The 1XBLUE Mindset
From the Tennis Courts to the Club, London-Based Designer Lois Saunders Has Big Plans for the Future
- Interview: Erika Houle
- Photography: Nancy Rose
Over a video call from home on the couch with her two cats, Lois Saunders describes a new favorite hobby: location scouting. For the past few months, between hours of sifting through local fabric stores and developing prints inspired by her favorite ’90s movies, the 25-year-old 1XBLUE designer has been cruising around East London by bike, clocking the area’s most idyllic landscapes. Her picks for the previous day’s shoot? An abandoned road covered with boulders and an empty tennis club. On the electric blue courts, she got a blunt reminder about permits—while posing in one of her signature heavy graphic sets, an angry guard in a golf cart rolled up to shut things down. Proving that, in some cases, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, they’d already got the shots. “People just forget that it’s possible to be nice,” she says.
Saunders’s own generosity, playfulness, and enthusiasm toward coming together with other creatives is what breathes life into her work: 1XBLUE turns heads with designs featuring repurposed goalkeeper gloves; tributes to her childhood crush, young Leo (Romeo + Juliet, The Basketball Diaries); and asymmetric cutouts and silhouettes that she refers to as interesting “pathways” down the body. What began as selling upcycled one-offs on Depop has quickly garnered mass appeal with multiple offshoots, including 1XGOLD and 1XREWORK. Since completing her studies at Manchester School of Art in 2020 (which she managed to do from home during the pandemic while simultaneously launching her brand), Saunders has collaborated with some of the industry’s most sought-out talent: photographer Conor Cunningham, with whom she turned a campaign into the latest collection’s popular “Mescondi” set; photographer Hugo Comte, for the pair’s Dear Nikita capsule collection; and stylist Veneda Carter, who commissioned her to create a custom head-to-toe camo look for Kim Kardashian.
“When I order a fabric, I don’t really know what I’m going to do with it at the time,” Saunders says. “I drape it on a mannequin and see where the placement would be good.” When I ask her about a print she made by painting her own body scarlet red and stamping it onto canvas, she points the camera around the room where different variations hang on the wall. “I decided not to go forward with it,” Saunders explains, laughing. “I was thinking, on clothes, this is going to look a little bit like bacon.” Here, she opens up about her penchant for experimentation, finding inspiration in museums and art galleries, and more.
Lois wears 1XBLUE throughout this story.
Erika Houle
Lois Saunders
I’ve read that your parents both work in creative industries, and growing up you went to fashion shows with your mom. Do you remember the designers or trends you were attracted to during that time?
My mom is a hairstylist, and my dad is also an insane artist. He does palace murals, beautiful ceilings. He’s very talented. My dad really opened my eyes to the beauty of historic art and he encouraged me to learn about the history of fashion and older designers. I thought that was really important. I maybe didn’t enjoy it as much at the time, but it’s made me who I am today.
My mom used to take me to the Graduate Fashion Week every single year. She loved it just as much as me. We didn’t live in London so it was a big thing, coming out and experiencing all this creativity. I feel like I’ve known I’ve wanted to make clothes since, well, she says since I was seven, which is really cute. I know a lot of people say that their favorite designer is McQueen, but she used to give me so many books about McQueen. We went to the Savage Beauty exhibition that he did at the V&A which was amazing. He was someone who I always knew so much about and had such a passion for his work. It’s all beautiful and different from anything that’s been done before. My mom introduced me to him.
How has your taste evolved over the years?
In the place that I grew up, Canterbury, I was a little bit scared to wear exactly what I wanted and to express myself in that way, because the town wasn’t like that. I went to a creative college and met new friends and was a little more open to finding my own style. My influence from art has definitely changed my style. I’ll wear things that have bigger prints and colors. Right now I’m wearing my boyfriend’s hoodie, it’s really colorful, and literally just jeans.
Why 1XBLUE?
Me and my brother Jack wanted to do something together two years before I started 1XBLUE. I had to come up with a name, and I picked 1XBLUE because I was looking through a notebook of lists that I’d made, and I must have written something like, “1 x blue T-shirt,” or “pencil,” or I don’t know [laughs]. It kind of developed from there, but then we dropped it. Jack actually does work with 1XBLUE now, he’s a part of it, this thing we kind of started together a while ago. It’s brought us really close together.
Who else did you keep in mind when you were developing the brand—friends, customers, dream collaborators?
When I first started, I was fresh in London and didn’t really know anyone here. I became friends with a girl who also has a brand, and we ended up sharing a studio together. She was a bit more established, and our brands were very different. At that time I was only upcycling items and not making my own stuff. I looked up to her quite a lot. Both of us grew so much that we had to move into different spaces, but I learned so much from her.
Would you tell me more about the inspiration behind the latest collection?
I have a big passion for going to museums and hunting through archives to find cool imagery. I did a lot of research and found an image of a statue wearing a rosary around its neck. I did a lot of edits and created this cool image that I turned into a fabric.
The “Mescondi” set—that was a design I came up with very early on in my brand. Back then, I did a lot of stuff related to football scarves and goalkeeper gloves. Sometimes I think you put all this effort into a campaign, and the images are a bit wasted if they’re only meant to be kept on a screen. So, I really wanted to put it onto fabric and make something out of it. I collaged the images that we came up with and made it into that little set which I think is so cute. I’m happy that Conor really liked it as well, I sent him one.
