people are going to have to start spending more money on their product and we’re going have to stop giving so much choice for cheaper options that aren’t sustainable. Most designers and buyers are fully aware of the need to put sustainable product into the market but if the company’s bottom line is making money and it’s not about trying to protect and conserve the planet, then unfortunately they’re in a really tricky situation where they have to make tough decisions on how to do both.

There’s a lot of pressure on designers and buyers to be able to achieve this and tick all those boxes. I don’t have the answers necessarily because every company seems to work differently and everyone’s understanding of what sustainability is is different.

ME:  Yes, and there’s so many different parts of it and it’s so difficult to pick one piece of that huge pie. We need to work on the whole picture.

MJ: It’s a bit like how we used to work on some of those really exciting denim projects back in the day when you take every single component and process apart mentally and you look at how things can be improved. That puts a lot of responsibility into our hands to find ways to make improvements. The companies aren’t going to come along and start telling their workforce how to do things better, they are heavily relying on people finding ways to make improvements without spending more money as the customer doesn’t want to spend more money on the product. But actually, the customer will need to start spending more money as the prices haven’t really gone up very much since the 80s.

SB: We are quite lucky in that we entered the denim industry through the portal of iconic brands and what we experienced from that was a connection to denim but also the narrative behind brands and products and the importance of products as they age. I think if we’d entered the market through a completely different portal of denim, what we experienced might be just cost.

The speed of growth of the denim industry means the values haven’t really stayed within a large chunk of the market so all of that “doing the right thing, making denim great” just wasn’t on the agenda. Denim becoming a fashion item really changed the sensitivity by which people handled it and I wonder if a reduction in in sales and SKUs [stock-keeping unit] will start to bring back the tipping point and will start to bring back those values of creating things better. If prices go back up that will reinvigorate people’s interest in prolonging the garments.

What’s amazing to see is the rise of vintage within the youth market; it’s a really key tipping point and is flooded with young entrepreneurs wanting to sell and buy on Depop. And wanting to find those treasures. What’s key for them are the brands that developed quality, long lasting product. 

MJ: It does feel a little bit like that, the whole thing of the hunt. Remember how we used to feel like that about the best vintage items?

ME:  It’s all happening online instead!

MJ: Yes, something that has been knocking around for 20-30 years suddenly looks really exciting to an 18-year-old. That’s brilliant that they’ve got that accessibility to it. We used to fly around the world, to the Rose Bowl [Los Angeles] and places, but now they can do it online in the middle of a pandemic.

SB: I was doing a project with Ravensbourne and some of the students asked ‘how should we be doing this and how should we be responding to this?’ I said you have reached a point in time where the rules have flatlined and the way that people have been making things for the last 20 years is under scrutiny. When we joined the industry there was an element of needing to listen to your elders, whereas I feel it’s those kids that need to ask the awkward questions and be slightly more demanding to actually bring in the innovation.

ME:  On that, what are the opportunities for the next generation?

SB: The big one at the moment is to be a 3D designer. There is so much talk about non-fungible tokens, about digital art, but the energy that is required to support all of those functions is now under question, so I think it’s going to go back to the luddites and everything will be hand drawn and made into a lovely book with swatches attached and sent through the post! Can you imagine.

MJ: Things aren’t very tactile, are they, these days, it’s all very digital. I press a button, it’s made and on my desk in less than a week and it’s just a bit cold. Going back to denim in particular, it is textiles so it’s about how it feels and how it looks. We are heading towards this very robotic way of designing but actually I hope we never take our hands out of it.

SB: Exactly. Textiles are the things that you surround yourself with in your home, they are the products that you love that you create your nest around.

MJ: Yes, it’s emotional. That’s the other thing about denim, it has an emotional side to it. We all have product that when we put it on it makes us feel a certain way.

ME:  What do you think is the future then for young designers or people coming into the denim industry?

SB: I would say it’s a time to go maverick and a time to be challenging. There are lots of companies that will just want people to do a particular job that might be quite pedestrian but actually what the climate really needs is mavericks that will stand out and break down the paradigms.

