About Us
Creature Clothes strive to create beautiful, ethical and environmentally aware products for you, your pets, your kids and your home. We design everything in-house, test all of our products with our intrepid team of testers before sale, and manufacture all of our goods in the UK, primarily in our Suffok workshop.
Founded in 1999 by designer Cosima Pole, Creature Clothes was borne out of a collar Cosi made for Vodka her black labrador out of an old necklace… every time Cosi and Vodka went anywhere, to the park, on the train, to the shops – people would ask where “that” collar came from and offer money to buy it there and then. So Cosi went to Menorca to work with a traditionally skilled leather worker, and one apprenticeship in leathermaking later Creature Clothes was born.
Cosi started working for herself aged 17, setting up her company Scrap Ltd after leaving school, designing and handmaking greeting cards out of the waste paper generated from her mothers lampshade factory. Cosi’s first client was Liberty of London and she went on to work on commissions for Aveda, Virgin Records, The Royal Academy of Arts (making merchandise for the Sensation Exhibition), and her cards were even featured in an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum to celebrate the then emerging handmade greeting card market that Cosi had helped to create (see the poster promoting the exhibition on our press page). The V&A have also added Cosi’s cards to their permanent collection.
When Cosi’s dog collars came on the scene they swiftly took over from the cards with the buzz of excitement – nothing like this had been seen before. There was simply no one making cool collars for dogs in the UK at that time. Many of Cosi’s existing greeting card customers started stocking the small starter range of funky pet wear that Cosi had created – a capsule collection of 2 sizes of dog collar, a lead, a belt and a matching wrist cuff all in black saddle leather with silver stars, so you could accessorise your belt to your dogs collar. We still carry this stunning collection all these years later. Red leather was the next thing to be added, along with other sizes of collars so that all dogs could be included in this new cool pet wear movement.
We now make all sorts of crazy stuff for dogs and cats while still sticking to our original ethos of beautiful design, quality UK manufacture, and matching accessories for owners. We are still working with the Royal Academy of Arts, supplying them with an exclusive collection inspired by Craigie Aitchinsons Bedlington Terriers – his Dog in Red painting. We have collaborated with the Imperial War Museum on their Animals of War exhibition, created exclusive Dog Dozas for Bonio competition winners, worked with Battersea Dogs Home and The PDSA, we have styled dogs for shoots and advertisements, collaborated with William Yeoward and several hotel chains, and most recently have created the Fogle & Pole Vintage Collection – a collaboration between Cosi Pole and explorer Ben Fogle, creating beautiful dog beds and accessories out of vintage materials. To see more of this collection, please click on the Fogle & Pole link above.
Now, 16+ years on and Vodka is sadly no longer with us, but her daughter Stolli has taken over the product testing roll and now tweets her findings for Creature Clothes. Cosi and her husband Nick (who is behind all of the photography on our site) also have 3 young children, so naturally Creature Clothes has expanded out to meet their needs too and we have just launched a kids collection so that children can have a belt that matches their dogs collar – super cool.
Cosima Pole’s Creature Clothes have supplied most of the major department stores over the years and are now stocked right across the UK, from Harrods to exclusive city grooming parlours, to gift shops, cafes and boutiques. We also have fantastic stockists around the world – for more info on Creature Clothes abroad or to find out how to become a stockist or distributor, please see our International section.
If you are interested in becoming a UK Creature Clothes stockist, please go to the Wholesale section of our site for more information.
We still stick to our original principles of designing cool looking stuff that is practical for dogs and cats and owners, while reusing and recycling as much of our waste as possible. We frequently send out scraps and offcuts that can’t be recycled or designed into a new product to nursery schools for the children to use creatively – if you would like to know more about this, please get in touch.
Thank you for visiting our site. If you would like any more information, please get in touch!