In the Studio With Marques’Almeida
CreditLuca Campri
2015, according to Paulo Almeida, has been “full of good things and crazy things.” In May, he and his design partner, Marta Marques, were awarded the LVMH Prize, giving them a year of mentoring and 300,000 euros for their now four-year-old London-based fashion brand, Marques’Almeida. Since then, life is looking very different.
Right now, for example, the designers are researching ideas for their fall/winter 2016 collection. They are delighted to be able to start on this as early as November, since in recent years they haven’t gotten to it until January. “We had more time in the beginning — more stress, but more time to design and do collections,” recalls Marques. “And then, with growth, that time started shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, because the team was still kind of small. Me and Paulo were being pushed in a hundred different directions.”
This is what happens when a small label begins to make an international name for itself. The pair met at Portugal’s CITEX Fashion School in 2007; they moved to London to pursue internships — Marques at Vivienne Westwood and Almeida at Preen — before both being accepted to the acclaimed fashion program at Central Saint Martins. They launched Marques’Almeida in 2011; by 2012, they had been picked up by Opening Ceremony. They are best known for their creative use of denim, which they fray and color to create offbeat T-shirts and coats inspired by the raw street-style aesthetic of the 1990s. In more recent seasons, they have also introduced silks and brocades, which are often similarly distressed and deconstructed.
The great benefit of winning the LVMH prize is that the pair have been able to upgrade their team; since May, they have more than doubled their numbers. They are expanding so quickly that when I ask how many staff they have right now, Almeida has to pause and count. “I think we are 11, it just keeps changing every month,” he says. He is soft-spoken and Marques does most of the talking, though the two of them — a couple, as well as a design duo — have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences.
On the day I visit the Hackney studio, all is serene. The team is quietly busy with patterns, pins and sewing machines; Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” plays in the background, punctuated by occasional sirens from the street below. An unlit neon sign declaring ‘Marques’Almeida X Topshop’ leans against one wall — a hangover from the brand’s 2014 collection, which translated their main line into shredded jeans and faux-fur purses under $100.
“What we started four or five years ago is actually turning into something that has its own life,” Marques says. Now, they are focused on how to retain the brand’s famously down-to-earth, intimate feel as they expand. For the fall campaign, therefore, they decided that rather than buying ad space, they would send out a series of emails to interested parties. They asked three photographers — Ronan McKenzie, Jazmayne Mildyn and Alice Neale — to interpret the collection, and the images were shared with clients and fans on request.
“It just makes sense that in the midst of all the growth, we would do something that felt smaller,” says Marques. “Not just for the sake of being smaller, but because it feels more in tune with what we want to say as a brand.” The designers are “obsessed” with keeping their message clear — which they feel means staying relatable. “The way we think of the show is always to be worn,” Almeida says. “It’s not about making this crazy, insane, expensive piece that is not going to sell, because nobody’s going to be able to afford a £5,000 jacket.”
This attitude has fed into the development of their first e-commerce site, which they plan to launch early next year. They will be selling a curated mix of archival products and special editions as well as the new-season collection. “We’ve always had quite a close relationship with the end consumer,” says Marques. “We were so lucky to have a nice following of private clients in London right when we started. We were being stocked in just two stores worldwide but we had all these girls emailing and coming up to the studio.” With their own site, they are keen to offer something for those loyal customers — including a few pieces from previous shows that didn’t go into production at the time.
Now, with the company’s recent growth, excitement and anxiety seem to go hand in hand. Marques says that most nights, she lies awake between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., thinking about the company and the challenges of staying creative. “We think about it a lot of times when we’re starting a season: What if nothing comes out? What if we’re not going to be able to find something that means something?” She looks at Almeida and they laugh. “The fear and the stress and the agony that you have to go through to make sure that you’re saying something new and relevant is part of the process.”
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