Alice Nichol
Alice Nichol (37) is a fashion expert and the founder of Buddy and Noo, a sustainable styling service named after her two children. After over a decade working in the fashion industry, Alice saw first-hand how the fast fashion wheel can influence impulse buying and leave a mark on the environment. Now, she’s on a mission to change things. Her new business is focused on helping people feel and look their best, while also being better for the planet. Using her experience and skills from working for international brands like Ralph Lauren, Zara and French Connection, Alice is giving new life to fashion, encouraging pre-loved sustainable style.
Alice Nichol - Sustainable Stylist, Mum of Two and Founder of Buddy and Noo
Alice’s love for fashion started at a young age, as she explains: ‘When I was little, I would always be dressing up my Barbies, toys, and even my beautiful childhood dog Witty! But my favorite thing was watching my mum get ready to go out. I still have fond memories of helping her choose what to wear and picking out earrings to go with her outfit. Sitting on my mum’s bed helping her is where it all started.’
As Alice got older, she wanted to turn her lifelong passion into a career and began pursuing a job in fashion: ‘In sixth form, I started taking the idea of working in fashion seriously. I was studying textile design and helped organise a school catwalk with my friends, borrowing clothes from New Look and styling everyone. That was when I knew I wanted to be a stylist.
‘I started work experience at Kookai’s HQ in High St Kensington when I was 17. I helped work on the team catwalk show to promote the collection within the business, and the team actually used one of my ideas – it was a dream come true for teenage Alice! Then I began my degree at Nottingham Trent University, studying Fashion Marketing. I had a brilliant time, learnt a lot and spent my first student loan payment on clothes, which looking back, probably wasn’t sensible but sure was fun!’
After graduating, Alice moved to Australia and fell into her career in visual merchandising: ‘When I first moved to Sydney, I was working in a French Connection store and one day the Area Visual Manager came in to do a redesign. I got involved with helping and it turned out I had an eye for it! I worked at French Connection stores across New South Wales styling the shopfloors and training the teams in between my travels, until the recession hit and I moved back home to England and continued my career here.’
For the next decade, Alice worked as a visual merchandiser for household names, including Zara and Ralph Lauren, and while in many ways it was a dream come true, there were unexpected revelations, as Alice explains: ‘When I worked for Zara my main responsibility was changing the layout of the store and the stock twice a week or so, to accommodate new stock before we opened at 9am. Back then, Zara would only stock a limited number of items and sizes, and once they were gone, they were gone. So, there would be people queued up outside to make sure they could buy the newest thing in that day. Unsold clothes from the last collection were piled up in our stockroom, and if they couldn’t be sold, they were prepped to be sent back to the main warehouse, either for redistribution or possibly destined for landfill.
‘That was when I first realised just how intense and damaging the demand for fast fashion could be.
‘While working at Zara, I also did some marketing for an eco designer, Reem Alasadi. She used home dying techniques, recycled every piece of fabric and worked as sustainably as she could. Reem was one of the designers in Mary Portas’ Living & Giving Shop in Westfield in June 2009 and I was involved in the set-up of it all, which was such an experience. This was really when my eyes were opened to how sustainable fashion could be.
‘In 2012, I landed a dream job working at Ralph Lauren. I worked on store design, product placement and styling within children’s wear, homeware and women’s accessories over the course of four years, and eventually, I became part of the team working on Ralph Lauren Polo womenswear brand. But, my interests and my passion for sustainability were taking me in a new direction, and, if I’m honest, I was falling out of love with the fashion industry.
What made things even harder, was that while at Ralph Lauren, I had my first baby, Nancy, and the demands of work meant I had to leave her a lot. I often had to travel to Europe to work on the European stores, which lead to some very emotional goodbyes with my 10-month-old in Gatwick Airport at 6am. Plus, going through pregnancy had left me with really low confidence. Ironically, my career was at its peak and everything I’d been working towards was happening, but personally, I was at my lowest.’
In 2016, Alice took a break from the fashion industry, putting her styling skills to use in interior design instead and moved from London to Dorset to spend more time with her family: ‘When I made the move to interiors and left London behind, I knew straight away I’d made the right choice - it felt so good to get out of the fashion rat race and slow life down. I had spent many childhood summers with my grandparents at their home in Dorset and loved it. My grandmother was such an influence on me, so courageous and always immaculately turned out with all her clothes fitting and coordinating perfectly!
‘I worked for Farrow & Ball doing the visual merchandising in stores across Europe and America. I got to use my skills and expand my knowledge, while learning about a brand that encouraged sustainability and quality through its products.’
Alice didn’t stay away from fashion for long though, as she explains: ‘After I had my second baby, Arty, I was freelancing as an interior designer. One I day I went shopping with one of my clients and started picking clothes out for her. She asked me how I was so confident and knew so much about styling, and I told all about my background. I was so surprised she saw me as a confident person. At the time, I was a mum to two young children, had suffered with a difficult pregnancy and was recovering from an emergency cesarean, both physically and mentally. My self-esteem was on the floor and I was using this one day a week, meeting this client, as motivation to actually put on an outfit and show up for myself. Every other day, I barely recognised myself in the mirror.
‘That was when I decided to make a change. I started taking time to choose outfits and style myself again. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I made use of the clothes I already owned and enhanced my wardrobe with pieces I found in charity shops and on Vinted, an app I now can’t live without! Slowly, I began to feel more like myself again and I realised I hadn’t just saved money, but buying less and shopping smarter was better for the planet too. Slow fashion was the way forward.
‘After a lot of encouragement from my client, I started sharing my outfits on Instagram, on the account that would become Buddy and Noo. It felt fitting to name my account and business after my children’s nicknames, as they’re the reason I care so deeply about the future of our planet and want to help other women feel good, look good and do good for the environment all at the same time.’
Now, Buddy and Noo has become a multi-faceted sustainable styling service, offering everything from interior design to personal shopping. Alice is on a mission to show you can love fashion without loving fast fashion, she continues: ‘I want to help women explore their style in a sustainable way. I want them to be able to love their wardrobes, know them and understand them so shopping becomes easy and stress free. At the same time, I encourage shopping smart – buying the things we really need and know we will wear - ideally from eco-conscious brands, and there are some fantastic ones out there! The fast fashion wheel encourages us to be flippant and impulsive with our shopping, which just results in overfull wardrobes and clothes going to landfill, I want show my clients you can still have fun with fashion but in a sustainable, ethical way.
‘Anyone can be ‘trendy’ and follow the latest fashions or copy influencers, but when you know your own unique style, when every day is your own catwalk show, that is when you shine, and I want everyone to experience that.’