Brand To Watch: GCLO Studios

Welcome to Brand To Watch, a style column from COMPLEX UK where we spotlight the very best emerging brands from out of the UK and find out what makes them tick and what their vision of fashion and the future looks like.

‘Community’ is the buzzword of the new decade.

If you look around, everyone from musicians to clothing brands are aspiring to cultivate a group of like-minded individuals who can rally around a shared ethos. While many aspire to achieve this sense of community, not everyone has managed to do so as meaningfully, or as authentically, as GCLO Studios (Global Culture & Lifestyle Observation), the rising streetwear brand founded by 23-year-old London creative Gam, who has steadily built a community of people who not only don the brand’s pieces but also embody its ethos of pushing the limits of what is possible.

Starting out in 2019 as a photography page on Instagram, with Gam platforming his friends engaged in a range of intriguing pursuits, GCLO was created to highlight people who push the envelope. By exposing these stories on IG, GCLO challenged its followers to think outside their immediate environment and consider all-new possibilities. The brand’s name, Global Culture & Lifestyle Observation, encapsulates this idea of presenting a variety of stories about different cultures and ways of life from all over the globe. Since its launch three years ago, GCLO has gone from being a platform for creatives to becoming a clothing brand known for its signature pieces, and can count everyone from musicians and painters to your everyday streetwear head as true fans of the brand.

Getting to know more about GCLO, and why they should be on your radar, we caught up with Gam to break down its early beginnings, influences, and goals for the brand moving forward.

“I’m inspired by everyday life. When it comes to design, I think there’s inspiration in everything—if you look for it.”