Meet Bazaare: Knitwear Inspired by Bob’s Burgers

The phrase, ‘organised mess’ comes to mind when scrolling through Bazaare’s colourful Instagram, rows full of DIY-style knitwear in between upcycled vintage pieces decorated with illustrative knitted adornments. Like a healthy plate of food, you’ll find every colour of the rainbow, an instant serotonin boost for the overworked Instagram scroller. The side project, which is only a couple of years old is already leaving its mark, with its flower chain motif fast becoming a signature for the London-based brand that’s run by two humble Instagram friends; Julide and Aaron.

For the pair, their story began as internet friends that had never actually met. Ironically, it was only at the beginning of 2019 in the first wave of the pandemic, that the two had the chance (or reason) to meet IRL. Aaron, already well-aware of Julide’s knitting skills through her posts, was the first to reach out, requesting a custom knitted hat he had always had in mind.

Happy with the result of their collaboration, their conversations became more frequent, exchanging ideas as their favourite lockdown pastime activity. “At first, Aaron would throw out ideas for clothes he would want to wear and it was a fun challenge for me to bring it to reality,” says Julide. With lots of time to fill, the collaborations continued combining their individual styles, which eventually, led them to see the potential for a brand.

From the beginning, it was important for the duo to represent the combination of the two not only in the designs but the name of the brand. “I was born in the UK and Julide in Turkey. So we tried to think of something to tie together the two cultures. That’s how we came up with ‘Bazaare’; ‘Bazaar’ represents the Turkish marketplace and ‘Bizarre’ for strange or surreal. We thought it was the perfect name for what we’re doing,” says Aaron.

Covid brought in a heavy influx of knitwear brands, but Bazaare feels different. Using jersey yarn for their knitted pieces, the clothes are intricate yet unpretentious. “With my background in textiles, I’m always looking at traditional techniques and try to find ways of using them in a modern way, with unexpected materials,” says Julide. However, the duo admit that the result is a mix of experimentation and resourcefulness. “We use materials we can get. Sometimes it comes down to what we can afford to experiment with.”

The honesty of their response is unintentionally on-brand for the duo, who approaches fashion with a humble, child-like innocence. With sustainability and slow fashion ethos also existing at the core of the brand, they add, “it’s much more special to own an item of clothing with a story or memory attached to it, and with knitting, you see the effort that goes into it.” Questioned about their own thoughts on the sudden obsession with knitwear, Aaron replies, “Julide has been training me up this summer – we’re like a knitwear Mr Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso. it’s very rewarding once you’ve completed a garment. It’s the same sense of reward you get from hoovering the house or doing the dishes.”

The two personalities of Bazaare are evident throughout, transcending via the screen in an ‘organised mess’ fashion. When asked about their thoughts on this description, Julide agrees. “I like the term because even though the style may have a messy feel to it, it’s intentionally done.” Admitting to being a big fan of juxtaposition, Aaron adds, “personality wise we have lots in common, but I can be weird whereas Julide is lovely. That probably comes out in the clothes. We work out ways of making the mess make sense.”

Their answers are exemplified by the reinterpretations of mini smock knitted dresses, square necklines and wide strap tops – Julide’s nod to Paco Rabanne and Courreges’ mod-60s space age collections, a source of inspiration she always comes back to – and the reworked vintage football tops and forgotten 60s and 70s accessories such as the sock tag and football pennants decorated alongside knitted adornments displaying Aaron’s touch. However, both conclude that colour is most important for Bazaare and the palettes are inspired largely by animation. “We’ve been watching a lot of Bob’s Burger and too much Spongebob.”

That aside, Bazaare’s intention is simple; “what we do is inspired by just what we do each day — we don’t have a specific figure or thing that inspires us,” explains Julide, “we don’t want to take [fashion] too seriously or think too deep. It’s about doing things our own way as we’re feeling it.” And so they did. At Aaron’s most recent participation at Paris men’s fashion week, Bazaare found another opportunity to express themself creatively.

In a last-minute sprint, the duo customised slogan t-shirts inspired by “hilariously wrong Google translations of French phrases that were accompanied by sort of related images.” Now, whether the t-shirts were a hit on the streets or not is left in question, but Aaron assures it did receive a seal of approval from Celine’s creative director Hedi Slimane. “There was work put in to make the t-shirts look purposefully ‘bazaare.’ I definitely got a lot of funny looks that week but Mr Hedi Slimane himself said, and I quote, ‘It’s good.’”

Follow @BazaareWorldwide and visit their shop at bazaare.co.uk.