Anna Foster is Founder and Creative Director of pioneering upcycling brand E.L.V. DENIM. Prior to founding the brand, Anna had been a fashion editor for twenty years at publications such as Exit and i-D Magazine. She then went on to be Fashion Director at Lula, and Fashion Director-at-Large at Australian style title RUSSH before deciding to focus solely on the brand in 2022.
Anna’s practices have been widely recognised by the industry, with the brand having been shortlisted for the 2021 and 2022 BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund, and a recipient of the BFC Fashion Trust Fund for 2021 and 2022. In March 2022, she won an INNOVATE UK: Women in Innovation Award, which spotlights a diverse group of trailblazing women who are changing the world through the power of their ideas. Anna’s proposal for creating a viable textile sorting infrastructure and textile regeneration was recognised as one that could transform the UK’s textile waste problem into an ‘upcycled textile economy’.
Anna has collaborated with Gabriela Hearst and Hyundai, and has recently pioneered an ‘industry first’ with THE OUTNET. By repurposing years of excess inventory from various brands held by the retail giant, she created a new collection across categories that launched in January 2024. This initiative demonstrated to the wider industry that upcycling can be scaled, surplus stock can be monetised, and new collections can be crafted without the need for new materials.