When Erica reminisces about her childhood, she immediately is driven to the beautiful landscapes and the farm yards that characterize Rutland, in the Midlands, where herself and her sister Faye grew up. “We were surrounded by the wonderful sense of discovery”, she explains. Discovering what each season brings, beautiful objects and precious stones, all within the beautiful innocence of a child. An almost childlike approach that both her sister and Erica have continued for years and, as she describes it, “that I hope Faye and I continue for a long time”.
Faye Toogood started the studio over 16 years ago today, a multidisciplinary studio that instead of encompassing a discipline, it encompasses the unconventional. The artist gathered like-minded individuals that complemented her own self-confessed tinker traits, embracing artists, sculptors, product designers, illustrators and so much more. A true talent hub built on a sense of bravery, of breaking down boundaries or assumptions through a restless approach to design, where challenges learnt attitudes.
Years later, in 2012, Erica Toogood joined the team, introducing a new discipline that would be turned into one of Toogood’s pillars: clothing. “Faye and I knew that we wanted to do something related to clothing, but hadn’t defined the principles when we started, allowing actually a quite natural evolving of the concept”, the designer points out. The outcome would soon prove to be jaw-dropping: their first project, Seven Dials, consisted of 49 oversized coats that hung from the streets to celebrate the trades that had gone in the area.
This concept became part of the brand’s identity. Every piece takes its name and inspiration from a traditional trade, whether it is the baker trousers or the photographer jacket. “It’s quite beautiful to start our sculptural inspiration from imagining those trades”, as Erica mentions. A homage to those thousands of trades that no longer exist, but that have constituted the basis of everyday life for decades.
Toogood is, in fact, about finding beauty in everyday life, ignoring what has come before, writing their own rulebook. The brand’s identity is translated into the different disciplines through the holistic vision of a multifaceted team of creatives: “A textile design once destined for a coat actually turns out to be a starting point for a rug”. This encompassing outlook allows the output to somehow make the unfamiliar seem familiar. Materiality, sculpture and landscape are translated into every piece. Whether it be furniture, interior design or clothing, it has to do with the everyday, specifically fusing it with sculpture, elevation and volume.
Recently, Openhouse Magazine launched their collaboration with Toogood: the Canvas Bag. “I wanted to create something that could fuse our worlds”, mentions the designer of the bag. In a society where everyone needs to carry something, the Canvas Bag represents the elevation of efficiency and functionality to haul precious everyday objects. In other words, “the ultimate pocket for your beautiful, fresh new magazine, along with a volume that feels significant but not too overwhelming”. A design that is functional but, at the same time, a timeless sculpture that forms its own space around the body, where forms and shapes are questioned, and that evolves with every wear, with every owner and with every generation.
Perfection exists in the sense that it ebbs and flows, that it changes in the mind’s eye. Everyone chases their own concept of perfection. “For me, perfection is about 3D, it’s about sculpture”, comments Erica, “I feel my purpose is to study these 3D forms, and for people to be able to experience those forms as well”. And Toogood’s perfection is about opening eyes and making people feel empowered to go about their day. “I hope that through our clothing we enable people to be who they need to be for that day, and to be the trade that they need to be”.
