Blue boiler suit, £80; Lilac fleece, £45; Pink corduroy dress, £44, all Lucy and Yak
This may seem like the most “woke” brand I have yet featured, but I chose it because it stands for so much that is good in our British fashion industry. Chris and Lucy started with £300 and a lot of trepidation as to whether their dream would take shape. It has. “When we had to take on a 10,000 sq ft warehouse in Barnsley, we thought – ‘Wow, this is really happening now!’” says Lucy.
This is about good quality, good prices, a good community, good credentials and, most of all, it holds its hands up for all that it hasn’t quite mastered. Take the lilac fleece (shown left). It uses recycled polyester – formed from plastic bottles from landfill and the sea, which uses far less energy than the production of “new” polyester. This information could be enough to make you buy – but they go a step further and advise on how best to wash the item. They suggest (and sell) a bag that catches microfibres that would otherwise end up in the water system.
If Lucy & Yak isn’t quite your kind of fashion style, then at the very least I hope I’ve enlightened you as to what a really progressive fashion brand looks like. Truth be told, my husband likened me to a pot of Vanish stain remover. But we all know we don’t dress for the boys any more, we dress for the girls. So to all you budding Pink Ladies out there, this might be the one that you want…