10 Years of HB Archive / Practice and What I have Learnt –
1. think to begin it would be - Everything is connected.
A sentence I’ve thought, I’ve spoken, I’ve written over and over the last few years and I’m sure, intuitively practiced long before I actively noticed.
2. Inspiration, anticipation, excitement can be found anywhere.
The magic ingredient I believe needed to source it though could be patience. A moment of slowing down to read a book, or having an elongated catch up with a friend where there’s not really any plan and yet the day has gone by while we’ve been chatting. To take time out of busy-ness and to just sit or wander and notice, that’s when the ideas come.
3. Community.
It is so simple. Community will inspire, will support, will nurture. And it comes in many ways. Community is in my friendships, and with customers. It is my regular yoga class, the coffee shop I go to on Saturdays, the owner of the cat I finally met one Tuesday. It’s the bookstore staff that give me great recommendations, and the bartender that I made a jacket for once. It’s the local dog walkers I smile and say hello to every morning as I sit in the gardens. The older I get, the more I am so grateful that I get to do my little rituals and see all those faces that connect everything together.
4. Having a strong sense of what my values are.
This is what got me into my business in the first place. It’s something I don’t actively think about so much anymore but is ingrained in every decision I have made over the last ten + years. It’s why I’ve chosen to keep HB small on purpose, why I avoided “growing”, by not outsourcing production that would lead to excess stock needing to go on sale, or getting a loan to lease a storefront or studio. It’s why I don’t pay for ads, and why I never found myself working for a larger scale “fashion” brand to begin with. Not being able to find the garments I wanted to wear that would fit well and information for where and who made them wasn’t available to me, and so I created this project. I sewed the clothes, and shared the information myself.
5. Collaborating.
This truly shows that Everything Is Connected. Collaborating is building community and feeling inspired. I’ve made some of my closest friends through collaborating on projects, whether that’s a film together, or lending a few pairs of pants for their web shoot, or making a jacket or pants and trading for a pair of socks, or a painting, or a ceramic bowl that I use everyday. It’s almost a nostalgic feeling letting those ideas evolve together. My hot tip if you are just starting out, is to use your community that are on a similar level to you. It’s a pleasure getting to build your visual identity together!
6. Do things the hard way.
I believe there needs to be a little bit of friction in the way that we purchase clothes, as well as in life! Working slowly, and choosing carefully about how I can communicate what I do, pushing back on the “fast fashion” cycle. Finding my own instead by introducing a Pre Order model. By creating an alternative sizing system using letters instead of numbers, because working in retail jobs I saw the way women felt about a number as the size. Only introducing a certain number of garments, in the same fabrics and allowing them to be the only garments I sold across seasons, and years.
7. Take time out.
An extension of #2. Patience, and slowing down is important in order to see the world clearly. It is the most important thing to treat yourself and others kindly. Learning how to rest, and that “rest” doesn’t need to be productive. With everything it is a practice. Everyday too. A morning or bedtime routine, a little walk to notice the trees changing, an extra long shower. Sometimes it’s lying on the couch and watching something terrible, but keeping my phone in another room so I’m only doing that one thing. If I was to always be doing something, there wouldn’t be space for moments to miss it.
8. Changing the rules is okay!
Looking back over 10 years, HB Archive and I were growing up together. Many of the ideas I had then were naive and very optimistic, which worked in my favour as I wouldn’t have started if I knew how hard it would be. I sometimes find things I wrote early on and still agree with myself. Originally, I only wanted to sell two colours, two sizes (in width and length), and exclusively made to order online. I had the catch phrase that these pieces would be “always available”. As time went on and my knowledge, and practice with constructing multiple garments grew, the garments I was making needed to shift and evolve. Introducing LIMIT designer surplus fabrics, making more LIMIT details and pieces available, retiring garments when I no longer personally wanted to wear them, (I found the sewing and wearing very much linked).
9. Don’t let money be the driving force.
Whether that's for putting out a product, or working on a photoshoot. Creativity and play and community is more fun if the end result isn’t impacted by a capital gain. Being open with peers about what you can offer, a trade in my books is very highly valued!
10. Allow time for play.
There are so many ways to be creative and by exploring with words, or clay, or movement, or painting, or collaging. Alone, or with community. There’s so much to learn that may intuitively find its way back into practice. Some of my favourite clothes I own have come from thinking for weeks or months about how I could construct it, finally beginning, working slowly, making mistakes, then making the mistakes a detail, then that detail finds its way into something else. Getting dressed is play too. Being curious, and open to what is to come, and noticing the patterns of how everything is connected!!!
HB Archive is such a personal practice for me, and as we’ve grown up together, many of these things I’ve learnt have been life lessons as well as business. I’m incredibly proud of my work and all I’ve shared with the world so far. Thanks for being there! HB xx
Image by Lily Clatworthy, 2024.
