@Florence.Black

We caught up with Finn Lewis, Managing Director of the up-and-coming brand Florence Black. Taking inspiration from pre-1960’s fashion and culture, quality and attention to detail is everything to this brand. They produce garments that are versatile, suitable for many different occasions, and designed to last season after season.
We hope you guys appreciate the sincere honesty of this interview as much as we did!

What’s your background Finn?

Funny first question requires a funny first answer, it’s actually almost no fashion design background at all. I work “Full-Time” offshore on the oil rigs as a mechanical technician, couldn’t be anything further away from fashion, haha! Certainly took some time for the lads offshore to get attuned to me, think I even hid the fact I had a brand from them for quite a while as I was worried they wouldn’t be able to take me seriously.

Turns out they can’t take me seriously anyway so they all know now (and are actually very supportive for the most part). However, I predominantly came into the fashion side as a stylist, working alongside the likes of David Yeo in his North London Studio YoYo Studios. If you haven’t seen this mans work before you have to check him out, he shoots a lot of our campaigns and will be working with him for the foreseeable future, incredible talent and he helps develop my relatively broad ideas into a beautiful refined image.

Explain the brand name: “Florence Black”

I may have to direct people to the ‘our story’ page for this. There’s quite a lot of background behind bringing this brand to life and what the name means and stands for. This is the most important part of the brand for me, even more so than the garments themselves, and I want people to see the whole brand for what it is: www.florenceblack.co.uk/our-story.

In this current landscape of overnight brands, how do you find it navigating through a saturated market?

I think I’m lucky with a brand who’s very nature seems to be niche, it’s not that there aren’t a lot of other brands doing similar things, as there’s only so much you can change a tee, or a sweater, or any garment for that matter (unless you get to couture level). But with that said, I think my brand story, the influence we take from pre 1950’s fashion and culture, and the way this is all worked into our very own modernised style sets it apart from the other brands. Also taking time out from the brand for a year to really refine the last collection helped – which required a lot of research and time to develop. I had a vision of what I wanted the brand to be, but just having t-shirts and sweaters is an extremely difficult way of showcasing that vision, so wanted to develop the tailoring and outerwear, along with the knitwear to create a full collection to help bring that vision to life.

To what scale do you envision your brand being at, do you think a fashion show is within reach?

I’ll be honest, this is a question I get a lot, and my answer remains the same, I’m not 100% sure. The creative side of me says to keep the brand small and exclusive, I love the fact that I can keep everything personal, I currently can talk to anyone and everyone who drop me a message through our website, some of which I drop a call to have a chinwag with. Plus, with me being involved in the whole process I feel a sense of achievement when a new garment comes to life, or a new campaign releases. However, the other side to me is the business side, the business needs to grow and I’d love to start opening stores and that’s only possible with a larger customer base. So I think it’s going to be somewhere in the middle of the two.

Saying this though, there is definitely people who’s level I envision being at in both design and social status. I think design wise - Sarah Burton at Alexander Mcqueen is amazing, not everyone will agree with that and of course everyone has their own personal opinion about her and the brand (especially after the passing of McQueen), but for my personal taste I think her resort collections are just incredible. The lacework and the detailing is beautiful, plus their stylist is phenomenal, just as an example, go look at some of the trench coats with belts and see how the belt just kisses the bottom of the coat perfectly.

For social status, I look at the likes of Kim Jones at Dior – look what he’s managed to do with the brand and his own image in a short space of time. He’s a pretty cool guy in his own right, he’s friends with everyone, EVERYONE wants Dior. I’d quite like to meet him.

Being that you are a new brand, in what quantities do you produce your products?

I’m lucky that I’ve found some amazing manufacturers here in the UK who can make me very small quantities. But the amount I produce depends on the scarcity of the fabric, some of the wool fabric we use may only be enough for 10 suits. See I always start from a an ‘ideal’ fabric base as coming from a stylists background, fit and proportions are very important in a garments construction and it’s all about how that fabric will fit into the garments final look (drape/structure etc).

I also don’t want to over produce on items, one, to not saturate the market, and two, to not hold additional stock unnecessarily, so I may only make 20 of the roll neck, then anything that sells out then may go onto a pre-order as long as I know the yarn is available. Once again, this works into my exclusivity of items too.

I’ll keep it at that for now though as I can see I could waffle on for hours about this as there is a lot that plays into choosing the correct production quantities and I’m going to get hounded with questions if I lay too much out haha!

Financially, does it require a hefty sum of investment to get started?

If you’re not stupid like me you could probably be a lot smarter than the way I did it. I wasted a lot of money and time on the way but that was all my ‘learning curve’. You will still need a starter pot of money to be able to get the brand up and running, e.g website design, product design and sampling, shoots/models etc. But you can be smart by saving on production/fabric/storage costs by starting off with just doing pre-orders so you only make what’s ordered. This is a tactic of ‘slow-fashion’ that’s being adopted by some new brands now.

