Meet Aletta, the London Brand Upending British Legacy Fashion

Freddy Coomes and Matt Empringham, the younger British designers in the back of the brand new womenswear label Aletta, had been raised at the Internet. “We didn’t grow up going to designer shops—the first experiences we had with fashion, with a capital F, were through a phone,” says Coomes. In their first assortment, which debuted on Instagram this previous March, the duo blurred the road between the true and digital worlds. Voluminous skirts, trousers, and attire in heavy cotton and crisp organdy seem 2D, whilst Three-D-printed paper brogues and footwear glance as though they’ve been lifted from a caricature.

Although they’re only one 14-piece assortment in, Coomes, 23, and Empringham, 24, have lengthy tackled materiality and geometry. They met in school, at Central Saint Martins, whilst operating on a bunch mission. The duo collaborated all through the pandemic, then interned with Jonathan Anderson—Coomes at Loewe, the Spanish space that Anderson led for 11 years, and Empringham on the fashion designer’s namesake label, JW Anderson. Instead of securing jobs at the ones properties, they introduced their very own logo on the finish of 2024. The rationale, explains Empringham, “was as simple as, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it now.’ ” They named the emblem after Coomes’s mom. “It spoke to women in our lives influencing and being part of what the brand is,” says Coomes. “Being two guys designing women’s clothes, that relationship needs to be ongoing,” provides Empringham.

Coomes grew up in London, whilst Empringham used to be raised in High Wycombe, “quite a normal town” about an hour out of doors the town. “Britishness is so multifaceted, but it’s become so clouded with stereotypes of heritage,” says Empringham, regarding tropes like tweed flat caps and Barbour jackets. “We want to create an authentic response to the country we know.” Their inspirations vary from art work through the English impressionist Laura Knight—the best way her clothes glance actually frozen in time—to British craft tradition. Take their brogues, which they produced the usage of Three-D-sculpture patterns discovered on homecraft web pages. “You can understand how our clothes are made,” says Coomes. “It’s not like you’re looking at an Alaïa dress.”

Some of Aletta’s choices qualify extra as objets d’artwork than as wearable clothes. The assortment comprises an aluminum blouse and tie that echoes the stiffness and proportions of a wall organizer. The designers had been encouraged through Meccano toys—England’s extra advanced model of Legos—to make the clothes, laser-cutting particular person sheets of aluminum, portray them, then solving panels at the side of screws. They created an aluminum Carhartt-inspired workwear jacket the usage of the similar method. It’s tough, if now not inconceivable, to in fact paintings in it.

And but the pair can toe the road between the experimental and the economic. Last yr, sooner than their logo formally introduced, the fame stylist Harry Lambert commissioned them to design attire for the actors Sienna Miller and Emma Corrin. Miller attended a pre–Met Gala birthday celebration in a boxy, woodland inexperienced minidress with an enormous paper lily at the shoulder, stamen and all; Corrin confirmed as much as Good Morning America in a playful drop-waist polo get dressed with an oversize bow at the entrance. A model in their polo get dressed is to be had at Dover Street Market Ginza. (Their personal e-store is coming quickly.)

“There is pressure to make clothes that are commercial, but if you say there’s pressure to make clothes that people want to wear, all of a sudden it sounds like a very different sentence,” says Coomes. “There should be a pressure to make clothes that people want to wear. Otherwise you’re just doing it for no reason, and you’re not speaking to anyone.”

As of now, the pair intends to stay the emblem a two-man group. For younger designers, “very quickly, the clothes become one thing, the brand becomes another, and there’s no communication between the two of them,” says Empringham. Friction “is good for us,” says Coomes. “It makes us think a bit more about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.” They also are content material to take issues one step at a time, prioritizing their craft over enlargement. “We’re really cautious of creating something that grows outside of our control,” says Empringham. “I don’t think we have a particular goal of ‘This is where we want to be in five years.’ It’s more of ‘This is how we want to feel in five years.’ ” Coomes is of the same opinion, including, “It’d be so boring if we had to do the same stuff forever. The idea is that we definitely can keep getting better.”

Hair through Claire Grech for Mr. Smith at Streeters; Makeup through Rebecca Wordingham for Lancôme at MA Group; Models: Camille Desjardins at NEXT Management, Isabella Pascucci at Milk Model Management, Linna Shi at The Industry Model Mgmt; Casting through Ashley Brokaw Casting; Produced through DoBeDo Represents; Photo Assistants: Joe Reddy, Abena Appiah; Digital Technician: Paola Ristoldo; Fashion Assistants: Emma Govey, Myles Mansfield; Hair Assistant: Erika Neumann; Makeup Assistant: Matilde Ribau. Opposite, most sensible left: PASCUCCI WEARS STYLIST’S OWN SHOES.