YNAP and Prince's Foundation launch student-designed RTW capsule

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 3, 2022

Yoox-Net-A-Porter is continuing its link-up with The Prince’s Foundation with the two having announced the launch of a joint “responsible ready-to-wear luxury womenswear capsule collection”.

Available exclusively on Net-A-Porter and Yoox, 50% of the RRP will be donated to the charity to support its training programmes. 

And for the first time, Highgrove Gardens, adjacent to King Charles and the Queen Consort’s private residence, “has served as inspiration for a fashion collection”.

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The 13-piece capsule is “the culmination of the second edition of The Modern Artisan”, YNAP’s and The Prince’s Foundation’s three-year-old flagship training programme.

A first capsule was launch back in 2020 and the company said this new one “achieves a number of new milestones” in YNAP’s Infinity sustainability journey. It’s the first collection to align 100% with the Infinity Product Guide and its first-ever carbon-neutral collection.

The students taking part from the UK and Italy included Isabelle Pennington-Edmead, Merie Phillips, Emily Dey, Emma Rose Atherton, Zhenqi Weng, Arianna Safayi, Francesca Garrone, and Adam Benbarek.

As mentioned, the looks are inspired by Highgrove Gardens, run by The Prince's Foundation and known for sustainable and organic approaches to agriculture and horticulture. 

The student artisans were supported by industry experts from YNAP, from the charity and from several mentoring designer brands, including Gabriela Hearst, Nanushka and Stella Jean, among others. 

Over 50% of the materials used are repurposed from surplus textile production through partner supplier Maeba International.

The artisans were also given access to five years’ of YNAP customer insights to understand long-term customer preferences and design for longevity.

The collection was put together by them in the Textile Training Centre at Dumfries House, HQ of The Prince’s Foundation in East Ayrshire, Scotland, where they undertook six months of intensive training in luxury small batch production. 

They also learnt about the product development process at Fashion Enter in London, and luxury knitwear manufacturing, as they designed four knitwear pieces, the only styles to be produced off-site by UK-based suppliers Johnstons of Elgin and Corgi.

Each piece is embedded with a Digital ID through YNAP’s partnership with EON, further boosting their circularity.