MJ: Sometimes it’s easier when you are a young designer to see where something doesn’t work, whereas when people have been in it for a long time they think about how things have traditionally been done.

MJ: If you wanted to get into the denim industry, is there an area that might be easier to focus on?

SB:  I’ve observed the pressure on students nowadays compared to when I was at college, they have to be so brilliant on all different levels: the way they present themselves, brilliant digitally, to understand the flow charts and circularity, the manufacturing structures. There are so many more elements that they have to know and there’s a huge amount of pressure.

MJ: Malin, how do you think that the pandemic has affected things, do you think that maybe there’s some learning coming out of this?

ME: The most obvious was not travelling that we probably all missed. That really affected the way I work, not meeting people or sourcing fabrics. I think business travel will definitely come back because working online can never really replace sharing ideas face to face. Even before this happened, I always preferred having meetings with mills and other people in a smaller setting. Personal contact is really important and it makes work more efficient. But I can’t wait to travel and see fabric and meet people. One positive thing was the super quick change to creating amazing online content and platforms. Our industry really came together and quickly adapted. One other great thing for me was having to find creative resources locally, whether it was vintage shops by appointment or having to do research at a friend’s Vogue library or even my own library, so using your creativity in a different way.

MJ: You go to fairs to look at fabrics but then we bump into everybody, you have conversations and a few laughs and you actually talk about the industry and where things are heading. You get so much information from those little sideline conversations that we’ve been missing. The denim industry was under so much scrutiny a while back as being very environmentally damaging and so a lot of people have been working together on making massive seismic changes. That can only really come from having those kind of kickback conversations. The three of us talk and share ideas, and if that information gets spread to other people, we are maybe becoming the elders that are shining the light.

ME: Another thing with travel and fairs being cancelled was you became very creative with what you had. Using my image library, stock fabrics and my own vintage archive – you can be creative with little.

MJ: Restriction is one of the things that makes creative people even more creative. You also take more responsibility for stuff that’s already in stock rooms or warehouses, mend and make do. Sometimes that can force you to make some really great product. How useful was having really good relationships with industry friends?

ME: Reaching out to industry contacts became very positive and not only a work lifeline but also keeping in touch on a personal level.

MJ: I’ve been doing the most amazing amount of work on WhatsApp. Sending messages to people I’ve known for years saying, ‘Can you make me a fabric with these fibres in? You know what I like’.

ME: Yes, some simple ways of working will be here to stay. You would be sent a book of fabric swatches and that’s quite an efficient and tactile way of working.

ID: Looking at small wash labs that might be setting up in London, or the idea of small factories here, how useful would that be?

ME:  I have been to see some of the new London set-ups and I definitely look forward to seeing what we can do locally. That’s going back to what I said before about using local resources – it would also be a really great way of working efficiently. I think it’s quite exciting for the industry and it will be amazing for students to see first hand how things are made.

SB: I was always blown away by the brands that had those at innovation hubs and it’s really nice that something similar is happening in London. People have always come to London as a destination so it’s great that that is being met with innovation where we can create stuff. I think it’s very exciting and puts London on the map in a different way. It’s the perfect partnership where people come here to really pick up the energy and then translate it locally. And who doesn’t want to go to London!

Wealth of experience

Sue Barrett is an accomplished creative strategist and future trends specialist. With over 20 years’ experience in denim, brand positioning and trend forecasting, her expertise influences some of the world's most renowned brands and industry insiders. She is passionate about bringing the voices from the street into the corporate mix and focusing them into a relevant commercial tool that drives innovation and business development. 

Miles Johnson is a responsible and environmental design specialist and an established speaker on ethical practices in clothing design and in healthier manufacturing. He worked alongside Orta and Denim Village for two years on trends and finish directions. Previous roles include creative director of product design and development at outdoor brand Patagonia and creative director at Levi Strauss XX.

Malin Ekengren is a denim consultant with over 15 years’ expertise in the industry. Her London-based denim studio and archive has worked with some of the world’s most well-known denim brands and premium labels. Malin takes inspiration from her vintage archive and future denim trends. Malin Denim studio offers bespoke design, fabric and trend services to premium and independent brands focusing on sustainable denim. 

Share this story: