Whistle While You Work
Whistles is turning 50 with a new look and 50 new faces
The high street is having something of a fashion renaissance. As M&S prepares for its London Fashion Week debut and designer collaborations become increasingly common, Whistles is the latest familiar name ready for a rethink.
Something is happening on the British high street. After years spent watching the fashion conversation migrate towards luxury, resale and an increasingly crowded internet, some of its most familiar names appear to have decided they would quite like our attention back.
M&S, once better known for sensible knickers and a very good food hall (still the case), has spent the past few years sharpening its fashion credentials, culminating recently in a collaboration with cult London label Aries and its first official London Fashion Week catwalk show this September. John Lewis, meanwhile, has been busy handing over the keys to its archives to designers including Rejina Pyo and LABRUM, with a RIXO collection arriving this October. Even H&M has taken its place on the LFW schedule, staging a rather starry spectacle at 180 The Strand last year and returning to the schedule this season.
Now, Whistles wants in.
Marking its 50th birthday, the London-born brand is undergoing something of a reset. Under the new banner ‘Designed for an Open Mind’, Whistles is introducing a renewed product direction, visual identity and campaign, a reconsideration of what the brand should look and feel like at 50.
For AW26, Whistles is taking the understated modernity it has long been known for and giving it a little more bite, with heritage references meet new proportions, with Design Director Mo Riach describing a new “high-low sentiment” running through the collection. The being to not abandon the Whistles wardrobe, but to make it feel a little less prescribed.
That thinking extends to the people wearing it. Rather than filling its relaunch campaign with the usual casting suspects, Whistles put up posters across London calling for 50 real customers. More than 2,000 applied, from scientists and teachers to pharmacists, creatives and women working in tech. Six ultimately front the hero campaign, photographed around London, while the wider 50 will continue to work with the brand on future projects.
At 50, Whistles isn’t attempting to become something entirely different. Perhaps more interestingly, it’s asking us to look again. And judging by the company it’s keeping, the high street might be worth watching.
