Sam King is a fashion design brand that embraces quality, creativity, personal and professional health as well emphasising the plus size culture.

 

The fast paced fashion industry that promotes trends has effects on the economy and the society. This being the decline in jobs in the South African textile industry, lack of quality due to exports and cheap production, unethical production processes, illegal employment and an overall lack of creative design. Creative design refers to classic, unique styles that one can wear and own as their own identity.

 

Imports take away the quality of the clothing with lack of design and poor textiles as the demand for clothing increases i.e. trends. Trends are clothing items that are accepted by a mass market resulting in it being popular, admired and the ‘in demand’ item of a certain point in time.

 

The fashion industry seems to believe that all women are the size of the skinny girls on runways. The challenge also comes in where certain brands comply with their ethos and brand identity in terms of catering for a certain target market. The large market that the fast-paced fashion industry focuses on, give or take, is the trendy and petite audience. This leaves the impression that the “boring and plain” clothing is fit for the rest which are the real and plus size people.

 

This, in essence, is generalising that trends and chic are only for the petite. Nevertheless, the plus size market is evolving. To set the plus size audience aside from the rest is to boost their quality and confidence in the industry by introducing them as a ‘culture’. A culture, because of the lack of design and rise of cultural appropriation trends which take away the beauty and uniqueness of cultures. The plus size is a whole new revolution. In South Africa, plus size is only regarded as ‘big waist, big hips’ where ‘small waist and big hips’ is sidelined in terms of detailed design and tailoring. The previously mentioned problems will be solved by localising everything from design, to production, promoting handwork, customizing products to allow the consumer to have a relationship with the product and remove the “not fit to be a thing or flaunt their size” label altogether.

The aim is to promote a relationship between the product and consumer to empower the women who are skilled in creative details on garments they have made themselves and empowering the plus size to be more confident in the custom-made designs.

 

Ethical designing and ethical production processes benefit the consumer, producer and the workers when looking at it especially from the ‘quality’ perspective.

 

This is what my brand focuses on:

 

• 70% use of at most 100% natural fabrics that are not imports

• Fabric manipulation in creating new textiles

• Creative designing for the plus size market

• Ethical labour in the production process of the collection from sourcing to the finished garment

• Commercial. classic ready-to-wear, merchandisable garments 

  

Brand ethos: The ethical practices of garment construction that does not contribute to the exploitation of poorer persons, but secures jobs as well as their income and their safety by maximizing law enforced work environments and the use of local manufacturing processes and goods for up to 70%.

 

Kindly have a look at my inspiration boards, designing methods and garment construction. You can find more on my social platforms as the link is availabke at the bottom of each page, or visit me physically at the location provided. Allow me to change your view of fashion design.