Clyde designer Dani Griffiths

Clyde, an emerging knitwear label from Brooklyn-based designer Dani Griffiths, may be a new name on the fashion radar, but Griffiths, a Vancouver native, has been quietly perfecting her technique on classically beautiful, chunky, hand-crocheted pieces for the line over the past seven years. “I’ve been crocheting and selling my things under the name since I was 15,” she says. “Crochet is really something that’s portable, so I can always work on my designs, no matter where I am.”

One of the signature pieces from Clyde is a hood that has multiple styling and functionality possibilities. Worn one way, the hood converts into a scarf and folded another way, becomes a hat. The design is the result of a two-and-a-half year journey, which began when one of Griffiths’ friends asked her to create a custom piece. “The first one I made was very small and clung to the head, so it wasn’t great, but that was the beginning,” she explains, holding up the final product, a soft, free-form hood made from merino wool. “I feel it’s reached its final development. And while it looks very simple, it’s something that has emerged through trial and error.”

Griffiths, who has been working in the fashion industry for the past six years, juggling stints in retail for stores such as Assembly New York and as a model, believes in design with a sense of humor. “I don’t think that people in fashion should take themselves so seriously,” she says. “Designers who respect fashion but don’t take themselves so seriously are always the ones who come out on top.” This approach is reiterated on Clyde’s new website, where charming, cheeky videos by Drew Heffron show the designer’s creations in action.

Oversized dummy-string mittens, designed to be worn with the string looped through coat sleeves so that the mittens stay with the wearer, another signature look from the Clyde collection, are a perfect example of Griffiths’ design philosophy. “They’re very much about a wearer remaining in touch with their youth because dummy-string mittens are something that toddlers wear,” she says with a laugh.

For now, Griffiths makes all pieces for Clyde herself, and while she admits that she is experimenting with outside production on a collaboration she is doing with Assembly New York for their Fall collection, she will likely keep the label’s growth at a slow and steady pace, which seems fitting given the meaning behind the label’s name: “It means warm and home in Welsh. My lineage is Welsh, English and Irish, and the name has really stood the test of time. Then I found out that it was my Dad’s nickname in high school, which is really sweet, too.”

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Current looks from Clyde

The hood