In 2018, one of the world’s biggest online fashion retailers, ASOS, launched a new brand, COLLUSION. The brand was designed to ensure that ASOS stayed relevant to a new generation, Gen Z.

We did this by creating a brand not just FOR Gen Z, but BY Gen Z. We hired six Gen Z artists, activists and tastemakers – the COLLUSION Collaborators – to help us shape the brand. The collaboration inspired a powerful new platform for COLLUSION, ‘FOR THE COMING AGE’. It led to a new approach to gender and representation, impacting everything from the product to PR. It resulted in a launch campaign which was a portrait of a generation. Letting this generation see themselves and be seen. Addressing decades old stereotypes and lack of representation.

Time after time, we heard that these fast fashion brands didn’t represent their audience or their ethics. They were criticised for their lack of diversity and representation and for perpetuating unrealistic and unhealthy examples of body image. The fashion industry as a whole is arguably responsible for a variety of societal problems.

The brand was conceived and designed in a completely different way to the competition with a mission to rewrite the rules of fashion. The brand was designed to tackle Gen-Z’s agenda and represent their issues, from gender fluidity, body positivity to inclusion. To actively address the negative aspects of the industry. The brand was designed as a counterpoint to cheap, new online fashion brands like Missguided, PrettyLittleThing and Boohoo.

We wrote a ‘co-creation’ manifesto and tested it with an online panel of 16-23 year olds, across key markets. They loved it. But they were still a little cynical about whether we really meant it. We’d have to hand over the keys to the kingdom for real to convince them.

Working with the internal culture team, we interviewed 20 diverse artists, activists and tastemakers to help us shape the brand - we signed up our Collaborators through this process.

We asked the Collaborators around tackling representation well or badly in the industry. And what was being overlooked. We then asked the Collaborators how they would like to be represented instead. They were desperate to see themselves and be seen. They wanted the stories not just the surface.

Other important focuses from our Collaborators were on the product itself and launch communications.

In a unique social experiment, we cast and documented 100 people, born in 2000, all turning 18 this year. Their hopes, dreams and aspirations, captured in the year they come of age. We asked them one simple yet important question: “What do you wish for, in the year you come of age?”

Casting by fate not features, we were able to create a ground-breaking moment for representation in fashion. Street-casting though social media, we discovered 100 diverse new faces from across the country to represent COLLUSION. Each with their own story to tell.

100 video and photographic portraits. A documentary. A voice for a generation.

Far beyond a token gesture, COLLUSION put a radical experiment in representation and ethics at the heart of a mainstream brand. By empowering a truly broad cross-section of COLLUSION’s audience to be their models, the idea made headlines both in and out of the fashion industry. Challenging conventions to positively change an industry.

The coverage was exceptional, from Dazed and Hypebeast through to Teen Vogue and GQ. ES called it a “fashion gamechanger”. Vogue commented “Designed by those who will wear it. COLLUSION is an innovation in the high street market. We’re excited to see how it expands.” With the brand still making headlines “6 months on. Collusion is massive. Like million pound massive.”

i-D Magazine.

Collusion is consistently bringing newer, younger customers to the ASOS platform. Most importantly, it’s bringing ethics and profits together and challenging the fashion industry.