We caught up with Love Brand Founder, Oliver Tomalin, to get the lowdown on the essential looks whether you are travelling near or far. One of our favourite men and children’s swim and resort wear brands and stocked at Curated, Love Brand focuses on eco-conscious provenance and purposeful design.

Tell us about your products and how they are made

The idea is to make our beachwear with as little impact on the environment as we can. This is something that has evolved, and we continue to improve with every collection. We design using the most natural or sustainable materials possible. Our signature swimming trunks are made from recycled plastic we use a lot of natural linen and all our cotton products are certified organic. Everything is made in Europe, working with factories with a similar mindset to maximise the positive impact on our communities and minimise the negative impact on our environment. 

We have a relaxed fit perfect for holidays yet are still tailored enough to be smart. We are best known for our attention to intricate prints that reveal hidden narratives of nature and my travels. I use print to draw attention to the natural world and our projects helping conserve endangered species. From afar my prints look like smart geometric patterns, but on closer inspection, there are conversational motifs from nature. A diamond pattern is boring, but a diamond geometric that is actually a squadron of manta rays, this is a LOVE BRAND print.

Furthermore, I believe the brand is better for having a charitable purpose. I believe it is the biggest luxury to be able to give back to the planet and find the brand holds a special place in people’s hearts when they learn all about our conservation work. 

Sustainability is very important to your brand, tell us more about your work with WildAid

Clothes to me are not just how they look, but what they stand for. LOVE BRAND & Co. stands for doing good as well as looking good. This season we are supporting WildAid, an incredible charity tackling the illegal trade of wildlife. While most wildlife conservation groups focus on scientific studies on the ground and anti-poaching efforts, WildAid focuses on the demand fuelling the issues. Working to reduce global consumption of wildlife products and increasing local support for conservation efforts. The illegal wildlife trade is a multi-billion-dollar global industry largely driven by consumer demand in expanding economies.

As well as raising awareness for their work, we are releasing a Shark print inspired by WildAid and a shark sanctuary in The Bahamas. Sharks play a crucial role in maintaining marine biodiversity yet fins from up to 73 million sharks are used for shark fin soup each year. Through this print, LOVE BRAND & Co. will draw attention to this cruel trade and support WildAid in fighting demand. The WildAid Bahamas Shark Sanctuary provides a welcomed safe zone for this threatened species. Our shark print in Bahamas blues has sharks’ silhouettes repeated to create the illusion of shark jaws from the fins of the swimming sharks. 

Tell us more about your sustainable projects

We continue to support a number of amazing projects. We have been working in this way for over ten years, long before it became a trend, believing that the ultimate luxury is being able to give back and live in harmony with nature. We give a percentage of revenue not profits to charities around the world that protect endangered species and dedicate the brand narrative to ensuring our audience knows how they can help protect them. 

Over the years we have helped conserve elephants, rhinos, sharks, even tiny endangered geckos! This summer we are helping project Posidonia Seagrass in Ibiza, the lungs of the ocean and a highly efficient carbon sink that is being destroyed. 

We are also working with our longest-standing partner The Elephant Family to support and sponsor their co-existence campaign. CoExistence is an environmental art exhibition by Elephant Family and The Real Elephant Collective featuring 100 life-size Asian elephants. The elephants have been created deep in the jungles of Tamil Nadu by Indigenous communities who live in close proximity to their real-life counterparts. Here, people and elephants coexist in denser populations than anywhere else in the world. The CoExistence campaign is a response to the increasing overlap between the human and animal world, which is in part responsible for the spread of deadly zoonotic diseases.

We were incredibly proud recently to see our partner and award-winning conservationist, Dulu Borah and his work promoting the coexistence of wild elephants, highlighted in Sir David Attenborough’s latest film 'The Year The Earth Changed’. A man on a mission, Dulu does extraordinary work in the Assam region of India, bringing peace between local communities and wild elephants, helping to establish a more unified ‘human-wildlife coexistence’. Dulu is working in the Karbi Foothills, changing attitudes and practices to actively fight against the data that predicts Asian Elephants could be lost to the world completely in the next 25 years.

How has the pandemic influenced your business?

I think when things like this happen, it’s all about how you adapt. The challenge has been how to turn a disaster into an opportunity. We were working through unprecedented times with our stores forced to close and our stockists around the world also closing around us. We took the opportunity to focus on our online business and really connect with our customers, strengthening our brand pillars around family, travel, sustainability and protecting endangered wildlife.

Despite the hardships presented by the pandemic, being afforded that time (that you just don't get normally when you are going full speed building a brand and business) has been fortifying. It was like a year-long workshop where we used the time well and improved a lot. Of course, as a beachwear brand, we are now desperate for travel to resume as normal and we are excited to show everyone our updated store concept whereby the holiday really starts the moment you enter the store. A one-stop Summer shop, complete with our new curation of brands that share brand values and lifestyle and our in-store organic coffee bars! 

Where are you most excited to travel to where you can?

The pandemic halted a trip to the Tsavo in Kenya. I had to U-turn back to London while stopping off in Dubai when the lockdowns were just starting. So I am excited to make that trip and see an elephant ‘Barsalinga’ who we have been supporting for years since he was rescued by our charity partner The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and has been carefully rehabilitated and reintroduced to the wild. My wife and I would love to take our children too to see elephants in the wild. Elephants are naturally their favourite animals too! The brand takes my wife Rose and me to every corner of the world and we can’t wait to go back to the Bahamas, where we have strong family ties. The place that inspired our current collection and see the shark sanctuary we are supporting first hand! 

Shop LOVE BRAND & CO. here, you can also take a look at their products in Curated. 

Pop by Curated to shop Love Brand and get 15% off their range this September or shop the looks online with code LIMEWOOD15