King & Tuckfield

Stacey Wood talks finding her label’s grounding in London spaces, past and present

Shop King & Tuckfield
By:

King & Tuckfield’s Stacey Wood has built a future-proof brand through the London spaces and places connected to her stylish family…

As a slow-fashion brand where longevity reigns, King & Tuckfield is all about feeling. And no more so than for founder Stacey Wood, whose mood-based method lets her creativity build organically, and without intervention. “I’m not the type of person that sits down and gets creative in a certain space or body posture,” she says. “It’s something I naturally do during my daily life, whether it’s something I’ve seen, a quote or a book I’ve read, a song I’ve heard or a smell that brings back a memory.”

“Our current studio is tiny; we do everything from this space, designing the collection to packing and picking orders,” Wood shares. “It might be restricted, but we love this space – it keeps us honest.” And yet, by her own admission, in times when her workspace and home are intertwined, she defines herself by her polarities: “Sometimes I like stuff everywhere, other times I need to be completely zen and uniformed. My living space is really clean, tidy and minimal. My workspace is the antithesis of tidy, fabrics, samples, paperwork all mixed together – I like to think it’s an organised mess.”

Driven by storytelling and, from a young age, surrounded by a family of straight up good taste, Wood draws both King & Tuckfield’s inspiration and name from the influential figures in her life. A starting point for each new collection is looking to family albums, absorbing the stories behind them. “My grandmother grew up in Walthamstow and I live in East London, so I have enough exposure to varying aesthetics and a wealth of cues from my ancestors,” she says. “London is a very unique city, strikingly mixed and multi-ethnic.”

We built this business with a sustainable model in mind: anti-fast fashion, integrity in the making of a garment and research of materials.

London may serve as King & Tuckfield’s spiritual home, but recent months have found Wood transported far from the capital – and closer to new sources of inspiration. “My personal space has moved 2000km away to my temporary home at the East Coast of Athens,” she reveals. “It’s a magical secluded corner of Attica with deep blue water and pine trees, where I seek both inspiration and relaxation. We made an effort to reconnect with my fiancé’s birth city in an attempt to prioritise the things that matter to us most.”

This relocation marks a new chapter for the brand, and Wood is excited about the fresh perspective it has woven into her creative outlook. “Our SS21 collection is a tale of two halves,” Wood says of King & Tuckfield’s latest offering. “A city romanticised, a mix of past joys and very present unexpected happy surprises”. While introducing new experience to the mix, the brand’s ethos is unchanged: “We built this business with a sustainable model in mind: anti-fast fashion, integrity in the making of a garment and research of materials. Honesty, longevity and respect towards our environment and supply chain has been at the heart of our operations”. Despite her physical space shifting, the family ties that serve as Wood’s creative stimuli – and a key source of the brand’s integrity – remain unbroken, and King & Tuckfield’s essence lies precisely where it always was: “Inspired by my Grandmother (King), Father (Tuckfield) and their friends who, as always, are front and centred in our minds.”