Amschela is an affordable luxury accessory design brand born in the UK, focused on making high-quality, premium products more accessible. Amschela is a dedicated supporter of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds facing access barriers to the fashion industry. Social mobility is a strong strand of the brand’s philosophy, providing opportunities through real-life projects, work placements, internships and UK government skills schemes to those between the ages of 17-24.
We interviewed Keri Andriana, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Amschela to learn more about how the organisation’s small team of three is making change in the fashion sector and wider Creative Industries. We also find out more about how the brand’s ethos is to prioritise its ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) work over profit-making.
What are your motivations for addressing diversity and inclusion within your organisation?
Amschela actually started as a leather accessories brand and our transition into a sustainable brand really came through my own health issues. I started having health issues around the same time as COVID and I then changed my eating pattern and really started to look at what foods am I putting into my own body. I decided to go vegan and I thought, well, how can I be vegan but my brand is still contributing. I felt I also have an obligation to protect others with the products I'm selling and an obligation to protect the planet.
We reached out to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and told them we wanted to transition and asked how they could help us and they guided us through the process. We introduced our first vegan leather bag in 2021, then other vegan products grew and the leather products sort of fell away. We launched our first full vegan product in 2022, which is amazing.
Another side of it is the affordability. The luxury market really only caters for the top 10% of women - but what about the other 90% of women who have disposable income? What we try and do is say, well, if high-end luxury brands are offering their bags at £2,300, what if we could produce something similar that cost £400? So, our aim is for more ordinary women to actually be able to participate with that feeling of luxury and confidence.
Social mobility and the projects we support in that space are another huge aspect of the AMSCHELA brand, which I’ll talk about more later. The social mobility aspect of the brand is non-negotiable. It's about giving and taking the brand to use it in that manner, even if it means we make less money.
What do you perceive are the risks of not addressing EDI in your organisation or the wider fashion sector?
I think nothing happens and that's the problem. Obviously, there's a legal regulation—you can't do this and you can't do that—but in terms of actually pushing it to the forefront, I think currently, the onus is on brands to implement EDI policies and strategies into their businesses. There's not enough force behind it. There's no type of body that's regulating what businesses are doing on the EDI front, so it's just down to the individual businesses to push it.
Currently, if the owner of a business is not EDI responsive, then there is no EDI within that business. For other businesses, I think EDI to them, is the equality bill and it doesn't go any further. You have brands that really care, but you also have brands that it's just a tick box exercise for them. For some businesses, EDI is more of an annoyance or something else they have to do as opposed to something they want to do.
Can you tell us more about AMSCHELA's social mobility philosophy?
I'm aiming to demolish or deconstruct the barriers to access to the fashion industry, which is a pretty closed circle to people who look like me or if they don't look like me, they come from non-traditional backgrounds. It could be that they live on a council estate or work in a very low-paid job but are super talented whether it's in design work, social media, HR, marketing, or business administration - all the cogs of the wheel that make up a fashion brand. Because they've not gone to the London School of Fashion, they haven't trained with Conde Nast, they haven't gone to Saint Martin's, they're actually excluded from being who they were destined to be by not being able to show the talent they have.
Our role and Amschela's mission is to break down that door and show the world and the industry that it is missing out on a huge talent pool by being so closed. So, for instance, we took eight young people between the ages of 17-24 to London Fashion Week - they did the whole campaign, from the editorials to the video to the lookbook to drafting the press release. We were honoured to be able to showcase what young people who are denied access can do if you give them access. That's one of the things we're fighting for.
Maybe we might not scale as quickly as another brand because we're not totally focused on quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. But the KPI that's important to Amschela is not just how many products we sell or are capable of selling; it’s how many people we have helped. No one's ever come forward to us because we had a really good quarter two or quarter three. They've all come to work with us because of our social mobility programme, our ESG and how transparent we are in sharing that and showing that.
I sleep more peacefully knowing I'm not putting out products that are affecting the environment. I also sleep peacefully knowing that when we do sell a product, a proportion of that sale goes directly into the advancement of a young person to give them access to an industry. To me, if you're only concerned with making money, you're not successful. I might not have the capital and the revenue like a lot of other brands but we're rich in our ESG. I like to call Amschela a vehicle of learning to help young people and that's a huge part of our philosophy.
Can you tell us more about how the social mobility programme works?
We offer two levels - so, young people can come to us for three months or six months. We will look at what's going on in the business right now that we could turn into a project that's suitable for that person. At the end of that project, they then get a reference from Amschela and they get to join us and work hands on to see what we do.
We have collaborating partners that we work with, including Boomsatsuma, Gingersnap, Go Live and local and regional colleges, sometimes they supply the tools or the mechanism we need for a particular project if we don't already have it in-house. Generally, with the university participants that come through the project we run with the University of Bristol, they're more dedicated projects that have a scope to work within because it's going towards their degree. They can be a bit more intense.
One of the key things is though, it's real-life projects. The projects they get to work on when they're with Amschela are real-life, tangible projects and products. They're going to be able to see this piece of tangible work they've done somewhere very credible that then allows them to use it and run with it to support their career trajectory.
How are you reaching the young people you want to engage with so they know the opportunity exists?
We work really closely with universities and colleges, Boomsatsuma (a leading creative training provider) and the Creative College in Bristol. We've also got great relationships with Gingersnap Models, the University of Bristol and the University of West of England. I also do a lot of talks at a lot of local schools and colleges, then there's a link on our website where the young people can just email us.
A lot of them follow us on social media too so a lot of people contact us directly through our Instagram; our DMs are always crazy. We had eight places for London Fashion Week, for example, but we had around 162 requests. We take that smaller number because it allows us to fully immerse in that person so they get the best out of the experience.
What have been the biggest challenges in running the social mobility aspect of your business?
Finance and funding. We're completely self-funded and because of that, we're not able to offer 100% funded roles. The university roles are good because the university will then pay the cost but the people that come direct, sometimes we're not able to fund them because we just don't have the financial budget. That's when we may look at some volunteering opportunities but they can only last a number of weeks because obviously, due to employment legislation, and also because we have to make sure that young people keen to enter the industry are not taken advantage of
I'm also an apprenticeship tutor but the reason why apprenticeships aren't feasible for a brand like Amschela at the moment is because the levy only covers the training aspect of the apprenticeship - it doesn't cover the salary portion. If you’re a big high end brand, you don’t have those constraints, which is fine but if you're a small brand, it's not. So, financial constraints are definitely one of the biggest challenges for us.
What do you think makes your EDI approach successful?
I'm a real person and I think in the luxury market, traditionally, there's an air of secrecy and you don't know who the face is behind some of these big brands. But I think consumers now, especially in the ESG market, want to know who you are. I think them being able to reach you and touch you and listen to you on a podcast or even see you in the supermarket, those things count. Because I'm also a tutor, I teach apprenticeships so I'm always able to give constructive feedback so nothing is ever just a no.
We also do Instagram Lives of the young people speaking about what the experience means to them. This means they can attach authenticity to it because there are so many brands that say they do a lot for young people yet we've never seen a report or we've never seen a quote from a young person. We produce a report every year on the outcomes of our Experience Projects so people can actually see what we're doing and they're able to attach real life to the situation.
What is one of your key indicators of success?
Confidence and belief, which you quantify. Having the ability to see someone who was so scared to answer the phone now having manufacturing meetings and reporting to me as to what they think is the best trim, for example, is amazing. It's watching that development growth that entices me and being able to pull that out of young people in a way that creates a safe space.
What advice or key learning would you share with other organizations considering delivering similar initiatives?
Think outside the box and don't be afraid. Approach every task with fearlessness and use knockbacks to motivate you to strive to do better. Use the word 'no' to create something positive because the word 'no' is sometimes needed in order for you to go back and reassess elements of your business; 'no' isn't always a negative.