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WHY WE'RE DOING THIS

When we sat down over a year ago to discuss potential design routes for TORA it quickly became obvious our interests extended far beyond the finished article. Having talked at length about our favoured brands and various aesthetics we could see how much value we attached to process and intention. Why is something being made? How is something being made? And who is it being made for? Questions we don’t think are being properly considered by both producers and consumers.

We think it’s important that a brand acts as an extension of your own beliefs and values. They should be there to support your identity, not make it. In order for that to happen a brand needs to have an identity of its own, something we believe is only possible if it’s clear about its own values and goals. That being said, we’ve set out to try achieve two things; Design clothes that help people express themselves and address the throw away fashion model head on. Two things we believe are intrinsically linked.


The clear issue is demand. Two decades of fast fashion has pushed the garment industry to unprecedented territory where 60bn garments produced around the world annually never find an owner. Companies only make what they believe they can sell. Take away the demand and production drops. Demand is so high because items are cheap and replaceable and like anything that is cheap and replaceable, they don’t mean anything to those that wear them.

Our answer to that is to only make what people want and keep our lines small. We touched on it briefly in our first newsletter but prior to the globalisation of the fashion industry, there were a limited number of specialised clothing manufacturers, each of whom took great pride in their craft. This pride was then passed down to the buyer knowing they have something unique that was made to last. No one’s grandchildren will be showing off their grandfather’s H&M jumper they found in the attic. This is why we’ve decided to release four capsules a year. Each one will offer something new and the collection will only be available to purchase for a week. We want to take you on our journey as each capsule is formed so that when the capsule opens you will know why we’ve made it, how it’s made and who we’ve made it for. We will only release what we’re proud of and hope that that pride seeps through.


Our samples are due in the next week or so which we can't wait to shed some light on. We'll be taking a closer look at the fabrics we've chosen in our next update.

With love,
tora.