ABOUT US
Passionate about print husband and wife duo Alice Begg and Robbie Humphries design boldly printed clothing for the everyday. Creating items they love to wear themselves. The shapes are loose and comfortable, statement but relaxed. Alice designs all the prints in a playful naive style. These are then screen printed onto 100% natural fabrics by a small team in Jaipur, India. The method means there are always minor imperfections giving the clothes a unique hand crafted, organic feel.
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THE STORY
Alice studied fashion at Middlesex University, London after a foundation at Falmouth, Cornwall. At the time of meeting she was working for the fabric shop, The Cloth Shop on Portobello road whilst getting her own creative practice off the ground. Robbie is first and foremost a musician and never imagined his name would be on a fashion label, You can find him as one half of The Cash Cows and his new band The Many Coated.
They met at the festival Secret Garden Party, Alice was decorating the stage that Robbie played on. It was, as they say, love at first site! They travelled to India three months later with bags full of fabrics and patterns and came back and founded H&B.
That Winter she planned a three month trip to Australia. Before she went, she sent some new designs to Abhay her production manager in Jaipur and had the samples sent to meet her in Australia. This was where she did her first photoshoot, shot and styled by herself in her cousin's house. She put an email together sitting in the public library in Brisbane, using their wifi and launched their first pre-order. Customers ordered that January to receive pieces in the summer, three months later and it worked. She was amazed people were happy to order and invest in the new clothing. The pre-order has stuck and still now before each collection they run their pre-order. It has always been a brilliant way of judging the collection. Items that don't get ordered are cut out and it means there is never any waste. It also gives them the funds to put towards their production. They can proudly say they have run the business from day one without any loans. It has all been funded through pre selling. Since their rebirth in 2017 they are now on their 5th year and 9th collection.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
THE TEAM
Most importantly the team!
Alice Begg
Creative Director/Founder
At the helm is Alice navigating the ship as Robbie likes to say. designs all the prints and collections and works closely with the makers in India. She also overseas all the goings on in the studio with the orders going out and website admin and general goings on with a small brand. She also mans the Instagram.
Robbie Humphries
Manager/Founder
Robbie is fund manager, and everything gets run by him. He looks after Honey in the day to day and will start playing music again soon. But for the business he is half the spirit of H&B
Oli Raeburn
Studio Manager
Oli is our queen multitasker here at H&B. She is head of pack and dispatch, studio operations and corresponding with our lovely customers online. She's full of energy and loves the clothes, alongside this she runs her own business as a Yoga Instructor and Birth Doula.
Mum and Dad
Emotional Support
Alice's parents ran all the pack and despatch from 2018 to early 2020 from their house in Somerset this enabled Alice and Robbie to deal with the day to day running of the business and was instrumental to the success of the brand in those early years.
Abhay a team of about 80 that include, tailors, seamstresses, block printers and screen printers and a room of ladies working on embellishment. Many of their team have been there since Abhay was a boy, it is clean and safe and is a nice environment to work in. Abhay and his family run a good and honest business. We have now worked with him for nearly 10 years.
Alice sends her designs to Abhay and he translates the colours by eye. Abhay generally creates all the bright summery pieces in the collection.
Rakesh runs their second production team, also in Jaipur. He tends to make anything that isn't screen printed. All the latest winter items have been made by him and his team. All the natural dying and digital printing is managed by Rakesh.
The Production Team in India
Alice and Robbie met Atal Abhay's father on their second trip to India together in 2012. This was when Alice still had her brand Syndicut and he worked on pieces for them. Abhay came back from university and took over the family business. They are a small family run print and production house within the old city walls of Jaipur, Northern India. Abhay's grandfather started the business 40 years ago.
