ISOLATED HEROES is an Australian luxury unisex street wear clothing label by 23 year old Samantha McEwen which can be found on Asos Marketplace. She started the brand in 2011 after graduating from Heriot Watt University School of Textile and Design. Not long after that Samantha moved back to her home town of Dundee and moved into her first studio and started the first collection under the brand name Isolated Heroes.
Hi Samantha, tell us a little bit about Isolated Heroes.
Isolated Heroes is a luxury unisex street wear brand based on the idea of Optimistic Clothing. We aim to empower our wearers causing them to escape to a hyper-realistic Utopian world becoming a surrealist, avant-garde tribe of future primitives. The idea is that the clothing transforms you and you can be whoever you want to be when wearing Isolated Heroes.
The brand is also all about empowerment through dress; a process of metamorphosis achieved through a vivid rainbow of clashing colours, vivid tones, distinct prints and oversized silhouettes. Consistently a front runner on the path of orininality, we intend to define trends rather than follow them.
How did you come up with Isolated Heroes? Is there a story behind the name?
I had been blogging under the name Isolated Heroes for a number of years so it seemed natural to progress with this name when creating the brand.
You're dropping the new collection... very soon. What inspired you for this collection? Will there be lots of furs and bright colours? (Doesn't get better than that!)
Our SS14 collection takes its inspiration from Scandinavian folklore, traditional costumes and the idea of Kosovo Brides. The new collection is really garment focused in terms of textures and the use of textiles. We have went for an entirely pastel colour palette mixing metallics with burnt out baby pinks, candy lilac, and mint greens. We are using a lot of faux fur again as it has become pretty much our signature. However, this time the fur has been through so many different effects. We have embossed furs, appliqued love heart two tone furs and furs in different cuts and silhouettes. We have also introduced two new digital prints to the collection for all the oversized items that have been finished with metallic foils and we have a range of pastel biker jackets that have been hand painted with traditional symbols and kawaii gestures.
What are your favourite movies?
As a studio we did a communal vote! We love Clueless and lots of old 90s classics: 10 Things I Hate About You, Jawbreaker, and Sugar & Spice! Really bad teen flicks! My personal favourite is Spun. LOVE Brittany Murphy in that movie. I was genuinely so upset when she died. The soundtrack is amazing!
Do you have a studio and staff? What is a regular day at Isolated Heroes like?
Our studio is in Dundee where we design and produce all the garments in the collection. Right now we are producing everything in a house. However, soon a small fraction will be produced in a factories outside which will give us a lot more design time. Every day is different however, normally it starts at 9am. We have a big white board where we write up a daily list. Normally I split the studio team up with one person focusing on orders and another on finishing new samples. I usually spend a lot of the day emailing people, checking in with the PR company seeing where our samples currently are, keeping an eye on press pulls and then I will check round the stockists to see how much stock they have. We have interns in in the afternoon who help with packaging orders and getting them out to everyone and sometimes we have models in for fittings and shoots. We shoot a lot as it keeps everything fresh and exciting. Every studio day is slightly different but always super fast paced with lots of hilarity. We work in such a small space so it's important for everyone to have a great time and get on with each other. There is always a great atmosphere and it never really feels like work as it's what I've always wanted to do.
What is your favourite aspect about Isolated Heroes being your only occupation and why?
I love how flexible it is and how every day is different. It's more than a full time job, I basically work at this 24/7.
If you were to collab with any other designer/label who would it be?
There are so many brands and different designers that I respect! I would love to do a shoe collab with a brand. We would love to collab with Buffalo.
If you got to pick any two models to model your label who would you pick?
I love Jourdan Dunn and I guess Cara Delevingne. It would be so much fun to work with them. And great exposure!
Is there anything we should be on the lookout for? Any projects coming up?
We have our brand new e-commerce store launching on the 10th of September!!! It's going to be MASSIVE. So many great things coming to it and the whole new collection will be launching on there. We have spent so much time working with the website developers on this so it's going to be MAJOR.We have a VIP club where anyone who joins the mailing list for the new site can be a member of. The VIP club has access to the store 24hours before everyone else. Since everything is limited runs and handmade in the studio this is AMAZING news. Also look out for Isolated Heroes becoming a main line on a MAJOR website really soon!
Thanks Samantha!
Find Isolated Heroes here:
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