Izabella Doyle, pattern cutter, designer and co-founder of Wright & Doyle

What unites the Wright & Doyle community?

There’s a real variation in age and gender. What unites our customers is an appreciation of design; they understand the value in things that are done well, with consideration and thought.

What materials do you use, and how do you ensure they are sustainable?

We use everything from wool to cotton to linen and take time to source them all from reputable people. A lot of them are GOTS [Global Organic Textile Standard] certified, which is recognised as the world's leading processing standard for textiles made from organic fibres.

 Our cotton is from a small farm-to-mill in India; they do everything from growing to weaving and dyeing, which reduces the amount of transportation needed because the entire process is done in one place. Our buttons are recyclable, as well as made with recycled materials, and our swing tags and packaging are fully biodegradable. Our customers care about these kinds of details; it’s a market that responds to that kind of thought process.

 The wool for our vests actually comes from our own sheep. We have an 11-acre field where we live in Sherborne, Dorset and, because we don’t have any machinery, we need the sheep to look after the land by grazing it and aerating the soil. Then we use their wool and, when they get to the right age, we eat them. Living here, the way that we do – just the two of us to look after a decent-sized land – we need to maintain a sustainable cycle and respond to the land as opposed to trying to manhandle it.
 

How has your commitment to sustainability furthered innovation and creativity in your work?

In terms of our garments, I try to think outside of the box in how we approach design and sustainability. Our pieces are designed to last; they are timeless, trans-seasonal, and unisex. The original jackets we designed, had a button-in wool liner to make them warmer in the colder months. All our shirts are long-sleeved but have a button at the shoulder so that you can roll up the sleeves in summer. We like to give our pieces the most amount of scope possible so that you don’t have to buy something new every season.

For our Autumn/Winter 22 collection, every piece was cut with zero waste. Each piece slotted together like a jigsaw to ensure there was as little waste as possible.

 
What else inspires your designs?

Often landscape will be a huge inspiration for fabrications, textures or colours. Last autumn/ winter, we photographed our clothes in a very beautiful quarry in Portland, Dorset. All the textures of the garments, the shapes and the cuts, were inspired by that landscape.

Our newest collection was inspired by Eype Beach – one of our favourite local beaches. Like the quarry, it’s got a very sculptural quality, with rocks scattered about having fallen from the cliff – quite dramatic. Those textures and colours feature quite heavily in our designs.