Crew uniforms with a conscience

When you have built a pristine superyacht, it makes sense that the crew working on it should look stylish, smart and pristine too. Enter Crew à la Mode, a London-based apparel and lifestyle agency that specialises in supplying clothing solutions to yachts, hotels, aviation and beyond.

The agency has been going for almost 15 years and started out as a sourcing agency. Today, it is a full-service outfit with a distribution hub in Europe, a full team of designers and even an in-house clothing brand, CALM by CREW. “We take pride in setting ourselves apart from the crowd – we put a lot of attention into design and quality,” says Charley, Head of Brand. “We offer more than just clothing. We are a full service uniform agency and design and innovation is at the heart of what we do.”

CALM by CREW, the in-house ready-to-wear range, started small but today it’s a brand in its own right. The range can be tweaked, of course, according to client wishes – perhaps a different colour or fabric – but that is done on demand to minimise waste, a real concern for the company. “We don’t want excess stock and we don’t want to be throwing lots of things away at the end of a season – we try to keep it as lean as we can and so we use smaller factories who can work in that way with us,” says Tacita, the company’s Creative Director. 

Looking at the life cycle of crew clothing

This sort of sustainable thinking is typical of the team at Crew à la Mode and has now been formalised somewhat with the launch of CREW Renew at last year’s Monaco Yacht Show. This circular initiative is a way of giving new life to old uniforms by repurposing, rewearing, repairing or recycling. “In conversation with people on board we discovered there was a problem where maybe a boat had changed ownership or on a whim had decided to change everything and they’d be left with enormous amounts of uniform which they didn’t know what to do with,” explains Tacita. “We just want to make sure that it is not taken to landfill.”

Surplus fabric is now used to create the likes of napkins and tote bags, and the brand also partners with a number of charities including Dress for Success and Humana to ensure that clothes with life left in them are donated to be reworn. Recycling is another option although it is far more complicated. “I’ve been speaking a lot with research scientists who are on the cutting edge in recycling and fashion because it’s a real issue – if you want to recycle a 100% cotton shirt it’s pretty simple, but as soon as you start looking at blended fabrics it becomes problematic,” says Tacita. The preferred route – and the route that Crew à la Mode encourages – is to be careful with numbers and over-ordering right from the start, but ultimately, life can get in the way despite best efforts.

The team tries to open up conversations with clients so that thinking about the circular nature of a garment becomes second nature. One of those conversations centres around laundry care. “It sounds boring,” says Tacita, “but if people understand laundry care it really can make a huge difference.” She cites the difference between getting through three polo shirts in one season rather than nine. “When you think of the water consumption per polo and if you extrapolate that out to the whole crew suddenly it’s a very big impact. If crew are using strong chemicals such as bleach and tumble drying garments, they will wear out more quickly. We educate clients so they can wash carefully and extend the use of the garment’s life cycle.”

The payoff from collective collaboration 

For Tacita, all of their efforts pay off every time they see their uniforms in situ. “Nothing quite beats the feeling when you’re at a boat show – say Monaco – and you’re near the biggest, most impressive yacht that everyone is looking at and taking photos of, and you know that you designed the uniform they are wearing on board.” 

In terms of sustainability, the team knows there is still a long way to go, but they sense  positive momentum across the board. “People have paid lip service to sustainability for a long time, but it’s only in the last few years that people are actually doing something about it,” says Charley. “More and more clients are sending uniforms back to us and more still are showing interest in our initiative. Working out how to look after your uniform responsibly isn’t as hard as building an eco-friendly superyacht – it’s something very achievable.” 

”Ultimately CREW Renew is our pledge to take responsibility for what we produce and to make sure all the excess fabrics are used for as long as possible, in the best way possible,” says Charley. Smart crew uniforms, in every sense.