Resuscitate your beloved luxury items with the rather magical experts behind The Restory: a unique service offering modern aftercare for luxury fashion pieces.
Perhaps you want to revive a pair of vintage Manalos that your own Mother wore down the aisle (your Something Borrowed?) or maybe you want to reinvent and extend the life of your treasured bridal shoes post-wedding by having them dyed a more wearable colour. Luckily for you, the experts behind The Restory can make that happen. Be it a full colour restoration, a re-heel, a bag re-edge or full remake, the skilled artists behind The Restory are adept a reviving tired or broken items (it’s so good, we’re pretty sure there’s some sort of wizardry at play). “Our mission is to have you fall in love with your favourite pieces all over again,” the brand explain. And, it makes sense, why buy another when you can bring the original back to life?
Your Day caught up with Emily Rea, one third of the female trio that founded The Restory, to discover not only more about what the service offers, but how it can extend the life of all those special items chosen specifically for your wedding day…
How did The Restory emerge?
The Restory launched in 2017, it was initially born out of Vanessa Jacobs, our CEO’s personal frustration with the lack of aftercare available in the market. We are a three female co-founder team: Vanessa Jacobs, Thaìs Cipolletta and myself, Emily Rea. Vanessa came from a management consulting, finance analyst background, Thaís was a designer and created all the incredible techniques we still use today and I look after the marketing and business partnerships side of the business to grow it. We started with services for shoes, quickly grew into bags and launched our clothing vertical in 2021. The demand and appetite for aftercare is insatiable and we are passionate about delivering a luxury, trusted and high quality service and experience.
We loved reading your ‘Restore Our Earth’ blog – especially the quote: “As professional restorers, we know the power of repair.” What is the beauty of your service and restoring pieces…
The repair process is truly beautiful – if you’ve ever scrolled through our Instagram page, you’ll know how mesmerizing it is! People often say it’s very calming, satisfying and addictive to watch. On top of this, to repair something is an incredible skill. It’s very different to that of making and constructing a product in the first place. We have to take a unique approach to each item and take time to understand the condition, construction and specific material used, often sourcing material or hardware just for that item.
What brands do you work alongside?
We are proud to work with some of the biggest names in luxury fashion. We are the official aftercare partner for Farfetch, Manolo Blahnik, Nicholas Kirkwood, Harrods, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Browns Fashion. Our partnerships are integrated and customers are able to book directly on their website or drop in-store to access aftercare without any barrier such as proof of purchase, warranty or age of product.
Have you had any celebrity clients?
We have a wide array of clients from different backgrounds, and within that we are incredibly lucky to be recognised by some real key opinion leaders within the circular fashion space. The very talented Stacey Dooley, who created the real eye opening documentary about the environmental danger of fast fashion (Fashion’s Dirty Secrets) recently sent us her beloved jeans that had a hole in them. Livia Firth who is such an inspiration, co-founder of Eco Age, the leading sustainability consulting and creative agency, is also a client. She once sent us a collection of beautiful shoes that have the most amazing history. You can read about her pair of silver Roger Vivier dancing shoes in our case study here. Patrick McDowell, who we LOVE is a sustainable fashion consultant, Sustainability Design Director at Pinko and currently Designer in Residence at the Jimmy Choo Academy, is a wonderful client and huge supporter. This pair of Valentino daisy boots was the first item we restored for him.
How can you help brides and grooms transform or up-cycle their wedding day items?
One of our most popular services is dyeing satin shoes. Our atelier has created an incredible collection of 20 colours to select from which includes cornflower, gunmetal, neon and other beautiful shades. While we can dye any shoe a darker shade, this service is most commonly used by brides and the perfect way to reimagine shoes. I think people invest so much in their wedding outfits and they carry such unique memories and emotional value that it’s only right to let them live on! There may not be many occasions for those white satin shoes, but a bright colour or black would get a lot of wear. You can see some of the satin shoe transformations here, here and here.
Have you had any clients that have up-cycled previous wedding pieces? If so, what has been your favourite to work on?
I actually got married last summer (after many postponed and revised plans) and had one of my wedding pieces transformed by The Restory! I initially had planned to get married in Spain, so had bought my dress with the sun in mind. Inevitably, with Covid in force, we changed the location to London. Although it was in May, it didn’t quite match the temperature of the Spanish sun so I bought a beautiful vintage Kimono from Vestiaire Collective, something special for the day but that I will wear forevermore. I asked Tessa, one of our embroidery artisans to embroider my new name on the outside of the collar. I love the personalisation and it evokes such emotive and happy memories for me.There’s such wonderful memories and emotional value imbued in these items that they deserve to be worn and loved. I wear my kimono frequently and I love the history and story behind it.
If brides/grooms are looking to buy second-hand what’s the benefit of buying second hand and what tips do you have to restoring pieces/looking after them?
I think it’s a lovely idea to buy second hand for your wedding. The nature of pre-loved dresses or suits probably means they haven’t been heavily worn before and are still in great condition. I think with vintage you can also find something incredibly unique and special.
If you ever feel that pre-worn shoes are unhygienic, one of our favourite pieces of advice is to just replace the insole. This is really inexpensive and makes them feel refreshed.
What sustainable measures does The Restory take as a business?
In our nature, we are a sustainable business – we don’t create any new product and we exist to extend the lifespan of items direct to customers and through brands, whether you continue to wear them more yourself, or you choose to rent them or sell them on.
As much as possible and wherever we can, we use recycled and/or recyclable materials. We are always excited to learn more and adjust when new products or materials become available to make more environmentally friendly switches.
Talk us through your Revival Package?
Our revival packages are great ways to gift our services. Rather than giving someone a new pair of shoes, why not bring their loved ones back to life? The idea is that the revival package gives you the services you need to bring a well loved item back to life, for example a clean, sole repair, new laces, and restoration. As a bundle they are competitively priced and I assure you the feeling of falling back in love with your favourite restored item is wonderful.
Name someone who you’d love to restore designer pieces for…and why…
I always say absolutely everyone has something in their wardrobe that needs a little love. Whether the moths got to your favourite jumper, the gravel scuffed your stilettos and your bag has staining from your jeans – it’s all expected with wear and tear. We want to bring that trust and convenience to make sure everyone can fall in love with their favourite pieces again and again.
Discover more about the repair services on offer at The Restory.
For more unique wedding ideas and inspiration, head back to Your Day.
