Headed up by former Topshop designer Toni Purdie, the new collection is made up of elevated contemporary pieces you’ll be wearing forever – but they’re anything but basic
George and Mike Heaton always knew they wanted a womenswear line, but the Mancunian Represent founders “never wanted to do things half-arsed”. To begin with, their focus was on menswear, but ever since their brand was founded over ten years ago, it’s amassed a huge number of female fans who either nab pieces from their boyfriend’s or brother’s wardrobe, or otherwise drop cash on the soft, slouchy hoodies and washed-out tees that the Heatons have become known for.
More recently, the two decided the time was right to really invest in creating something more substantial – a standalone line catering solely for the girls. With impressive Represent flagships throwing open their doors in the centre of Manchester and another in the boys’ second home of Los Angeles across the last couple of years, plus a pretty substantial spot established on Harrods’ shopfloor and a bunch of collabs with Oasis, Metallica, and Motley Crue, womenswear was next on the hitlist.
Knowing they needed help with this, they enlisted Toni Purdie to head things up. The Represent womenswear creative director cut her teeth at Topshop in its 00s golden years, working across the high street giant’s revered collabs, as well as its Boutique and Unique lines, which used to show on the official London Fashion Week calendar and attracted one of the most buzzy front rows season after season.
With George and Mike in good hands when it came to the project, the three worked on it collaboratively, with Purdie translating the established Represent codes of comfort, clean lines, and considered design into a debut offering made up of just over 30 pieces. Named Overdrive, the SS25 line takes its cues from 1960s speed racing, but dials down the bolshiness of the graphics seen in the menswear collection.
There are slouchy denim shirts that have been washed and washed until they’re perfectly worn, matching bermuda shorts that would look as good on the beach as they would later in the bar, and a slinky sandblasted silk slip bearing a distorted print of a group of runners, as a nod to Represent's sporty roots. As ever, there’s a big commitment to quality, with the brand spending months developing fabrics to get them to a point they were just right, and there’s a real balance of comfort and cool.
“None of us wanted to just do a womenswear version of the men’s line, a carbon copy in all but fit,” explains Purdie. “It was all about creating a proper capsule that sat side by side with the menswear, complimenting it while being its own unique thing. So there’s a lot of unexpected materials and shapes in there. It’s very elevated,” she adds. With Overdrive just the start, expect to see Represent’s womenswear grow and expand in the coming months. “This is just the start of what we have planned,” says Purdie.
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