The blue striped dress in this collection, I got the fabric at a store near where I live in Hackney. They get in fabric and they won’t get it back in again, so when it runs out it’s gone. It’s this huge warehouse filled with rolls and rolls of fabric. I find it so inspiring walking in, touching everything on either side of me and getting a feel for what I can use. That fabric really stood out to me, the see-through-ness in certain parts. It was really stretchy and I thought it could work so well as a dress. I’d wear it to the beach, or people could wear it to the club. I whipped up a basic shape and it turned out to be really nice.
Old films play a really big part in my designs as well. As I’m saying that, I’m thinking of Showgirls. One of the posters they have for it is this girl’s face, and then her body going down, it’s just one leg.
Do you view getting dressed as a means to step into character?
A lot of the 1XBLUE stuff I imagine to be for people kind of similar to me. I also have other lines, like 1XGOLD. At the moment there’s a fairy suit on there, and I imagine different versions of myself. Some days I want to feel strong, powerful, and I’ll go for clothing like a suit, or something more tailored. Going to the club, I want to be looking and feeling cool.
Are you into Halloween? Do you dress up every year?
I love Halloween. Do you know what you’re going to go as this year?
Still undecided, it’s usually something makeshift and last minute.
Last year, I can’t remember what I was going to go as, but it literally failed on the day. My friend was going to go as a zombie, so she’d bought tape to wrap around herself, and I was like, “Oh my god, do you have any spare?” We looked amazing as a duo. This year, someone messaged me saying, “You should go as Pamela from Baywatch.” I think I’m going to do that.
What role does social media play in your work?
I love to be creative on shoots and I don’t think social media should be the judge of if that’s good or not. It’s so annoying that my inner self feels like it is, and I wish I didn’t feel like that. I used to enjoy social media a lot more when I was doing more recycled stuff, but I prefer my brand now that I’m doing my own designs because they’re more personal to me. I had a commission from Kim last year, and that came from Veneda coming across my Instagram. I did the Dear Nikita collaboration with Hugo Comte, and he found me through Instagram as well, so I love the way it can connect creators in that sense.
Tell me more about the “best tits on Instagram” shirt.
Everyone just tells me that! [Laughs] Someone said to me, “You should put that on a T-shirt.”
And bedazzle it.
It has to be done. I have a sample coming soon, a little pair of shorts that say “best ass on Instagram.” I find it hilarious. I think sexuality in that way is seen very differently by a lot of people. I personally don’t see boobs as sexual. I’m just like, “This is my body.” I don’t want to be sexualized because of a certain feature I have on my body.
What does it mean then to make clothes that are referred to as “sexy?”
I think you can just feel it however you want. You know how we were talking about getting into character earlier? It’s very much depending on the mindset you have on any particular day or time.
Is there one accessory that you feel always completes a look?
A good pair of earrings is always great. I just got the bull hoops Isamaya Ffrench recently made. They’ve complimented every single outfit that I’ve worn.
Have you had the chance to work with Isamaya?
Never. I want to though. I love her makeup. One day, I will.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received from another designer?
I think creatives get so in it that they forget you have to be business-minded to make a business work. My good friend that I used to share a studio with would tell me it was really important to keep on top of all the things you have to do, all the taxes. Otherwise you haven’t done it for so long and then you owe so much money, it can kind of ruin you financially.
Have there been any experiences that you wish school could have better equipped you for?
One thing about uni that I found quite bizarre—I had a great time, I loved it there—but they didn’t really encourage anyone to start their own thing. They wanted to push you into working for someone else. From the beginning, I did a few internships and it made me realize very quickly that I wanted to be my own boss. I started my brand right before lockdown, it was in the first quarter of our final year and I still had so much work to do. I needed to get my final mark. We all went home and I lost passion for it completely. I really focused on my brand, because it was this new thing and I treasured it. I was speaking to my teacher once every week, telling her how I felt and the progression of my brand and how well it was doing. I think she ended up grading me more on my brand than my actual project. But I did carry on doing my project, and I got a good grade, which I appreciate, but I was lucky that she really understood what I was doing and supported me in that way.
What areas are you most focused on growing in the future?
I’d like to do more things when people can come meet me and get a little more knowledge about the brand, to have that in-person experience because I think that’s really important. I also really want to do a fashion show. I went to Masha Popova’s show, and it was amazing. Everyone was so excited. My brother does a lot of planning for finance and stuff, so I instantly rang him up and I was like, “This time next year, I want to do a fashion show.”
What about 1XBLUE are you currently most proud of?
It’s amazing to have a brand that’s on SSENSE. It’s a big goal that I had. When I was in university, I looked up to a lot of the brands that were stocked there. I wanted it so badly for myself but I didn’t realize it would happen this quickly.
Did you contact the buying team?
They reached out to me.
[Squeals.]
I wasn’t in a place where I understood how wholesale worked, so I was kind of stressed and it took a few months in order for me to get things together to show them, but we’ve got there. It was insane seeing the first collection on the website. Actually, I think I was out when it launched, and it was all I talked about all night.
Erika Houle is a senior editor at SSENSE and lives in Los Angeles.
- Interview: Erika Houle
- Photography: Nancy Rose
- Date: November 4, 2022
