In a world where a rapidly increasing amount of individuals want to emerge into the vast industry of fashion as designers, the pressure is on at full force to create original and thought-provoking designs, while still making them visually runway-worthy. This is inevitably intimidating to any prospective designer, except to one: Olivia Talbot Klein. The London based 22-year-old extracts inspiration for her independent sustainable fashion brand LOLLIE from numerous elements. In particular, a peculiar place we’ve all been: dreams. Wasn’t what you were expecting? Continue reading to find out exactly how slumber induced visions along with other inspirations have fuelled her fashion ambitions.
After coming across Miss Klein’s fashion on Depop, I was immediately enticed by her unconventional and groovy designs. Scrolling through her idiosyncratic artwork exposed a curiosity in me so strong that I immediately contacted the visionary producer and had a lengthy conversation about sustainability and overconsumption within fashion, the origins and inspiration of her brand, what the future holds for the latter, and much more.
The fashion industry is identified as the second-largest polluter in the world, making up for 10% of all carbon emissions. This is due to a handful of reasons, with fast fashion and overconsumption being the most consequential. With that said, being a fashion enthusiast in 2021 comes with the responsibility of taking as much individual action as possible to assist in the fight against climate change. Miss Klein stands with sustainable slow fashion, stating that “Sustainable fashion is so important in clothing and really the only way forward to prevent further destroying our planet.” After discussing the significance of sustainable fashion, we went on to discuss overconsumption – a topic that seems to go unnoticed in the fashion community. When asked if she encourages or discourages overconsumption, Olivia voices her influential opinion “Discourage! Since social media became so prevalent in the younger generation’s lives, this whole almost ‘celebrity culture’ of wearing an outfit once and being dragged for ‘outfit repeating’ has gotten pretty out of hand. Fashion is extremely versatile, you don’t need 100 different outfits when you can style the same item in more ways than one.” She ends off this guiding statement with “If you like something you own you should wear it however many times you please, clothes are meant to last years, not a few hours.” Discovering that I’m able to buy wearable art from LOLLIE that stands on a foundation of sustainable morals and ethics was definitely my highlight of 2021.
When there’s a brand built on such talent and artistry, it’s essential to find out how and why it launched. When asked what inspired her to create her brand, the expressive artist explained, “I started to get back into painting during the lockdown, which I hadn’t done properly since school. Over that year it became an everyday thing for me which progressed into bigger, more elaborate work on canvas.” Some people panic bought toilet paper over lockdown, and some found their artistic passions. Miss Klein went on to expand on how her art connects with fashion as she continues “I’ve always been into fashion and styling too so I wanted to combine the two sides of self-expression and creativity into wearable artwork and that’s when I started selling my stuff on Depop.”
After covering the genesis of her brand, it was time to get to the essence of LOLLIE and discover the inspiration behind the atypical art itself. Miss Klein reveals that “the majority of the designs are based on personal life events and people. But often when I’m painting on clothes I’ll just paint whatever comes to me or something that I saw in a dream that isn’t necessarily connected to anything in particular, but there have been times where I’ve done a painting without much thought and it’s only later that I begin to unpick the thought process behind it.” Miss Klein produces clothes and accessories varying from trousers and t-shirts to handbags and boots, not to mention it’s all budget-friendly! This sort of creativity can only stem from a passionate and artistically charged individual.
After having covered the foundation of her brand, I inquired as to why she initially used Depop to promote her brand rather than start a website or go immediately to Instagram. She goes on to explain “I guess that’s just the place you go to now if your target audience is going to be more or less 16-30. I tried Etsy, Vinted, and eBay, but didn’t get much luck. At the time I had only posted a few things on Depop and nothing was really selling, then Depop actually reached out to me through Instagram and email, which I’m so thankful for. They put me on the ‘level up team’ which has been a massive help and my page has been featured on the explore page a couple of times and that’s what really grew my sales. Depop’s community is definitely what made me want to continue using this platform over others.” Seeing the progressing accumulative support that creatives are receiving from similar platforms is a positive promotion that needs to continue to expose the creative minds of Gen Z.
LOLLIE currently sits at nearly 10k followers on Depop and nearly 3k followers on Instagram. When queried on the future of LOLLIE and whether or not she’d ever considered dropping a limited collection, Miss Klein responds with “I want to eventually make my business 100% upcycled vintage garments with far more intricate paintings. I haven’t had much time to come up with new concepts yet but, yes, definitely when I do I’d like to make a whole 1/1 collection with 100 pieces that are all totally different. I’m planning to move into a studio in a couple of weeks so that’s something I’ll be working on when I have the space.” This is certainly something to keep in mind and look out for!
Expect big and exciting projects from Miss Klein in the future! To browse the groovy fashion and art, visit @Lollie on Instagram, or @Bylollie on Depop.
