Tom Holmes, the 23-year-old founder of the loungewear brand Tom’s Trunks, is gearing up for his biggest sales period in the run-up to Christmas with his sustainable “slow fashion” brand that operates from his parents’ garden shed. Holmes’ business began because he forgot to take a pair of shorts on holiday. “I bought a pair of Kenyan Kikoy [shorts] from a man on the beach.
I didn’t stop wearing them all holiday and when I got home my friends asked me where I got them from,” he said. The striped woven cloth originally worn by Arab traders and later integrated into Swahili fishermen’s traditional dress began to attract interest. A WhatsApp exchange with the Kikoy seller resulted in 20 pairs of shorts being delivered to his home in England and while his classmates were doing their studies, Holmes, who is dyslexic, was marketing them on Depop , the pre-loved fashion marketplace.
“I’d sit at the back of the class and be listing the clothes on the laptop I used to help me, instead of working,” he said, laughing..