AllSaints loses creative director as he focuses on Shoreditch Ski Club

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 22, 2021

AllSaints needs to find a new creative director with the long-term incumbent, Wil Beedle, leaving the business to focus on his own Shoreditch Ski Club (SSC) label.

He's been with the midmarket UK fashion retailer for 18 years, and has been in charge of its creative direction for nearly a decade. But he clearly feels that the SSC label he launched in 2018 needs his full attention. 

The split seems to be perfectly amicable with AllSaints saying in what’s an unusual Instagram post for a fashion retailer that “our Chief Creative Director Wil Beedle bids us farewell to concentrate on @ShoreditchSkiClub, the eco-brand with attitude he created and designs. We wish him all the best for the future and are excited to see SSC grow”.

It will mean a big change for AllSaints as Beedle — who originally trained as a visual artist rather than a designer — had not only been creatively guiding it for the past almost-10 years but was menswear director as far back as 2006.

He has worked closely with CEO William Kim who joined around the same time as he took up the chief creative director post in 2012.

The brand has seen both ups and downs since then, expanding internationally but launching a CVA for its UK and US stores just over a year ago. Yet unlike some of its rivals, it’s still a going concern and this year it reported that its US ops had been strong pre-Covid, while in the spring, it opened a store in the Dubai Mall.

Meanwhile, SSC should benefit from Beedle’s full focus from here on. It launched in Selfridges in 2018 and has ridden the wave of interest in puffer jackets with a strong eco edge.