Out of the Warehouse and into the Light

If you’re aged 35+ there’s a very good chance you spent much of your twenties browsing the rails of Oasis and Warehouse. The stalwarts of the great Scottish high street fell into administration last May but three former executives are, today at noon, launching a new sustainable womenswear brand, called Albaray and we think you are going to like it…a lot!

Albaray (meaning new dawn and ray of light) is a sustainable start-up founded by chief executive Paula Stewart, who is the former group chief product officer of Oasis and Warehouse Group, chief creative officer Karen Peacock, who held the design director position at Warehouse, and chief commercial officer Kirstie Di Stazio, the former commercial director at Warehouse. That’s three women in the major roles at a womenswear brand, you see where we’re going with this...actual real-life women, not men in grey suits, so who better to know what we’ll love in terms of style and how we feel in terms of sustainable shopping?

Albaray aims to reach 25 to 50-year-old women, who are looking for high quality, sustainable clothes that, simply put, “don’t cost the earth,” with prices under £90 and sizes from 8-18.

First revealed by John Lewis in February as one of its new 50 fashion and beauty brands, Albaray will debut with a selection of 85 pieces; including jersey T-shirts and vests, shorts, dresses, loungewear and jumpsuits, while knitwear will launch for autumn. Today, we’ll be able to snap up via www.albaray.co.uk and the range will also be available on John Lewis and Next websites from April and will be sold in five John Lewis stores when retail reopens.

Albaray, plans to place sustainability very much at its heart and will use 100 percent eco-viscose and 100 percent organic cotton in most of its pieces. The label will also use recycled materials for product labels and recycled and recyclable paper for its swing tags. Sounding good so far, right?

Commenting on the launch, Paula Stewart, chief executive at Albaray, said: “It’s incredible to think about where we all were a year ago – pre-Covid, pre-administration. It’s been a year of enormous change. The pandemic forced us to press pause and reflect on the fashion industry and how we feel it should move forward.

“Subsequently, we have decided to take a more thoughtful approach, talking to a like-minded, environmentally conscious customer, who (like us) loves clothes, but is now questioning the impact of fashion. We believe we should all be buying better and buying less; we also firmly believe that good quality, sustainable clothes shouldn’t just be available at great expense.”

Discussing the design approach, Karen Peacock, chief creative officer, explained: “With our first Albaray collection, there is definitely a nod to the fact that comfortably working from home may well continue for a while yet (yes, there’s a track pant!), but what I’m most excited about is all the colour we’ve used and the prints we’ve created for the dresses in our first collection – I think it’s pretty clear that we’re all ready to have a little fun with fashion again!

“The brand ethos for Albaray is, first and foremost, to design great clothes that women will love. Then, at every stage of the process, we asked ourselves ‘what is sustainable about this?’ If the answer is nothing then we don’t make it - we have to commit to trying as hard as we can to lessen the impact that fashion has on the planet. By choosing a sustainable source of viscose for our printed tops and dresses, organic cotton for our loungewear, we believe that is a step in the right direction.”

“Being a start-up has given us the opportunity to build a brand with values that we are passionate about. We care about our people, our practices and the planet – and every step of our supply chain has been considered to reflect our values,” said Kirstie Di Stazio, chief commercial officer. “We are exclusively working with factories with whom we have long-standing relationships and trust to not only deliver a great quality product, but who we know are committed to looking after the people that make our clothes. Our retail partners John Lewis and Next have also been incredibly supportive and we are thrilled to be launching our brand alongside them.”

Di Stazio added: “What began as a Zoom conversation between friends and colleagues, is now a very real collection of beautiful, women’s clothes; we can’t wait to see them out and about (as we all hope to be) this summer.”

Albaray launches 31st March at noon.