A commission for Ellie Goulding's daughter Iris, in collaboration with stylist Anastasia and Studio Phini (formerly Loom)

Ellie Goulding was expecting her daughter, Iris, and wanted something for her that couldn't be bought, a piece made instead of found. The brief became a pair of jeans belonging to Iris's grandfather, her father's father: worn, faded, carrying a pattern and wash no factory could reproduce.

Deconstructed and rebuilt, the jeans became an asymmetric dress; the denim's original panelling and stitching lines were deliberately kept visible and worked into the new silhouette. Hence, the fabric's history remains legible rather than disappearing into the design. A soft, white cotton circle skirt, cut from pocketing, falls beneath it in waves that peek out at the hem. The idea sat at the centre of the whole piece: she could wear her family's jeans the same way she was made from their genes.

Nothing went to waste. The offcuts became a tiny second pair of jeans for Iris herself, styled after her grandfather's own, a small, wearable echo of the piece they came from. 

The garment was hand-built by Brett Mettler / Generation Upcycle.