Barcelona-based
eyewear brand Kaleos Eyehunters is complementing its statement-making
pieces with an entirely new category: clothing. In an announcement from the
brand, Kaleos’ debut ready-to-wear collection features both womenswear and
menswear, and is currently sold worldwide on the brand’s own website.
Kaleo’s pieces — which range from 100 USD to 450 USD — take on a
slow-fashion process, creating a limited run of 100 pieces per design,
which are each hand-stitched in Kaleos’ factories over the course of six
months.
Ahead, the Kaleos team talks with FashionUnited about its debut
ready-to-wear collection.
What inspired expanding to RTW from eyewear?
From the beginning, we have been a brand that has been eclectic in its
approach because our campaigns and our way of working was close to a
fashion house. Claudia Brotons, our creative director, in the past had
worked on ready-to-wear and founded Kaleos as a brand where design is most
important along with quality. During these years with Kaleos, we have
realized that there was talent and space to expand our vision of fashion.
When we turned five years old we decided to expand the brand, thus becoming
the vision we had from the beginning of ourselves.
How do you feel the overall tone of your eyewear collections and the
KALEOS brand transition to clothing?
Totally connected. We haven’t changed our philosophy; we’ve just
expanded it. Both in glasses and in RTW, we work with Italian materials of
high quality—it is our base, and from here the technical plans in one case
and the pattern in another are what make a big difference. Our products are
quality because they feel good and they feel good because they are
well-designed and built. The idea of durability and quality is the zygote
of all our ideas.
Can you tell us about the process behind creating this debut RTW
collection?
It has been quite a challenge. When you already have a project that
rolls, it would be comfortable to keep that and that’s it. [We] like the
idea of risking and expanding our concept of beauty, quality and design. We
have gone through many phases, from deciding how big the collection should
be to how this would coexist on the web with our previous project. We are a
small team, but we have all worked to not lose our essence. Accessories and
clothing coexist and feed off of each other, in a really perfect way this
is possible because we know who our target is, and we know that
#KALEOSpeople is looking for a durable wardrobe that also has special
touches that make it different.
At the end of the day, the work comes from a selected color card and
gives way to be carried by many personalities along with different moments.
Office, leisure, special events…you can find your style in some element
of the collection and it is something that has always identified us and
that has been maintained in this process of creation.
Are their plans to expand distribution in the future?
At the moment we are focusing our efforts in the B2C for our RTW line.
But we don’t close the borders to anything.
Production is limited to 100 units per garment — can you share more on
that decision?
All our collections are limited. Once a product is finished, it is not
reissued. This is an interesting way of working for us, which means that we
are always up to date and do not rest on our laurels. In this way we
maintain our curiosity for trends and challenge ourselves as a creative
team to be different and pioneering.
How are you focusing on slow fashion with the new RTW part of your
brand?
Slow fashion, comes from our fabrics, which are selected in Italy from
manufacturers that work in small workshops and that offer something unique
and continues in Spain. Where we have made a selection of nearby workshops
that hand sew all the garments, giving them the necessary quality details
to be perfect.
In both cases, time is needed and in KALEOS we give it. We prefer that
it takes a long time to produce and that it is perfect. For us, this is
slow fashion. That’s why we talk about sedimentary collections. We don’t
want to go 100 percent with the rhythm of the market and in this SS19
collection, you can find adaptable garments for the whole year.
Images: Courtesy of Kaleos
