Everlane Introduces First-Ever Designer Collaboration

"Any brand that operates in a vacuum can seem a bit lonely," says Mathilde Mader, creative director of Everlane. "Even just opening up your brand for conversations with other designers makes you think out of the box, or having someone appreciate what you're doing from their point of view can be incredibly inspiring."

More than a decade since it entered the market, Everlane is doing just that by introducing its first-ever designer collaboration. The project, however, started as something different — as a way to find a use for all the "liability yarns and fabrics" (i.e. surplus materials) the San Francisco-based brand had amassed.

"We knew we wanted to do something with it, but we didn't want to call it a liability collection," Mader says. "We were like, 'Why don't we actually use this momentum for this opportunity and turn it into a creativity challenge? Sometimes, setting boundaries around your creativity actually forces you to do an even better job." (By the way, have you watched our conversation with the designer on the Fashionista Network?)

When the Everlane team was surveying the materials they had to work with, they began brainstorming potential partners who they felt were aligned with the colors, as well as with working with deadstock. That's when the London-based Portuguese design duo Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida of Marques'Almeida entered the picture.

"I'll be honest, quite a few people internally had never heard of them, which I think actually added to the excitement, because Everlane's not huge. We're still niche. Not that many people have heard of us — reaching out to someone who's equally niche felt like a meeting of minds," Mader tells Fashionista. "It's very surprising. I was a bit the same at first, like, 'How are we going to get this across in a way that makes it feel natural or a conversation that came about from a search of creativity? It just always came back to sustainability. It's got to be someone who understands what our challenges are and who understands that we're not just going to dye something a different color, because that goes against what we wanted this to be about."

Everlane tasked Marques'Almeida with reimagining some of the San Francisco-based brand's best-sellers entirely with its surplus fabrics. The Utility Barrel Pant's now tapered at the ankle with a button detail in two new colorways; the Relaxed Oxford Shirt is reimagined into both a a patchwork button-down and short-sleeved dress; the material of the Way High Jean is used in a patchwork denim jacket and mini skirt boasting Marques'Almeida's signature pocket details; the leftover yarn from the Alpaca Crew is repurposed in an open-lace knit stitch cardigan and tunic, and its shape is revisited in an oversized cashmere crewneck sweater and a cocoon turtleneck knit. There's also a canvas patchwork jacket, plus a satin tie-dye series that includes shirts and slip dresses.

"We have been creating garments from liability fabrics for years, and so when Everlane approached us with the idea of using some of theirs to create a collaboration collection, we immediately said yes," Marques and Almeida said, in a joint statement. "It was a challenge to work with specific yardage of the fabrics available, and create a collection that was both inspired by Everlane's hero pieces, but also felt true to our design DNA. However, it was one that we relished and we are so thrilled with the final collection."

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Prices start at $128 (for the Patchwork Relaxed Shirt and the Denim Patchwork Mini Skirt) and go up to $298 (for the Oversized Cashmere Crew). Sizes range from XS to XL, and 23 to 33 on denim.

Now that it's dipped its toes into the collaboration water, Everlane is more open to introducing collections like this in the future. "For a brand like Everlane, it's a very natural way of trying to broaden our customer group, making sure that we participate in conversations with other brands and thereby opening up our portfolio to more people that we want to tell about our mission," Mader says. "It's definitely something we're going to continue doing. And also, this was such a positive experience for everyone involved, that I think there's a lot of, 'Who can we do with the next one?'

You can shop Everlane x Marques'Almeida now on everlane.com. See all the pieces in the collaboration below.

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