What is a weird fact about the brand that not many people know?

I actually don’t know if I should be admitting this…. From anyone who has bought an item between July 2019 – February 2020, my nans packed and shipped this for you hahaha! God that woman must be sick of me, I actually lived at hers up until this coronavirus lockdown as she was closer to London than my home town and my room was basically rammed full of stock. If anyone gets the chance to meet her you owe her a Vodka Coke.

In an ideal world, which stores would you like to be stocked in?

Top one for me is SSENSE, think the stylists for this boutique are INCREDIBLE. I’m quite anal about how I present my clothing, but I feel like I could leave all of my garments with them and they would make a beautiful outfit from it, better than I could for sure. Farfetch is another big one, they are extremely fashion forward and that whole business started off with the idea of giving small independent brands the opportunity to be showcased on the same stage as the bigger household name brands.

What are 3 key pieces of information which consumers should take away from this interview?

Number one – Brand story brand story brand story. Please I encourage anyone who’s hearing of the brand for the first time, or have known us for a while and not seen the story, please check it out. It will help give you some understanding to why I started the brand and why I’ve made the garments I do.

Number two - To expand on the Vogue Editorial point mentioned above - I’d like to mention it’s really important to connect and network with talented people around you, you don’t get these opportunities without putting yourself and your brand out there. I’ve met so many talented, driven people (yes Jack you included), who have helped both directly and indirectly push the brand. Big shoutout to all the people I work with on Instagram, the stylists, photographers, make up artists, models, and most importantly the fam who keep the business running whilst I’m away offshore.

Number three – I’m just a message away, the brand is still at a point where I can speak to you on a one to one basis about any questions you have so please take that opportunity because as the brand gets bigger I don’t know how contactable/tied up I will be.

Have you experienced any Brand milestones yet?

I’ll tell you one milestone I’ve not experienced yet - I’m hoping to meet someone in the streets who’s not friend or family wearing my garments! If anyone wants to hang about Soho every day in the hopes I stroll past would be greatly appreciated.

Think there’s definitely a few milestones to note though, I think the first is definitely how far the brand has come since I started it. For the most part I’ve been doing this on my own and to be able to create everything I have so far I’m extremely proud of where the brand is. Long nights, early mornings, thousands of miles travelled, PLENTY of mistakes, plenty of money wasted, hours of phone calls, even more hours solving issues and problems. It’s all worth it though, and a big thank you to Maciek who used to do some of the social media work for me & run around like an errand boy, he is a good friend of mine, and now Chris Faulkner (or Christopher.ajf as some of you may know on Instagram) who looks after the social media now. This boy is extremely talented and will be getting involved more and more as he literally eats and sleeps Florence Black.

Second being selling out certain parts of my collection. You can imagine being an independent designer the feeling of sales coming through for something you have created and then getting the amazing feedback I have so far, truly amazing.

Last would be the Vogue feature, that actually wasn’t something I was expecting as this was originally sourced from a really talented stylist for another project and one day I get an email to say it’s actually been picked up by Vogue. Can imagine I was body popping round the room in excitement when I got that email. However she kept me hanging and didn’t tell me which Vogue or any links to the publication for like over a week so Doina yes I’m calling you out haha!

What other products can we expect to see from you all soon?

As much as my answer to this is disappointing – I want to keep this as low key as possible. I do post little sneak peaks on my own personal Instagram account as well as a few easter eggs on the brands page. But I quite like that the people who will see the new items coming out are the people who are around me outside of the Instagram world, because I wear everything I make. It’s just my little niche.

How’s the current COVID situation affecting you?

I’m a bit mixed about this, I’m lucky that I have amazing custom still and some people have been loyal to the brand throughout this, as well as new custom for people just finding out about the brand.

I guess it’s just not a nice thought as a business owner (and really just a regular guy) about what’s going on in the world and the uncertainty we are with it, a big part of this brand is my ability to go out and meet/socialise people on a regular basis so I’m feeling a little bit cooped up right now.

What are your next steps for the brand?

The big one is focusing on the new collection, we have some amazing bits coming out and have levelled this up again, certainly in terms of garment construction – one little note is that this collection is going to focus even more around versatility, I’m a big believer that the more you can do with the garment the higher it’s worth and the more value you get from it. Why only give a garment one styling option if you can give it three?

Also, me and Chris have got some amazing ideas too for new campaigns so as soon as this lockdown is over we’ve got a few places to visit and start kicking off the new campaign because these places are honestly AMAZING.

Can we expect a collaboration with another brand in the near future?

I think if I was to collaborate with anyone I would love it to be an artist – to get someone from the painting/drawing/arts world to bring in some creative flair to an upcoming collection would be amazing, especially if it was someone who’s work was based around the same influence areas as me!

You can shop all things Florence Black here, thanks for reading.

BEHIND THE BRAND: Florence Black