A designer and entrepreneur who helped some of the most prominent fast fashion brands soar to prominence has revealed how she used lessons in the industry to launch her own sustainable 'slow fashion' business.
Manchester-born Danielle King is now at the helm of her own business KIHT Collective, an ethical gymwear firm.
Danielle, 35, from Sale, has worked in various top design roles for fashion giants including PrettyLittleThing, Missguided and Bon Marche.
She said: “My journey allowed me to see a massive cross section of the industry.
“I've worked in manufacturing, with e-tailers and retailers.
“At the time, it was so exciting to be a part of fast fashion. It was really cool and we were breaking all the rules and changing the model of retail.”
Moving to PrettyLittleThing from Missguided in 2015, Danielle helped the firm now owned by Boohoo through its rapid expansion, as it became one of the world’s fastest-growing fashion retailers.
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“It was a really fun time and crazy, crazy as a business to be part of it because things would change week in, week out.”
But she said the industry “never quite sat right” with her, adding: “I've been all over the world with it, which was an amazing experience, but I think just seeing the processes and what goes on behind the scenes - there has always been that niggle."
The fast fashion industry has been the subject of controversy over the past 12 months - not least due to the scandal concerning Boohoo suppliers' working conditions at factories. It has also faced major concerns over its sustainability for years.
Danielle said: “I think as I grew in the industry and started to see the detriment of what fast fashion was doing, it began to become clear I wanted to leave and do something else.
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“It’s difficult. You don't realise at the time, because you are just part of this wave, but then seeing the negative impact of it just made me realise that it really needs to change and our mindset around clothing needs to change as well.”
She began researching other sustainable models of fashion businesses, and said: “I noticed that it was just so expensive, it was almost slightly elitist, and I just felt that for it to work, it would need to be accessible, so I decided to give it a go on my own.
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“I felt like I'd had enough experience and enough understanding of the industry to give it a shot. It was a little lightbulb moment, really.”
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Launched a year ago, Danielle describes her firm KIHT Collective as a 'slow fashion', sustainable and affordable activewear brand - priding itself in making products that customers will wear regularly, not just when going to the gym.
She said: “The business has basically united all of my passions.
“I wanted to see change, and at the same time, I've always been super into health and fitness, particularly from a wellness perspective.
“Now more than ever coming out the back of this pandemic, the issue of mental health is huge - as is obesity.
“So showing people how to lead more of a balanced lifestyle - a holistic take on health and fitness - was really important.
“It is active wear. So it's performance based, but it's about being fit for life - for whatever you want to do.”
As opposed to the lion’s share of fashion firms who manufacture in China, KIHT’s products are made in Portugal at carefully selected factories.
She said all packaging is eco-friendly, made from recycled materials or able to be recycled. The business also buys all of its factory seconds - items that have failed the quality control process but are still wearable - and donates them to charity. It also works with charity TreeSisters to plant a tree for every KIHT purchase.
Danielle, who sells most of the products online and at pop-up events, said she had hoped to launch the brand earlier - but was hit by the early impact of the pandemic.
She said: “The factories got shut down, the world shut, so I launched just as we were starting to come out of the lockdown.
“I just wanted to get the brand out there - it was a ‘now or never’ scenario’.
“I do feel really lucky that as a gymwear brand, when the gyms have been shut for the majority of the year, we've done really well.”
In terms of the future, she wants to grow KIHT out as a “full lifestyle brand”, adding: “My ultimate aim is to be a leader in businesses that are essentially doing more good than harm.
“It’s not about being perfect, it's just about building on what we've got and continuing to improve. Those are my goals and at the same time, I call the business a collective because I want it to be a group bringing people together.
“I want to be led by what my collective want.”
She is confident for the future of her business - and said invaluable lessons from fast fashion are helping her in ‘slow fashion'.
She said: “One lesson I learnt - and it plays really well into sustainability - is that there are no rules - it's incredibly flexible.
“I think a lot of big [traditional] retailers struggle because they built big, complicated, slow moving modules, and I would say that with fast fashion, the one amazing thing about the way the business is built is that it's so flexible.
“I think I have really taken that into my business. There's obviously things that you have to do in a business at every stage, and it was exactly the same thing. When I was working through to build to help us be faster, I was looking at every aspect of the business and asking 'what could we do differently?’
“For fast fashion, it was ‘do we need this process, if we cut it out, will it make us faster? What are the pros and cons of that?'
“I think I've taken the same thing into building a sustainable model - looking at every single aspect and asking if I need to do it, questioning everything.”
Danielle is confident the shift to sustainable fashion is beginning to accelerate, adding: “It’s about continuing to educate and just keep pushing it really.
"Change takes time, and it's hard.
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“It's not about trying to be perfect. It's just about being honest about where you are and where you’re going, and being as open and authentic as possible with what you're doing.
“I don't think we have much of a choice [to shift to sustainable].
“But I think it's a two-fold thing. We need to work to become more sustainable, but I also think we need to work to educate a mindset shift in how people think about fashion.
“I spoke to older designers years ago who said they would design something and it would be in the front of the shop for weeks on end. There would be less, but bigger quantities of it because that would be say, the shirt of the season.
“Whereas I think what online has changed is that it's about just bringing newness in every single day, rather than for the season.
“So it's about changing people's mindsets of thinking more about trends, instead of fashion.”
This week, the firm has launched a new ‘Birthday Essentials’ range to celebrate a year since launch.