From his early days in fashion education to helping develop Reiss’s own-label menswear and founding AllSaints, Stuart Trevor reflects on the people, places and cultural influences that shaped his career.
During a recent visit to Stuart Trevor’s studio in Hoxton, East London, The Hoxton Trend spent time with the British fashion designer to explore a career spanning more than four decades.
Inside a remarkable former industrial building, surrounded by vintage military clothing, archive garments and pieces from his latest collections, Stuart took us back to where it all began.
Long before AllSaints became a familiar name on the British high street, Trevor was a young art student with a fascination for David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, music, clothing and the emerging creative culture of the late 1970s and 1980s.
His introduction to fashion education was almost accidental. Initially pursuing art alongside mathematics and physics, he discovered a fashion classroom filled with sewing machines, mannequins and pattern-cutting tables. Convinced he had found his calling, he persuaded the tutor to give him an opportunity, demonstrating his sewing ability by completing a practical task.
He eventually studied fashion at Nottingham Trent, where his designs attracted attention through the Smirnoff Fashion Awards and brought him into contact with Paul Smith.
However, another opportunity would prove decisive.
After seeing Trevor’s work on television, David Reiss approached the young designer, eventually taking him on a trip to Italy. At the time, Reiss was primarily a retailer of established designer labels, but the business was beginning to explore the possibilities of developing its own clothing collections.
Trevor became closely involved in that transition, travelling to Italian fabric mills, working with manufacturers and developing menswear for the British market.
During our conversation, he recalled how the business grew substantially over his decade there, describing its journey from financial difficulties to approximately £50 million in turnover.
His Italian travels also brought him into contact with some of the most influential names in European clothing, including an unexpected encounter with Stone Island founder Massimo Osti at a garment-processing facility in Bologna.
By 1994, Trevor was ready to establish something of his own.
With manufacturing backing and a business plan, he founded AllSaints, developing a label influenced by music, vintage military clothing, youth culture and his experiences within British fashion.
Even the brand’s name has an unusual history, involving a notebook of possible names, London’s All Saints Road and a trademark objection connected to the New Orleans Saints.
The following years brought rapid expansion, commercial challenges and a growing retail presence across Britain. Trevor eventually sold the business in 2006.
Today, working from his Hoxton studio, he continues to explore many of the same influences that first attracted him to clothing: vintage garments, military construction, distinctive fabrics and the relationship between music and personal style.
What emerged from our conversation was more than the history of a successful fashion label.
It was a firsthand account of an evolving British menswear industry, told by someone who participated in its transformation, from the independent creative culture of the 1980s to the development of some of the country’s most recognisable fashion businesses.
