Talia Byre’s Family Heritage Inspired a Sensitive, Sustainable Spring 2021 collection
In these strange days, it sure feels like the best kinds of garments are the ones that wrap you up like a warm hug, holding you tight between memories and comforts. Talia Byre’s spring 2021 collection belongs in this category. Byre’s hand-dyed, wrapped garments envelope the body inside them, caressing the human form. The evidence of her hand is in the exposed seams, spliced together slips, and tender knits that are worn shrugged off shoulders or slung around waists.
But there is a deep backstory to Byre’s first official collection since graduation from Central Saint Martins. A native of Whitley in Northern England, Byre found herself at her familial home for much of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the United Kingdom. This would already be a moment of reckoning with family histories and heirlooms, but the deaths of several elder family members brought the stories of the Byres’ past to the fore. “There was quite a lot of sadness,” the designer said from Milan’s Linate airport, where she was hand carrying her samples from the showroom back to England. But she said she didn’t want to wallow—instead she and her sister dug deeper into their heritage.
It just so happens that much of her maternal family was also in the fashion business—at one point four generations of women worked in the family’s clothing shop. Byre and her sister Freya found old pictures of their grandmother and made garments to mimic the sling of her skirts and the elegance of her dresses. “The clothes really suit her,” said Byre of her sister turned collaborator, adding that by working closely with a family member, she was happy to capture a bit of the emotion and soul in this collection.
Many of the pieces are styled into monochrome looks, some of the colors made from natural dyes like walnut husks. The vibrant red pieces are inspired by the unmissable shade of her grandmother’s carpet at home—some of the pieces are made from “out of life” vintage sweaters in Yorkshire; others are knitted in London from cashmere and merino deadstock yarn from Italy.
All this old-becoming-new-again feels especially right for now—as does the gentleness of Byre’s vision for women’s ready-to-wear. There’s something mystical too in the fact that the designer discovered a book written by a neighbor in Whitley that chronicled the lives of the village’s inhabitants, including her grandmother. “I walked the same path as she did, every day,” Byre says. Think of these clothes as a new way for a designer to follow in her ancestor’s footsteps—and quite beautifully so.
Photo: Niko / Courtesy of Talia Byre1/10
Photo: Niko / Courtesy of Talia Byre2/10