Creativity: in conversation with Clary & Peg
In this issue of creativity: in conversation, I speak with the pioneering brand Clary & Peg, which is owned by Edwina and Johanna. Clary & Peg support British Manufacturing and slow fashion, producing high end clothes that can be worn during maternity and beyond.
I came across their brand four years after having my daughter (with no plans for any more!) and have a few pieces from them. Every time I wear one of their dresses, I am always complimented but more than that, I feel great in them AND they make petite sizes, hooray. Read on to find out more about their design process and how they make their collaborative duet work.
Can you tell me about how you landed on the idea of Clary and Peg?
We landed on the idea for Clary & Peg when we were both pregnant with our first children. We met in our ante natal class and both bonded over the shared frustration at the lack of nice maternity wear at the time. We wanted to recreate the comfortable, fun and stylish clothes our mothers had worn - dungarees, jumpsuits and smocks. we were also both looking for a new creative project - something that might give us flexibility and allow us to work around our children. After months and months of chatting and planning, Clary & Peg was launched in 2013, when Edwina's second child was born and just before the birth of Johanna's second baby.
Do you have any creative differences that help stimulate ideas or the opposite, that you have to compromise on? How do you work together creatively?
Edwina: The upside and the downside is that our strengths are the same! We both love the creative side of the business – designing, sourcing fabrics – neither of us have any formal design training but we both love clothes and the brand was born of this mutual love. It means we run the business with our hearts rather than our heads which has been more problematic as we have grown – we keep saying we need a business mentor! Luckily our creative vision is very aligned – we do like the same things and almost always agree on things. Also our compatibility means we really enjoy working together and laugh a lot!
Johanna: Yes. We're very much aligned in our creative thinking, which is great most of the time. We love poring over vintage patterns and styles, seeking inspiration, sketching out ideas. Sometimes it's helpful to step back and seek an outside opinion to stop us becoming too focused on creating things that only we might want to wear! Neither of us has a formal training in fashion design so we work with an expert pattern cutter to help realise our ideas.
Can you tell me how you advocate for your work? How do you take up space, ensure you are paid/ decide on what to charge? What about this makes you feel uncomfortable, if anything, and how do you navigate this, particularly as a woman?
Edwina: It is problematic. We often describe the business as another child – it takes up so much of our energy and deprives of us sleep! It is a labour of love, you don’t run a small business to make lots of money… We have gone through periods where we haven’t been able to pay ourselves which is hard when we work so hard and give so much of ourselves to the business but we are also very lucky as we love what we do and often it doesn’t feel like work. Initially we dreamt of creating a global brand but our dreams have definitely evolved and actually we love being small, the interactions we have with our customers, writing the hand-written notes that get sent with every order. We discuss now how we just want to scale it up a bit – pay ourselves a bit more, have a bigger studio and a bit more cash flow to take risks/invest in marketing/pop ups etc
Johanna: I do think putting yourself out there as a woman business owner is challenging. We were helped in the early days by joining communities such as Mother's meeting where other creative women shared ideas. Instagram has been a very useful tool for promoting our brand, especially at the beginning when our audience grew organically, however it is a challenge balancing how much of yourself you give on this platform. We manufacture everything in London which means our margins are incredibly tight. Realistically, even though our clothes are expensive, they should be priced much higher, but we don't want to alienate our customers.
What are your sources of creative inspiration?
Edwina: Our mum and grandmothers - Clary was my mum’s childhood nickname and Peggy was Johanna’s grandmother. Family is hugely important to us as well as the importance of clothes telling the stories of the past. My mother and grandmother kept all their clothes from the 30’s/40s and 60s/70 so I grew up with an archive of beautiful vintage pieces – Schiaperell, Ossie Clarke, Biba – I learnt from an early age how a beautiful piece of clothing can make you feel amazing.
Johanna: Our mothers are definitely a source of creative inspiration. Edwina's mother has a treasure trove of vintage clothes which help us endlessly in our design process. My mother is a professional weaver - having taught herself in her 20s and honing her craft over the past 50 years – the epitome of slow fashion.
Where do you create, can you describe the space in which you work when coming up with your own designs? What is it about this that feels important or significant to you?
We have a small studio on Columbia Road. We love it. For years we worked in various cafes in Dalston and got our own studio about seven years ago. Columbia Road is our perfect location; it’s so pretty and quiet in the week. Our studio is cosy! And its decorated with vintage panels and all of our clothes – it feels like a real home from home. Ideally it would be twice the size as we’re beginning to outgrow it but it has real character that we can’t bear the prospect of moving. When designing new collections we normally sit on the floor with hundreds of fabric swatches and buttons and sketches – it’s a very exciting and productive process.
As champions of ‘slow fashion’ and as a brand who actively push back on the constant demand for ‘newness’, how does this shape your creativity, and outputs?
Edwina: We manufacture in London in very small limited runs. We are very conservative with our numbers initially to minimise waste and if things sell well we can make up another limited run. We do use a lot of deadstock fabric and have only made 10 of one design if the fabric is right – we want to be making limited edition pieces that will be passed down from generation to generation. It is also why it is so important that our clothes can and are being worn after pregnancy too. We are designing them to be loved and worn always not just for a short period of time.
Johanna: We definitely try to limit the number of new clothes we bring out. We try to make all our clothes as versatile, trans-seasonal and durable as possible to push back against the constant need for newness. We're also not compelled to make new designs each season - we might just tweak an existing design and explore different fabrics. We shy away from wholesale, so we're not under pressure to manufacture huge quantities. we also look working with a team of local seamstresses - where we can pop in and chat about designs and check on progress. financially, it would make sense to manufacture our clothes abroad, but we're keen to keep things local.
What fashion trends or patterns have you noticed since establishing Clary and Peg?
Edwina: When we started the brand 12 years ago we were on a dungarees quest – now there are so many dungarees and jumpsuits on the market. Luckily we have a lot of loyal customers who buy are dungarees season after season.
Johanna: When we started out there were very few maternity wear brands, but we've noticed and welcome an expansion in this market. We've also noticed an increased support for small brands - people wanting to buy less, but better.
What’s on the horizon for you? Where do you want to take your designs and brand next?
Edwina: We would love to do a pop-up shop. We do offer appointments in our studio and we love meeting our customers and getting face to face feedback. It’s also so helpful for us to see how things fit and work on different bodies and for our customers to be able to handle the clothes – it’s so hard to communicate fabrics with photographs.
Johanna: Yes and we also hope to expand the sizing range of our clothes - grading is expensive, but we want to be as inclusive as possible. It would be a dream to develop our own fabric patterns.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with me about your creative life as female creatives and business owners?
We feel incredibly lucky and proud to have created this business from scratch. We look back over the years and can’t believe how much we have experienced and evolved as people and business owners. It has given us a confidence that is reiterated every time someone buys something or we see someone wearing our clothes – it is the best feeling.
All photo credits go to Clary & Peg.