THE AGENCY FOR FASHION AND LIFESTYLE START-UPS
Most start-ups assemble their brand from five suppliers who never meet: a namer, a logo designer, a web developer, a photographer and whoever handles the launch. The joins show.
We are the one-stop alternative, a senior team that takes a fashion or lifestyle brand from first name to first sale.
We named, branded, built and launched Camila Martin Barla. We did the naming, first brand guidelines and website for Sneak in Peace, now the largest luxury sneaker site in the world. And we gave Connolly, a house with generations of heritage, its first store online.
There are more start-ups in the studio right now than on this page. Most are under wraps until they launch, which is how their founders want it.
EVERYTHING A NEW BRAND NEEDS, ON ONE BRIEF
A launch has five jobs that all have to agree with each other: the name, the identity, the store, the campaign and the content plan.
Run them through separate suppliers and each one is competent, but the pieces drift apart. The store does not sound like the identity, the campaign does not fit the product, the content arrives after the moment has passed.
We run all five under one brief, with one senior team, so every decision is made with the others in the room. That is the whole pitch.
Priced for ambition
A word on money, because founders ask. We are not the cheap way to launch a brand, and we would be doing you a disservice if we pretended otherwise.
We are the team you hire when the plan is to become a significant brand in your own right, and the work is priced for that ambition. Every start-up on this page hired us to be right, not to be cheap.
What we do offer young brands is structure: payment plans that spread the investment across the build. If the ambition is real, the numbers usually work.
What we deliver
Every brand identity project is scoped to what the brand actually needs. The work isn’t a fixed package, it’s the set of decisions that get a brand from idea to a coherent presence, but it usually spans:
NAMING AND STRATEGY
Everything hangs off the name, and most founders choose theirs in a group chat. We treat it as the first design decision: workshops that dig into what the brand stands for, shortlists tested against the market you want to enter, checks against the domains and handles you will need. Alongside it, positioning: who the brand is for, what it refuses to be, and the guiding ideas every later decision gets tested against. Camila Martin Barla and Sneak in Peace were both named in this room.
BRAND IDENTITY
Not a logo. A system: wordmark, monogram, typography, palette, tone of voice and the guidelines that hold them together, documented down to how the email signature behaves and how the swing tag is stamped. Built for a brand that does not fully exist yet, which means built to flex. The identity has to survive your third collection, your first stockist and your first hire who is not you.
E-COMMERCE
We design and build on Shopify, bespoke, not a theme you will outgrow by the second drop. Multi-currency and international from day one, because your audience will not wait for you to be ready for them. Modular underneath, so your team can add products, pages and campaigns without calling an agency. And built for what comes later: subscriptions, gifting, new categories, whatever the brand grows into.
CAMPAIGN AND CONTENT
A store without imagery is a spreadsheet. We produce the launch campaign end to end: casting, styling, direction, shoot, film and post. Then the part most start-ups underestimate: the content that keeps the brand alive after launch week, from social film to product imagery for the next drop. We shot Arcminute’s campaigns in Ghana and Morocco; we still shoot Sneak in Peace’s content today.
LAUNCH
The moment everything has to land at once: store live, campaign out, content scheduled and the first order in. We run launch day like a production, because it is one. And we stay past it, because the brands that win treat launch as the start, not the finish.
SELECTED START-UP WORK
Seven brands at the start of something: most with nothing but a founder and a point of view, one with a century of heritage and no online store.
The scope varies by brand, which is the point. Founders buy what the launch needs, not a fixed bundle.
SNEAK IN PEACE
NAMING
BRAND GUIDELINES
E-COMMERCE
CONTENT
Sneak in Peace set out to build the largest luxury sneaker site in the world. It arrived as an idea without a name. We ran the naming ideation, wrote the first brand guidelines and designed and built the website around watch and shop: a 24/7 channel where customers buy what they are watching, without leaving the film.
Launch was years ago. We still shoot their content today, which is the version of this story we like best.
SNEAK IN PEACE
Arcminute
BRAND IDENTITY
E-COMMERCE
CAMPAIGN FILM
A London streetwear label with roots in Ghana, starting from zero audience. We shaped the identity through creative direction workshops, then built the store it could sell through.
The campaign films came from location shoots in Ghana and Morocco, cut for web, social and press, so the label arrived with a world already around it.
Arcminute
Camila Martin Barla
NAMING
BRAND IDENTITY
E-COMMERCE
CAMPAIGN
LAUNCH
The full job. Camila arrived with a point of view and no brand. We named it, built the identity, designed and built the Shopify store, produced the launch campaign and ran the launch.
Edition 01 arrived finished: a lingerie-led capsule from a brand that felt ten years old on day one, with the store, imagery and voice all cut from the same decisions.
Camila martin Barla
Cupla
BRAND IDENTITY
E-COMMERCE
CONTENT
Gemma McCloskey’s interiors studio had a logomark and a portfolio site, and a first product collection on the way. We built the world around it: the identity, the Shopify store and the CGI film that launched the Caramella lighting collection.
Not every start-up we build is fashion. Same team, same sequence, different shelf: an interiors studio became a product-led lifestyle brand with something to sell.
