String Ting Upcycles Vintage for First Ready-to-Wear Collection
The phone charm brand with a celebrity following ventures into clothing by bringing its whimsical touch to vintage pieces.
“Your phone is your news source, your connection to all of your friends, your bank cards, like literally a business in your hand, so why not dress it up? Why not treat it like the accessory that it actually is?” String Ting founder Rachel Steed-Middleton asks.
The brand’s colorful, hand-beaded phone straps became a must-have techcessory over the past year. Launched in June 2020, String Ting began as Steed-Middleton’s creative response to the first wave of the pandemic. As others were making banana bread and hopping on the latest TikTok trends, she was beading phone straps and accessories to raise money for frontline workers in London. Since then, String Ting has become a full-fledged business that started Steed-Middleton down “a long road about utility and optimism,” which is reflected by her creations. The wristlets not only allow you to carry your phone hands-free, but are also cute enough to add some personality to your outfit, flaunt in selfies on Instagram, and even rock on the red carpet (Gigi Hadid did at this year’s Met Gala). Other stars spotted with a String Ting swinging from their phones include Kendall Jenner, Kaia Gerber, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, and Blackpink’s Jennie and Rosé.
As String Ting has grown, producing the phone charms has evolved into a collaborative process that highlights the uniting nature of making and doing. “When the girls in my studio are together around the table, we talk and chat and it reminds me of the groups of women meeting over centuries to share stories and congregate over craft,” Steed-Middleton says. Other women-led businesses have also gravitated towards String Ting, with the brand teaming up with sisters Devon Lee and Sydney Carlson’s viral Wildflower Cases, and Katie Hillier and Luella Bartley’s buzzy accessories brand Hillier Bartley.
As Steed-Middleton continues to grow the company, String Ting’s latest endeavor brings the brand into a new category: ready-to-wear. The Worn Again collection, dropping today, comprises one-of-a-kind vintage pieces sourced from the UK and screen-printed with playful cartoon characters that speak to String Ting’s whimsical spirit. The mascots, as Steed-Middleton calls them, were introduced early on in String Ting’s journey, first as figurines created by Sara Kabiri and later rendered in 2D by Japanese British illustrator Jiro Bevis. “What I love is that the characters look quite cute and innocent but with a bit of a naughty side—a modern take on an old Disney kind of fairytale style of mascot,” Steed-Middleton shares.
Featured on 100 upcycled pieces, the cartoons are printed on garments ranging from oversized button-downs, to rugby shirts, to designer finds like a vintage Burberry trench coat and a Saint Laurent Harrington jacket. “I knew I wanted to bring the brand mascots into the real world and that clothes would be the perfect home for them,” the founder says. “We're very aware of just how much clothing is in the world already, so I felt the best place to start would be breathing new life into existing pieces.”
To complement the vintage, String Ting will also drop a limited-edition white T-shirt embroidered with its peace man mascot. New accessories are also on the way, just in time for the holidays.
