From a warehouse in Sweden to Kylie Jenner's closet, why everyone is raving about Rave Review

In a cavernous warehouse in a nondescript suburb of Stockholm, a woman is cheerfully sorting through piles of fabrics. Maria Skotte has worked for Swedish second-hand giant Myrorna since 2014. She stands among the industrial machines that separate and transport various garments and materials. Stacks of unwanted clothing are piled up around her, waiting to be sorted and sent to thrift shops all over the country.

“This is my favourite station,” she tells me, over the dull whirr of the machines. “I used to see it as a punishment.” Guided by reference images on a printed brief, Skotte selects various blankets and bedsheets – some plaid, others floral – and places them in a trolley. Soon, these fabrics will be repurposed into coats and dresses and sold via the world’s most exclusive retailers under the name Rave Review.

Later, out side an unfussy restaurant in Stockholm's hip Södermalm district, I meet Rave Review’s founders Josephine Bergqvist and Livia Schück. In 2016, they were a year out of Beckmans, Stock holm’s most celebrated design school. Schück had just finished an internship at Acne Studios and Bergqvist had recently been rejected from a Masters programme at Central Saint Martins. “I guess we were both a little depressed,” admits Schück. “I texted her, ‘I need a beer.’” At Stage, a beloved Södermalm dive bar, the idea for Rave Review was born.

Bergqvist and Schück had met on their very first day of design school, at one of those awkward wine-soaked mingles. “You didn’t look cool, but you looked very good,” Bergqvist says to her design partner, playfully. Tall and lean, with doe eyes and easy brown hair, Schück could have been a model. “I wasn’t that cool, actually,” Schück admits. “I just remember I immediately liked you and I thought you were super cool.”

There is a certain easy Scandi manner to Bergqvist, with her bright blonde hair and quirky style, and the two became firm friends. Fast forward to beers at Stage and not only were the duo unemployed without prospects, they were also questioning the very nature of the industry they had so doggedly pursued a career in.

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Design school was all idealistic artistry – deconstructing garments, pouring hearts and souls into final projects, “pressing fresh flowers in plastic and stuff like that”. Out in the real world, fashion didn’t seem so glossy. “We were questioning why we were doing this and really harming the planet,” says Schück. “Why put so much time and so much energy into something that is so bad?” With the help of a friend whom Schück had met at Acne, they arrived at the notion of a luxury upcycle brand. They even upcycled the name, Rave Review, from a tag on an obscure vintage item.

At the time, repurposing thrifted or deadstock garments into high-end pieces was gaining momentum. Brands such as RE/DONE, Wolf & Lamb and Vintage Bleach were generating buzz for reinterpreting old denim, leather jackets and classic band T-shirts, respectively. But transforming discarded fabric into a fully realised collection was yet to take off. “When we started, there wasn't really the same dialogue about conscious fashion,” says Bergqvist. “A year or two later, everyone wanted to do upcycling. Now it’s not okay not to do it.”

Their very first collection lived up to the brand’s name. They launched at Stockholm Fashion Week in 2016 with a fully-formed, in-your-face aesthetic that caught the eye of both Matches and Net-A-Porter – two holy grail destinations for emerging designers. Specifically, the online retailers were going gaga for their blanket coats, which repurpose several tartan blankets into one show-stopping, function-forward piece of outerwear. “People were amazed, like, ‘Oh, it’s blankets!’” says Schück, with mock enthusiasm. “Now it feels obvious.”

There was just one small hiccup. “Net-A-Porter said that we need every coat to be exactly the same,” says Bergqvist. “That was the first time we realised how complicated it could be to do this and to scale up.” So, they set to work establishing a network of second-hand suppliers like Myrorna, to hand pick discarded fabrics that fit the Rave Review vision. Still, when it comes to making clothes from home textiles, it’s nearly impossible to create an identical run of a single garment. Luckily, shortly thereafter, Net-A-Porter would evolve with the market, offering upcycled items alongside the disclaimer, “no two will be the same”.

Today, Rave Review is joined by the likes of Bode, Marine Serre and Collina Strada in the pantheon of rising brands turning unwanted fabrics into high style. I ask if the influx of like-minded designers bugs them. “We can’t get upset or annoyed, because, I mean, we’re still passionate about it,” says Schück. “It sounds clichéd now, but we really care about sustainability.” When we asked Rave Review to make something special – a singular piece that encapsulates the brand’s ethos – for the pages of this magazine, Bergqvist and Schück knew precisely who to call.

Located in Little Hutton, a suburban area in Greater Manchester, SWD is Rave Review’s only supply partner outside of Sweden. The girls turn to them for one very specific thing: kilts. “They’re such a nice quality, and rarely used. Maybe they’ve been worn once, for a wedding,” says Bergqvist. “The only thing is…has someone been naked under there?” Schück quips, giggling. Don’t fret, Rave Review washes all of their fabrics upon receipt.

The dress, a gorgeous strapless number with a constructed bodice and an endless train, is constructed from seven kilts, handpicked from a sea of discarded clothing in the SWD warehouse in this sleepy English town with a population of 13,000. Silver ring details at the waist and a crotch-high slit, which recalls Angelina Jolie’s 2012 Versace Oscars gown, brings the sort of sly sex appeal that has become Rave Review’s signature. Their other signature being, of course, the power-clashing prints, chief among them tartan.

But the Rave Review special sauce is a certain fastidiousness when it comes to flattering the female form through silhouette – one that has drastically evolved in the years since that first blanket coat. “You should feel empowered by wearing the clothes,” says Bergqvist. It’s these flourishes, be it a nipped waist in a coat or a subtle flare in a pair of trousers, that elevate Rave Review from a postgrad project between besties to a bona fide luxury brand that’s just getting started. With an endless flood of emerging designers, each with their own sustainability proposition, the most efficient way to stand out is via celebrity endorsement.

For Rave Review, garnering attention was as simple as, “If you build it, they will come.” The requests came rolling in after their debut collection, the first of which being from Norwegian influencer Janka Polliani, who, naturally, requested the blanket coat. Soon came stylists pulling looks for bigger names - Dua Lipa, the model Elsa Hosk and, most notably, Miley Cyrus.

“It’s always like, ‘We’re doing a fitting tomorrow and the clothes need to be in LA,’” says Bergqvist. Often they scramble to sort out, and pay for, express shipping, only to have the clothes returned, unworn. Or, in the case of Kylie Jenner, the garments don’t come back at all. “She stole a trench coat,” says Bergqvist. “She kept it,” Schück clarifies. “She stole it,” insists Bergqvist. “And she didn’t even post.”

This celebrity attention, as well as new avenues like a kids range for e- commerce giant Ssense, means that demand is constantly exceeding the brand’s limited capacity. There are plans to take some investment and grow the team at their tiny Södermalm studio, which currently houses just Bergqvist, Schück and a few eager interns. "We’re the smallest fashion house, but we are fashion,” says Bergqvist.

Until then, Maria Skotte is happy to remain an unofficial member of the Rave Review team, sorting out fabrics at her table. I ask her if she keeps tabs of what happens to these materials once they leave the Myrorna warehouse. It turns out, Skotte has become a huge fan of Rave Review. “I love their stuff,” she exclaims. “I follow them on Instagram.”