Australian-born, Parsons NYC educated designer Emily Nam is onto a winner with her innovative leisurewear brand SWETE, for which she takes influences mainly from streetwear, people and art, Nam has adapted the production of her beautifully crafted and designed streetwear to make sure SWETE leaves a minimal carbon footprint. Sounds hard to achieve? Not for Nam. By using Australian-certified, organically-grown cotton for her clothing, all of SWETE’s fabrics and production processes are free from pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers. Not only does this create completely chemical-free cotton clothing (always nice to know your clothing isn’t smothered with toxic compounds), it creates cleaner conditions where the cotton is grown. Everyone wins.

The designs themselves are influenced by fashion, luxury and Nam’s global conscience, with Nam wanting to create clothing that you not only look good in, you feel good in too. The campaign, starring artist Phoebe Collings-James and shot by Francesca Allen, reflects the brand’s “be happy” vibes and highlights how well made the clothing is. Project-based, each range that Nam designs is developed through experimentation and consists of clothing that responds to your body, your feelings and your social surroundings. SWETE want you to “wear your clothes, live in them, feel them and engage in this world.” This is modern leisurewear at it’s funnest.

So, you’ll look great, and it won’t cost the Earth. SWETE is totally sweet.

The collection’s inspired by street culture, what are you seeing people wear in their day to day lives that excites you? What triggered the collection?

Street culture is becoming much more acceptable now as a form of dress. I love is that you can have on this beautiful outfit and then throw on an old t-shirt to give it your own style – it gives people the chance to be more independent in how they dress. In street culture I feel there is less of this need to impress and just be yourself. There are some really incredible men’s streetwear brands like Palace and Supreme. With women it is hard as there are lots of females who love street style but don’t want something so heavy, so we wanted to create something that was street inspired with a softer edge.

Who’s the Dream SWETE customer, where’s the perfect time and place to wear the collection?

We think anyone can wear SWETE – we all need to have that piece that you feel comfortable in. The great thing about SWETE is it is versatile – you can wear it at home on the couch or throw it on with a favourite skirt, and sneakers.

We LOVE Francesca and Phoebe, what made you choose the pair to create and front your campaign for SS16?

This came about independently and we are so happy to have worked with both them. I had been following Phoebe’s work as an artist and wanted to ask her to model for us for sometime. SWETE is about being your own identity, so we wanted to have someone who had her own energy to bring to the brand and inspire this. Francesca was approached in similar way, we read an article about her working with females as a subject, thought this and her style of images resonated well with the brand so we approached her.

Athletisure wear is everywhere right now, you’ve got some competition with the likes of Beyoncé doing their own lines, what makes SWETE different?

We wouldn’t say SWETE is an athleisure brand. We offer lifestyle pieces that you can wear between the gym and your everyday. As you know there is so much athleisure wear out there, we hope you can throw your SWETE on after a workout to dampen down the lycra. We don’t know much about IVY PARK, they literally appeared world wide over night and they are stocked in every big department store. We hope our customers are looking for something that is more unique and value our core social and environmental foundations.

If we were going to buy one piece from the LEISUREWEAR_01 collection, which would you suggest?

With summer approaching our LS Dress’ are a perfect choice to wear with your sneakers or throw on some heels to meet friends. A must if you are heading to the summer festivals.