Cupla
CONNOLLY
E-COMMERCE
Creative Direction
A start-up in digital terms only. Connolly had generations of British heritage, an iconic Mayfair shop and no online store. We designed and built their first, made to carry the manner of the room it came from.
The store opened the house to the international audience the shop alone could never reach, and the digital marketing that followed kept them arriving. Proof that even a brand born in 1878 sometimes needs a launch.
CONNOLLY
Hiccup
NAMING - BRAND STRATEGY - BRAND IDENTITY
A sustainable fashion label from the founders of Gorillas, people who had already built one very big brand and knew what the next one needed. They came to us with no name, no identity and a clear ambition.
We ran the strategy workshops, found the name, and built a playful identity system with the guidelines to keep it sharp: typography, colour and assets ready for digital, print and campaign content. A brand built to leave the gate looking like it had been running for years.
Hiccup
THE LONDON SOCK EXCHANGE
WEBSITE DESIGN - E-COMMERCE
The London Sock Exchange came to us with a strong product, a sense of humour and collaborations most young brands could only dream of, including an official 007 collection. The website had to sell all of it without flattening any of it.
We designed and built the store in around twelve weeks, from wireframes to launch, then kept building: subscriptions and gifting arrived as the brand grew into itself. Our part was the website, done properly. The brand did the rest.
THE LONDON SOCK EXCHANGE
Selected clients
Tiffany & Co
Byredo
Annabel's
VOGUE
De Beers
Connolly
TOPSHOP
Grazia
Channel 4
Nordstrom
Paul Smith
Rixo
Art Partner
Axel Arigato
M&S
Harrods
OFF-WHITE
MARNI
SIMONE ROCHA
JD SPORTS
Next
Moschino
Debenhams
EVISU
FERNANDO JORGE
Nordstrom
Tiffany & Co Byredo Annabel's VOGUE De Beers Connolly TOPSHOP Grazia Channel 4 Nordstrom Paul Smith Rixo Art Partner Axel Arigato M&S Harrods OFF-WHITE MARNI SIMONE ROCHA JD SPORTS Next Moschino Debenhams EVISU FERNANDO JORGE Nordstrom
FROM FIRST CONVERSATION TO FIRST SALE
It starts with a conversation about the brand you want to exist, not a discovery questionnaire. From there the work runs in sequence: naming and strategy first, because everything hangs off them; identity next; then the store, the launch shoot and the content plan, each built on the decisions before it. One team carries the thread the whole way, so nothing is lost in a handover. By launch day the brand arrives finished, not assembled.
THE FIRST CONVERSATION
We talk about the brand you want to exist: the product, the customer, the ambition. We agree what the launch needs, and what it doesn’t, before anything is scoped.
NAME AND STRATEGY
The decisions everything else hangs off. Positioning, audience and, when needed, the name itself, tested against the market it has to live in.
IDENTITY AND STORE
The visual system, then the store built on it. By the time the site goes up, every page already knows what the brand looks and sounds like.
LAUNCH
The shoot, the content and the launch plan, sequenced to a date. The brand arrives complete, with enough material to keep it alive well past the first week.
Timelines depend on where you start. A brand with a name and a product moves faster than one that needs both; naming to launch day is typically a few months. We’ll give you a realistic timeline at the start, not an optimistic one.
FAQS
The questions founders ask us most, whether the brand is an idea in a notebook or a product ready to sell.
-
A product worth making, a name that can grow, an identity that holds together, somewhere to sell and content that brings people to it. The order matters more than founders expect: the name and strategy decisions shape everything that follows.
-
More than a logo from a marketplace, less than getting it wrong twice. We price for brands that plan to matter, and we offer payment plans that spread the investment across the build.
-
Naming to launch day is typically a few months, depending on how much exists when you arrive and how quickly decisions get made. The store build alone runs around twelve weeks.
-
Yes, when the ambition is serious. The payment plans exist for exactly this stage.
-
Yes. Identity, store or content can each stand alone, and each has its own page. The full journey is where we do our best work, because nothing gets lost between suppliers.
-
Fashion first, but the same team builds lifestyle brands: interiors, objects, design-led products. Cúpla began as an interiors studio and left as a lifestyle brand.
-
You do. The name, the identity, the guidelines and the store are yours, documented and handed over so the brand can run without us, though most founders keep us around.
-
As involved as a founder should be. The big decisions are yours: the name, the direction, the look. We bring options and a recommendation, you decide, and the work moves. Expect a conversation a week, not a questionnaire a day.
-
Most founders keep us on for content, campaigns and store development as the brand grows. Sneak in Peace and The London Sock Exchange both started as builds and became ongoing relationships. Either way, the handover is complete: staying is a choice, not a dependency.
START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON
The disciplines each live on their own pages: brand identity, e-commerce websites and content creation. If you are building a fashion or lifestyle brand and want one team on all of it, we should talk.
THE WORK AROUND THE WORK
Identity gives the brand its face. Strategy decides what the face is for. If the position isn’t pinned down yet, start there.
The identity sets the rules. Direction holds the work to them, on set, in the edit, across a season.
Art direction on paper becomes proof on set. We shoot the campaigns the identity was built to frame.
The store is where an identity earns its keep. We design and build fashion e-commerce that carries the system all the way to checkout.