Launched together with his newly unveiled Margate pop-up store comes the latest campaign from Daniel w. Fletcher, shot on the town’s sandy beaches by HERO editor-in-chief Fabien Kruszelnicki and starring up-and-coming actor William Franklyn-Miller.

Located on the seafront of the town’s marina area, the two-storey temporary space will not only house Fletcher’s new FW21 collection but serve as an activity hub for local events and gatherings. With the ground floor given to the best of Fletcher’s new collection, the lower ground space will be used for quilting and arts workshops, queer book-club meets and poetry readings, as well as a range of other events designed to attract local artists and businesses.

At the heart of this new studio-on-sea space is Fletcher’s take on the humble beach shop, a staple of any British seaside town that’s been given an eco-friendly make-over. In addition to stocking his own range of recycled frisbees and paper windmills, the shop will also sell a range of organic cotton jerseys alongside swim shorts made using recycled plastics collected from the ocean.

Mirroring the store’s nautical location are a range of garments offering up sea-faring references. From the sailor-style wool overshirts to the ribbed fisherman-esque sweaters with slashed sleeves, the store will also present the patchwork checkerboard styles that debuted in Fletcher’s first womenswear collection earlier this year. Staycations never looked so tasty.

Below, Fletcher answers questions on the new pop-up, his love for Margate and his earliest memories of the beach…

Finn Blythe: The beach has been an integral theme of your recent collections, what attracts you to the location from a creative point of view?
Daniel W. Fletcher: I spent my childhood visiting English sea-side towns with my family on my summer holidays so for me it’s quite nostalgic; I love all of the shops you get along the marina selling buckets and sticks of rock but also that it is constantly changing with the elements and tides.

FB: How did the coast help shape your FW21 collection?
DWF: I was inspired by a lot of naval garments like sailor tops and ribbed fisherman jumpers but also the colours of the seas, skies and cliff faces so I wanted to shoot it on the coast that inspired it which is what brought us to Margate. We shot William for the campaign on a grey morning a couple of weeks ago on the beach outside the shop and a couple of other spots just along the Kent coast; it was the perfect backdrop for it.

FB: Why did you choose Margate for the store’s location?
DWF: I’ve been coming here for a few years and have a lot of friends who now call it home so it’s become a bit of a weekend getaway for me, which has been really helpful for keeping me sane throughout the last two years where we have had so much time stuck at home. There’s such a creative community here and the coast is so beautiful I can’t think of a better place to spend the summer.

FB: What are your earliest memories of the beach?
DWF: Going to Newquay with my family and trying to boogie board with my sister and getting horribly burned as was the case for a lot of 90s kids! My favourite post-beach activity of course being an afternoon on the 2p falls, as is likely to be the case after my days in the shop this summer…

FB: Do you have any favourite accessories from the new pop-up?
DWF: The sticks of rock, it’s quite weird to see my name inside one of those butter-mint batons, I’m not sure I ever imagined it would be something that would exist. I also love the deckchairs, I can’t wait to see people on the beach in front of the shop with them!

FB: For those who can’t make it down to the opening, how would you describe the store’s aesthetic? What do you want people to feel when they enter?
DWF: It’s a bit more minimal than a lot of the beachfront shops you get in Margate, we’ve got suspended rails all down one side with the new FW21 collection being displayed then towards the back is our ‘beach shop’ which pays homage to all of those seaside shops I visited growing up. There’s a striped awning with beach balls and buckets hung all over it but we have opted for sustainable and recycled materials rather than the usual plastics used for traditional beach accessories.

Daniel w. Fletcher’s Margate pop-up is located at 18 Marine Drive, Margate, CT9 1DH