At the height of summer, while most of my contemporaries are greeting the day in Patmos or Marseille, I’m in sunny South Bermondsey, coasting past the grungy MOT garages that pepper the industrial district’s backstreets. Do I envy them? Sure, but I’m here for a worthwhile cause. Inside a suite of light-filled studios – next to units that host DIY galleries and long-into-the-next-day raves – is the HQ of one of London’s most vital independent brands: Knwls .

At a glance, Alex Arsenault and Charlotte Knowles – partners in life and work – could be misread as intimidating. Wiry, tatted-up and often sporting one of Knwls’s black cut-off caps (as he is today), Arsenault cuts a brooding figure, while Knowles, inevitably in a full look from her semi-eponymous brand, is petite, her hair in a dar

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