Salvare's Emma Cook on waste-less design

When Emma Cook decided to start a new label, she knew she wanted to do things differently. A fashion industry stalwart who shuttered her eponymous label in 2015 and now works as a consultant to other brands, she’s seen first-hand the hundreds of metres of luxury fabric left over after a collection has been put together – and daydreamed about what she could turn it into. So, together with her partner Louise Roberts, she decided to start a luxury brand conjured entirely from deadstock – an evolving side hustle that would be sustainable, beautiful and unrestricted by the traditional fashion calendar.

Named Salvare, which means ‘save’ or ‘reuse’ in Latin, its first collection is a dreamy, karate-inspired mix of pastel shades, ethereal shapes and decidedly sexy cut-outs. It’s been made from fabric found mostly on Nona Source, the LVMH platform that sells its luxury brands’ deadstock materials; going forward, though, the pair have bigger plans. The idea is that they’ll collaborate and partner with a different label each season, dreaming up capsule collections in limited numbers – all the better to fuel desire for them – from fabric left over from recent or iconic archive collections, breathing new life into them and transforming them into something excitingly elusive. “Take the big luxury brands,” says Cook, by way of an example. “Imagine if you could own something that was made from bits of logo waste spanning over 10 years. It’d be incredible.”

Artwork: Gus & Stella