The brilliant minds behind IDEA are a London-based couple, Angela Hill and David Owen. What began as an amateur fashion archive became an editorial with a guaranteed space at Dover Street Market.
Husband and wife run IDEA from the offices at Wardour Street in the British capital. Their company is a reference and source of inspiration for the most creative minds in the scene. Nevertheless, their evolution is not just a mere coincidence.
Before IDEA, Hill already had experience in the fashion industry. In addition to having worked in Comme des Garçons and Browns, she had assisted different stylists in the 80s. She also tried her luck as a photographer and she even ended up founding a magazine.
On the part of Owen, he was a journalist dedicated to editing magazines about graphic design, photography and advertising. The couple had always collected a few copies of their favorite books, and, while finding their ways to earn a living, they started to sell some of their copies.
For as long as they can remember, they both fed their passion for reading through the rarer copies about design. And fortunately this fact hasn’t changed at all.
Everything changed in 1997, when Sarah Andelman from Colette offered them the opportunity to sell some of their books at her store. Almost 10 years after, they started to sell at Dover Street Market, expanding their business step by step.
They needed a quick name so the creators didn’t hesitate twice and chose the acronym for their oldest daughter’s name: Iris David Edith Angela.
It is undeniable that the emergence of Instagram helped to smooth the path. They didn’t have to make use of intermediaries anymore and started to interact with their costumers themselves. In fact, IDEA is likely to be one of the world’s first accounts in monetizing the platform, and they were capable of selling all the books they posted on the app.
In 2015, coinciding with reaching the 50k Instagram followers, they launched their first publication: a zine with Gosha Rubchinskiy. The 300 copies were sold out on the first day. In that moment, they realized that they had a loyal customer base interested in that kind of content.
Now, five years later, they have already published books with Palace, Gucci and Vetements, among others. But the remarkable fact about this case is that many of these brand’s creative directors are also customers.
Meetings at their offices with the fashion world’s most important copywriters are frequent. Designers, stylists, photographers, but also architects, art directors, filmmakers, musicians and artists attend in their search for inspiration. However, they show great discretion on the matter. Every time someone asks about the names of their clients, the answer is always the name: “it is confidential”.
It is also highly likely that you might have seen “WINONA” printed on T-Shirts or tote bags. It was the first personal product that they released. Angela thought it was a good idea to write the name of the muse of both of them, and after selling more than 6.000 items, we can state that it was a real success. Even Justin Bieber owns one.
Check out our selection of IDEA in Foot District’s catalogue.