Julian Hearn isn’t easily derailed by a challenge. As founder and chief marketing officer at complete nutrition brand Huel, problem solving is the norm for him and his team. Launched in 2015, Huel – a portmanteau of “human” and “fuel” – offers a range of nutritionally balanced, convenient plant-based meals, with minimal impact on the environment. And now, with the launch of an 18-piece clothing collection named Huelwear, Hearn is applying that ethos to fashion.
“We’re about sustainability from the ground up,” Hearn says. “We started from scratch, with a clean piece of paper, saying: ‘What would this range look like if we did it properly?’” And so, Huelwear rests on a number of core values, taking in everything from what the garments are made of and how they’re made, to how you’d be able to integrate them into your wardrobe in the long term. Hearn is serious about Huelwear providing a counterpoint to the fast fashion industry’s bloat.
Central to Huelwear’s production philosophy is consideration of the materials used in each garment. Huelwear is animal-free at every point in its supply chain, and is built to last. Hearn says he knows what it’s like to watch a garment fall apart after a few wears. “They haven’t been designed particularly well; they haven’t been constructed particularly well. And sometimes the fabric choices are wrong.”
Huelwear’s range of adult and children’s performance wear, loungewear, accessories and classic denim is vegan-certified and made of single materials rather than fabric blends wherever possible – clothing is easier to recycle when it’s made from one material.
Next, along the supply chain, Huel embraces a hands-on approach to ethical and quality controls. “Because we’ve got a much smaller capsule range, we’re able to have a cleaner and smaller supply chain,” says Hearn. Factories at every step of the manufacturing process are independently audited. “If they don’t meet the standards, we wouldn’t work with them. And for the partners we do choose to work with, we’re always looking for ways to do things even better.”
Fast fashion’s pace of production, which sees online stores and shop floors flooded with new items multiple times a month, can lead to a squeeze on supply chain ethics. Hearn sees Huelwear as an antidote to that. From the cloth and dyes of a T-shirt to the buttons on jeans, he’s committed to the brand’s holistic approach. “Eventually, when five or six factories have made different component parts of a garment, we want to have visited and checked all of those elements,” he says. Now that Covid restrictions are lifting and travel is becoming easier, the goal is to do so beyond the European factories Huelwear has already checked out in person.
Huel has partnered with sustainability platform Green Story, which works with more than 30 clothing brands ranging from high fashion to high street, to accurately measure the impact of each piece in the clothing range. “The good thing is, Green Story is independent,” Hearn says. “It’s very easy for a company to say: ‘We’re doing great things,’ but that’s harder to prove if it’s your own numbers.” Partnering with Green Story, for Hearn, means customers can trust a third-party company to break down complex data into clear benchmarks of energy and water saved by Huelwear compared with conventional garments.
Finally, there’s the personal element. Huelwear touches on values of timelessness and long-lasting design that run counter to throwaway culture. Fast fashion, bought cheaply, tends to be disposed of as micro trends change. “Sometimes brands launch new products every day. It means that some clothes are worn as little as four times before they’re thrown away,” Hearn says. “And you just think: ‘Why are people buying stuff and getting rid of it so quickly?’”
In contrast, Huelwear’s collection is backed with a five-year guarantee, which means that if something is wrong, an item will be repaired or replaced free of charge. The brand is also working on a circular production approach that will let customers resell their Huelwear items, and end-of-life garments will be recycled into new products. The goal is to keep everything Huelwear makes out of landfill, forever. “I’ve got clothes that are probably 10 or 20 years old, and I still love wearing them,” Hearn says.
Huelwear’s quality fabrics, rigorously tested designs and clean silhouettes mean its customers should expect the same from the clothes they are buying. From ethics and manufacturing to longevity, the idea is to give you pieces that will seamlessly slot into your existing wardrobe. “I’m not saying it’s been easy – it’s been very tricky,” says Hearn. “But we’re building from the right foundations.”
Shop Huelwear’s sustainable clothing collection here
