Enter the “enthusiastically wonky” brand world of Daisy King

Young indie fashion brand Daisy King is the passion project of creative couple Tom King, aka Everyone's Favourite, and Daisy Bryson, the former illustrator, animator (whose film Beach Dick we previously featured) and fashion designer. Deciding to conjoin their talents, they set out to create a fashion collection designed by Daisy, adorned with Tom’s illustrations, and representing their shared creative voice. Called I Like You a Lot, the collection tells the story of how they met through a detailed hero print depicting “two people in a park, falling for each other as their surroundings transform into a loved-up trippy paradise,” explains Tom. “Since they’re still actually in a park, there are lots of grimy touches like tessellated cigarette butts and dolled-up pigeons.” Their entire brand world stems from this romantic and hilariously authentic scene, with every detail relevant to the duo’s experiences of moving to London and meeting each other. Turns out, their united creative voice is best expressed as “enthusiastically wonky,” exuding positivity, irreverence, vibrancy and imperfection all at once.

The duo designed their first collection, found a local London factory to produce it ethically and sustainably, set up relationships with suppliers and buyers, and by March 2020 had started to sell online with a goal of launching with more fanfare in summer. Of course, then the pandemic brought those plans to a screeching halt. With all stores closed and a feeling of fear and uncertainty in the air, it wasn’t the right time to start marketing, so the duo waited. Then, when the panic subsided, they re-strategised, deciding to no longer rely on retailers and sell direct to customers. However, that would require creating a whole bank of marketing imagery without any access to studios, models or photographers. Which is where Tom’s animation experience came in handy. “During our hibernation I had become intrigued by learning more about 3D animation, and thought if we couldn’t interact with people in real life, we might as well build some 3D people to work with! It was a bit of an exciting revelation because we realised using wonky, colourful 3D imagery could be a great way to cut through the white noise of such a saturated marketplace and demonstrate who we are as a brand in an unforced way.”

In terms of the animations, Tom plucked out characters and stories from Daisy King’s already established brand world, and brought them to life in new ways. For example, there's a swan seen in the collection’s print design with a cigarette butt in its beak, while stars in an animated video are seemingly advertising a breakfast cereal called Butts – but also promoting a T-shirt from the range. Another film shows a dog watching a hypnotic washing machine, but also promotes another T-shirt from the range. Meanwhile in other visuals, 3D characters are dressed in 3D versions of the clothes, using existing photography of the prints. The duo essentially wanted to advertise the collection but in a way that was non-patronising, unique and true to their brand. “We thought a good way of breaking through would be to take the piss out of the entire concept of selling something, by taking our brand messaging out of context to advertise something ridiculous that doesn’t exist,” says Daisy.

As such, the films play with familiar tropes of TV adverts but distort them with humour and surrealism. “This opened our eyes to a new way of communicating our brand, by visualising our identity over our product,” Tom says. “If we can communicate ideas of positivity and fun with just a glance at a blobby dog in a washing machine, for instance, that’s done more to get our message across than any glossy product shots could do. It’s creating a larger context through which to view our product, but also allows us to expand and develop a whole immersive world of our own, to go way beyond the clothes themselves, and so far we’ve really only scratched the surface.”