Cult fashion label All-In, beloved of editors and celebrities alike, is undergoing a rebrand. Starting today, it will be known as August Barron, reflecting the names of founders Bror August Vestbø and Benjamin Barron, and following the more traditional luxury format of eponymous brands.
“For a while, it felt like All-In existed on the periphery of fashion. Now, we want to be seen as a more traditional fashion brand [because] it feels like we are quite involved in the actual fashion industry,” Barron says, speaking over Zoom from their studio in Paris. “The structure of our project isn’t changing, we’re still going to be releasing clothing and publications, it still just felt more exciting for us now to have the name be reflective of us and where we are at.”
Since we last sat down for an interview in their Paris studio two years ago, All-In has been on a tear. Vestbø and Barron are finalists in the prestigious LVMH Prize, the winner of which will be announced on 3 September. Their looks have been worn by the likes of Dua Lipa, Lorde and Charli XCX. And from Spring/Summer 2024 onwards, they tapped mega-stylist Lotta Volkova — best known for her magic at Balenciaga and Miu Miu — to work on styling and development. Sales grew 167 per cent from SS24 to SS25 (though the founders decline to provide figures).
After such a growth spurt in sales and brand awareness, it seems like a strange time to change the name. But the idea has been brewing for a while. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about for like three years,” Barron says. “It always felt a bit scary to make the change. But it’s our 10th anniversary, we’re announcing the name [change] right before the final of the LVMH Prize, and we have our next [Paris Fashion Week] show on 2 October. In a way, it still feels like there’s a lot to come.”
“We’re thinking about it like when a musician goes solo or joins another band, or changes the name of their project. There’s an element of discovery,” Vestbø adds with a smile.
The duo are confident that those who love All-In will come along for the ride. And while the brand is growing pretty fast, there are plenty of people out there who are yet to discover it.
From the fringes into the fray
Barron, who hails from New York, launched All-In as a magazine in 2015, and met Norwegian Vestbø shortly after, at the launch of the first issue. They became partners in life and in work, but All-In was never intended to be a fashion brand. The pair started out making conceptual upcycled pieces for shoots. “We weren’t so much thinking about the clothing being worn,” says Vestbø.
After four years making clothes for editorials, in 2019, Vestbø and Barron made a small collection of upcycled pieces, showing in New York at their friend Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s store in 2019. Then, post-Covid, the duo decamped to Paris, making their off-schedule debut for SS23. Early All-In shows were still largely made up of upcycled, one-of-a-kind pieces, save for the shoes, the now-hero slouchy and perforated Level Boots, made in Italy in collaboration with manufacturing consultancy BBSM. The Level Boots, alongside the viral jewellery sandals, sold widely and propelled the business to become a bona fide brand, even before they could produce most of the upcycled clothes at scale.
Since SS23, the duo have increasingly focused on product desirability across ready-to-wear. Dover Street Market buying director Nick Tran is a long-time friend of the brand, having been their first stockist during his time at Ssense. Tran came on board after the SS24 show, to advise the pair on merchandising. “We are making clothes to be lived in. Lotta and Nic have been helping us with making the clothing more desirable, whether that’s pushing it to be more wearable or more extreme and more [us],” Barron says. “It’s something we’re considering more and more in the process of designing.” For sales, All-In works with the FASHION [X] Showroom in Paris hosted by the Swedish Fashion Council, after being inducted into the incubator in 2022.
For SS25, for example, the designers created double-layered jeans that featured a cut-off, jogging bottom waistband on top of the denim. Tran suggested adding another tongue-in-cheek layer, like “What if a T-shirt is coming out as well?”, and it performed well. “[Nic and Lotta are] really good at seeing what the aesthetic of our brand is, and suggesting the missing element of a piece, or how we make it even more us,” Vestbø says.
It’s having an effect. Footwear has historically been the revenue driver, however this season’s biggest sales increase was in ready-to-wear, with key pieces like the Foulard Dress (worn by Charli XCX in her ‘Party 4 U’ video), the Double Polo, the Sliced Skirt Jeans and the Pinned Pyjama T-shirt all witnessing success at wholesale and via direct-to-consumer (DTC), per the brand.
“When we were starting out, it felt like something that you had to be an insider to know about. Now, it’s exciting to see that the brand is appreciated and being worn by people that are not necessarily like a part of our community,” Vestbø says.
Following the success of SS25, All-In created a “sequel” capsule collection for AW25, moving away from only creating one spring/summer collection a year. It’s also partly because the founders wanted All-In (or rather, August Barron) jackets and knits for their personal wardrobes.
The LVMH Prize process has helped the founders usher in a new era. “It was really a crash course in talking about your brand, because you have to explain it to so many different industry [stakeholders],” Barron says. “When you run your own fashion brand, you kind of just get positive feedback from your show rather than honest opinions,” Vestbø adds.
The duo hint at changes to All-In magazine, too, which publishes annually each April. The last issue featured supermodel Alex Consani as cover star. “We will still be releasing the magazine, but for the name, you’ll have to wait and see. We’ll release it in the spring,” Barron says.
There will be some other projects under the August Barron name, exploring new mediums, but Barron and Vestbø are tight lipped on the details. “The project is always evolving, so it’s hard to say entirely where it’s going,” says Barron. “But it’s not that there’s going to be an intentional shift in direction for our practice. We just wanted the brand name to feel more mature and reflective of where we are.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
Update: This story was updated to include mention of the Swedish Fashion Council (SFC)
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