Our Story
Hello! I’m Poppy, the founder of Stola London. I started this brand with the goal to make you head over heels in love with hemp.
We launched Stola a year ago to spread awareness of hemp and its wide-ranging benefits. When I first encountered the fabric, I was enthralled by its soft buttery feel and rich history. Hemp was first spun into fabric 5000 years ago!
I then soon learnt it grew needing ONLY rainwater. This is in stark contrast to cotton from which most nightwear is made.
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Since then, Poppy has run a series of culture festivals, organised countless clothes swaps and worked for a fashion tech startup.
Meanwhile, Charlie had discovered hemp whilst in India on a sustainable fashion trip as part of his Business degree.
He became enthralled by this resource friendly, elegant fabric and began spreading the word through the men’s hemp shirt brand, Babble & Hemp.
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A chance meeting at Portobello Road Market as Poppy browsed the vintage stalls, and Charlie was selling shirts led to a conversation about the complete lack of availability of hemp womenswear.
We both felt the fabric was underachieving in it’s potential to massively reduce the footprint of the fashion industry.
With the benefit of a quieter lockdown London we put our heads together and began to plan.
Hundreds of Zooms later the result is Stola London; a modern brand inspired by ancient traditions of women wearing loose fitting hemp stolas.