DOUBLE RAINBOUU

MIKEY NOLAN AND Toby Jones are in their car to escape their studio. It is, of course, stuffed with swimming gear. Their summer- (and swim-) ready label has a back catalogue of fabric, Instax and holiday souvenirs. “They are mementos of actual travels and of mental travels,” says Nolan, because there is a lot of desk-dreaming when the pair can’t be in Thailand or Ibiza, or by the pool. They are culture-makers, more than designers, cocooning the brand in touchpoints, music and movements. They are fighting the “whitewashed and bland” resort category, as Nolan sees it, with a lack of self-seriousness and prints chosen for punch, like palm fronds, or floating flowers on their first-ever shirt. “The strongest images always have some element that people can relate to,” says Jones. That original piece is still a best-seller. “It makes you feel like we started in a good place and hopefully we’re going to a good place,” says Nolan.

Collage featuring Jones’s sketchbook; a vintage fabric for inspiration; Toby Jones on the mid-north coast where he grew up; Mikey Nolan as a child in Singapore; the pair’s first-ever sample shirt, still a best-seller.