Dear Friend,

A familiar story. This collection started with the usual research and references, but ended up somewhere deeply personal. When you put so much of yourself into the work it’s inevitable that things take on an autobiographical shape.

Collection 022 begins at the breakfast table. Red gingham tablecloth, milky tea in a mug, toast crumbs, fried eggs and a silver handle sticking out of the open jamjar. Real life. Real clothes. Collection 022 is a wardrobe of pared back essentials that feel warm and domestic, more than strict or minimal. There’s something less conscious about these pieces – almost as if they’ve always been here. Each season we strive for this sort of singular, honest quality in Toogood clothing. Things that from the first time you pull them on, feel part of you. Cherished clothes that every time manage to survive the spring-sort-out or charity-shop-bound-black-bag.

Relics of our childhood can be found throughout the collection. Mum’s willow print plates show up in a handpainted print. As does the beloved red gingham tablecloth. Snatches of family folklore can be read in the Sandwich Board artwork: cheeky and profound. “BISCUIT TIN UNDER THE BED”.

Two core Toogood characters inspire many of the garments: The Cook and The Artist. Virgina Woolf wrote, “We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.” We chop onions, knead dough, wedge clay, mix powder pigments into walnut oil. We seek and find ourselves in these moments of being.
The Cook, The Artist, His Jacket and Her Trousers: Apron strings, bold shapes, simple lines, butcher stripes, washi paper suiting and a primary palette of jam red, apron blue and fried egg yellow.

Love Faye.