An introduction: Anita Hawkins and Tengku Jamidah are the co-founders and directors of the We Are Ultra creative collective (www.weareultra.com), a group that champions sustainability and the use of eco-friendly products. The collective has been steadily making headlines with their fashion line Ultra (www.theultraultra.com), designed by next-big-things Tengku Syahmi and Jonathan Liang.

We caught up with Anita and Jamidah to talk about their latest project, a capsule collection of ten wardrobe essentials, designed to form the base of your wardrobe. The collection consists of a mix of different styles of tops, dresses, skirts and trousers, many of which unzip, fold back or tuck in to become a different item. The idea is that, supplemented by a few basics and accessories, the Ultra 10 is all you need. Amena Schlaikjer, a Shanghai-based wellness innovator, is both muse and guinea pig for the project – meeting her spurred the duo into creating the collection, and now will wear (next to) nothing but the collection for a whole year.

Tell us about Ultra 10.
Anita: ULTRA 10 is a deviation from our normal fashion collections, it’s like a capsule collection but very focused on the idea of reducing consumption and really thinking about what you’re buying and using. We created ten pieces that could be very interchangeable and work with a lot of different things, so it can carry you for a much longer time, and fill up all the spaces in your wardrobe.
  The first person that took on the challenge was a lady called Amena Schlaikjer, a wellness innovator based in Shanghai. So she is wearing only the ten pieces, with some basics, for a whole year, just to prove a point.

How long has it been so far?
Jamidah: Since the end of May.

And it’s going well?
Anita, Jamidah: [in unison] She’s happy.
Anita: It’s making her feel very free.

I guess it means that you have fewer things to worry about when getting dressed in the morning.
Jamidah: Also when you realise what you actually wear and need, all the extra stuff is just baggage. That’s how she feels – she’s getting rid of baggage.

(From left) Anita and Jamidah

So how much input did the two of you have in the actual designing of the Ultra 10?
Jamidah: More than with the usual collections. Sometimes with designers, if you allow them to freely create something they don’t think about the wearability of it. So that’s where our ideas come in. We have to give them a bit of direction on what a woman would appreciate and wear if it was only ten pieces in their closet.

How did you decide which ten pieces it would be?
[Both laugh]
Jamidah: After a lot of editing.

How long was the process?
Anita: It was really fast.
Jamidah: Only two months!

Had you been thinking about it for a while?
Anita: I’d been aware of the concept, but meeting with Amena really sparked it. We’re always thinking about not just using sustainable fabrics but also different ways we can use fashion for sustainable means.
Jamidah: Even in our first collection for Spring, we wanted there to be like your pants, your jacket, your skirt, that you could match with a lot of different things. Something that you could use long term and doesn’t follow trends.

So what happens after a year?
Jamidah: We’re looking to release the second Ultra 10 sometime in March. Every year we’ll refresh it. We’re also thinking about bringing in some colour, but the style of it will be the same.
Anita: And at the end of the year people can return them and we’ll either look to reuse them, upcycle them, or simply recycle them.
Jamidah: You can actually buy it as a package and get a better price for the whole set, and then when you return it you can buy a new set at a discounted rate. So it’s like every year you get a fresh set of ten.
Anita: It’s like a subscription.

Has the response been good so far?
Anita: It’s been amazing.
Jamidah: A lot of people have actually bought the whole set, which is good.
Anita: We just won an award for it as well – the Innovation in Design and Sourcing award at the Ethical Fashion Forum.
Jamidah: I mean there were a few concepts before this but nothing as straightforward as ours. We make it trendy for the young people, we make it more contemporary and fashionable but still thoughtful.
Anita: It’s very approachable for someone who doesn’t care about sustainability. We want it to be that way. Normally you see all these clothes designed for tree-huggers and they’re completely off trend and really not fashion-conscious. There was a big gap and that’s where we tried to go in.

Was the clothing line always the plan, or was it just something that came along?
Jamidah: I’ve always been interested in fashion, and when I met [Tengku] Syahmi and Jonathan [Liang] I just felt that there was a connection. This was another way of getting people to be aware and understand. Obviously clothing is an expression of yourself and I felt it was another way of communicating our brand in a more physical way.

Has pushing the sustainability issue been hard?
Jamidah: We can’t live a zero carbon footprint lifestyle, it’s absolutely impossible. We just want to show Malaysians and the world that these are your options. We’re not saying, hey you have to follow me and I’m completely right, I’m fully eco-friendly. We try to do what we can. It’s also impossible for us to make our collection 100 per cent fully sustainable using only eco-friendly materials; it would just be too expensive and inaccessible.
Anita: And that would defeat the purpose. Our purpose is to be accessible and show a pathway towards something that’s possible.

Check out how Anita and Jamidah styled one item four different ways in our September issue, out now at newsstands for RM6.90.