King & Tuckfield x Richard Biedul

Inspired by the flair of the 1940s and 50s, King & Tuckfield's collaboration with model Richard Biedul is made to last

Style 13 Nov 2018

‘What you wear says a lot about who you are and where you come from,’ says Stacey Wood, founder of fashion line King & Tuckfield, which is named after her grandmother Joan King and father Graham Aubrey Tuckfield.

Her grandmother was a ballet dancer in the 1940s and her father was also a ballet dancer from the age of seven, but worked in the mines in North Yorkshire before swapping identities with his cousin aged 16 to became a paratrooper in the Second World War. After the war he became a tailor and returned to dancing.

King & Tuckfield womenswear has a focus on denim, as well as elegant fabrics such as merino wool and include balletic features, such as wrap neck knits and open-back tops. The menswear collection has a 1950s style based on clothes Wood’s father used to wear. ‘We use merino in all our T-shirts and all our knitwear, because merino was worn underneath the army uniform,’ she explains. ‘We use denim because it was worn down the mines, and then we use a sartorial element because my father was a tailor, so we link it all back to him.’

Founded two years ago, the brand focuses on ethical, sustainable production. Before Wood and her business partner Yannis Boutlas set up King & Tuckfield, they visited all the prospective factories and merino farms so they could audit everything before working with them. All the denim and jackets are made in the UK, and while woven garments are currently made in Portugal, all the production is slowly being moved to the UK. And, apart from one of its denims, all the brand’s fabrics are sustainable and plastic free but the brand’s aim is to become completely plastic free, including within its packaging and deliveries.

As an expansion of its menswear line, the brand has collaborated with model Richard Biedul, which stemmed from a discussion Biedul had with Wood about the fact that he didn’t wear denim any more.

‘Jeans were no longer flattering to my body type or the way I dressed,’ explains Biedul. ‘So Stacey engaged me in a dialogue where she wanted to reintroduce me to denim and show it to me in a different light – in a sartorial, Savile Row-inspired cut. We spoke about what drives me to wear the things I wear, and what drives her to create the things she creates, and somewhere in the middle she pulled out this beautifully tailored denim trouser with a single pleat and side adjusters. It had the most wonderful drape and silhouette to it. It was essentially everything I said I’d been looking for in a trouser, but in denim.’

‘The high-quality, functional and utilitarian values of the 1950s should be accessible to everyone,’ continues Biedul. ‘That era is where function met form, because if you were a worker, you needed clothes not only for work, but you needed them to be your going-out clothes too. There wasn’t a budget for outfits for different occasions.’

Biedul’s second King & Tuckfield collaboration is available to pre-order online now, drawing inspiration from vintage postcards of weather-worn British seafronts. Comprising a limited edition 8 piece capsule, the sophisticated yet playful SS19 collection of summer essentials incorporates quality denim, merino and even reworks classic deckchair fabrics from the 1950’s.

And it’s not only the quality of the garments that sets King & Tuckfield apart; every detail has been carefully considered. For example, tucked into the back pocket of each pair of women’s jeans is a replica of a postcard written by Wood’s great-grandmother to her great-grandfather 100 years ago, and the men’s jeans come with a white handkerchief with K&T on it, as Wood’s father used to always carry a white handkerchief featuring his initials.

‘That’s what it’s about,’ says Biedul. ‘Being proud of who you are and where you come from, because what you wear reflects who you are. It’s cyclical, it’s like if you’re proud of where you come from, you should want to wear something that reflects that pride. And that pride resonates in the quality of clothing we produce, because we invest in the people that make it, and we’re fundamentally investing in the consumer. We want the consumer to look and feel fantastic.’

kingandtuckfield.com

King & Tuckfield is also raising investment on Crowdcube. For more information, please visit www.crowdcube.com/companies/king-tuckfield