You’ve heard about “the Kate effect”, but now Prince William’s style credentials are altering fashion brand’s futures, too.
Last week, when the Prince of Wales attended the Earthshot Prize — his environmental awards ceremony — in Cape Town, his footwear decision put one new London sneaker label on the map.
He wore the HEVEA shoes from “100 per cent natural” and sustainability-centric footwear label Purified (£105, purified.eco), which was launched six months ago by William Verona, from Islington, after four years of development.
The royal’s appearance on the green carpet sent brand sales up to 400 pairs, causing a “massive” 500 per cent sales spike, and “a drastic rise in visits to the site,” said a brand spokesperson.
Verona started the brand, which currently sells four styles — the HEVEA’s, which are tennis-trainer style, are joined by the WALDEN’s, a bulkier ankle sneaker (£130, purified.eco), as well as the ABACA’s, a canvas-looking shoe which come as high tops (£105, purified.eco) and low (£105, purified.eco) — explains “it took a huge amount of time to to get done because it was a case of waiting for the manufacturing side to catch up to the science.”
He started as a designer working with fashion fast companies, including ASOS, sourcing from factories across the world. While in Sri Lanka, he was shocked by his commute which took him past the Meethotamulla garbage dump (known as “trash mountain”). The towering landfill site collapsed in 2017 killing at least 28 people. “You couldn't help but feel some responsibility — I really wanted to create a product that just didn't have these impacts,” he says.
And so his journey to create Purified began. “The idea was to be actually zero plastic — a lot of places claim to work sustainability, say with grape leather, because it sounds good, but realistically it’s still polyurethane and other plastics that give the products durability,” he said.
Verona “turned his back on the industry,” and headed to the Future Fabrics Expo to find new materials, where he discovered NFW [Natural Fiber Welding], the natural material supplier who were exhibited at Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
“I assume that is how Prince William found the shoes. We had no idea he had them until the day. I was watching the show live, and I saw him on the green carpet wearing them,” Verona says. “I guess he just bought them online like everyone else.”
Years of trial error preceded the finished product. Examples of difficulties spanned from finding ways to eliminate the use of glue completely in the production process (everything is stitched) as well as avoiding the use of artificial foam in soles (in the end, Verona succeeded in using natural latex which “kind of moulds to your step.”)
As for proving Purified is not simply “green washing”, he undertook a toxicity screening experiment which saw the trainers ground up and kept in soil for 60 days. “As a minimum, we wanted to prove that it won't have any impact on soil health, however we found the shoes that Prince William wore actually help the plants grow versus a standard fertiliser or compost,” he says.
Starting at £90, they are accessible in price and are focused entirely on being environmentally kind — better than Veja, one of the market leaders. “The [Veja] founders are into sourcing and traceability, and they’ve done a phenomenal job at that. As a product, it's good but it's not the most sustainable,” Verona says.
Prince William’s endorsement should take them to the next level. “He ehas all the sustainable credentials and is also quite a figurehead. It just meant a lot to us,” Verona says. ”Now, we want to keep spreading the word.”
