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Brennan and Burch

This quirky design duo formed their fashion enterprise in 2001, with the intention of designing funky, yet functional, streetwear clothing. A mere five years on, Lisa Brennan and Majida Burch’s clothes are sold extensively online, through vendors across the UK, and are stocked internationally, mainly in Japan. Brennan and Burch’s interest in Japan shines through in their entire ethos; their designs use both neon brights and dark undertones, and always thrive on these apparent contradictions.

With increasingly eccentric names for each of their collections, from Young, Death, and Shopping to Oh, for the far away lands and through to Autumn/Winter 06's My Friends are Electric, there is little risk that these women, or their company, will fade into the background. Burch states that her main fear about the ruthless fashion industry is how easily talented individuals can disappear from circulation, but Brennan and Burch become more successful by the season, and the brand goes from strength to strength. They have created a wacky world of their own within their Islington-based workshop, melding hand-drawn characters with original fabrics and cuts each season.

Their collections combine acid brights (the rave look is back in a big way in spring) with crazy cartoons. Alice in Wonderland has been known to pop up in print, but classic characters are always placed alongside their own signature smileys. Brennan and Burch’s designs have spawned a whole troop of kooky characters, from their rifle-toting wasp women to their feline-faced girls and skeleton butterflies. In order to create her print designs, Lisa Brennan draws raw doodles, and subsequently leaves them on her notice board until a large enough number are built up to gain a whole new gang (and a new collection) in her office. Their images might appear macabre, but the girls use fun colours and shapes to offset any dark thoughts conjured up by their illustrations. This combination makes their brand both wearable and highly appealing.

The current collection, My friends are Electric, uses key womenswear trends seen on catwalks the world over, including sweater dresses, and 80s style cutaway jersey pieces.

Their male collection has heavy-duty hoodies and sweatshirts, t-shirts and sweater vests, and springs from a more 80s jock-style. Their scope as a label is ever-expanding in possibility; they only launched their male line in 2005, and 2006 has seen the launch of their unisex accessories range, with cute bags and PVC belts. Brennan and Burch also branched out into the blink-and-you'll-miss-it world of pop-up retail in October, selling their clothes in a tiny boutique in Clerkenwell for three days only. They plan to host another sample sale from February 14^th - 16^th next year. Brennan and Burch believe that there is a big gap in the British market for unisex clothing with a unique, slightly androgynous twist. Each season, they cater spectacularly for this unisex market, creating limited runs, one-off items, and always producing and printing their clothes in the UK, for their home crowd.

Yet despite being a home grown business, Brennan and Burch are interested in the massively different fashion climates of England and Japan. Alongside the fulltime running of this brand, Majida Burch has given herself the task of learning the language of the culture she so admires. The ladies plan to take a slice of Britain to Tokyo by opening their own shop there, hopefully crafting a design overlap between these disparate cultures. They also aspire to bring some of the peculiarities spotted in Tokyo to life in their flagship London store next year. An ode to the far away lands.

www.brennanandburch.co.uk

Kate Abbott

tags: Fashion Celeb