To all our friends and valued patrons in Bangladesh, we wish you a very happy 50th independence day.
We sincerely hope we can restart our visits in Bangladesh very soon!

To mark this day we have created a special buttonhole celebrating the Bangladesh flag. Get in touch if you'd like to add this fun detail to your next creation.

One of our Delhi patron's 3 year old son had a birthday pending, after a year of lockdown his parent's wanted to make his birthday special and enlisted the help of Vanguard to do so.
We measured him 4 days before his big day and worked round the clock to create something he would love.

Hand crafting a shirt in with a Peppa pig print, a waistcoat in red linen and a tiny version of our Vanguard "lockdown pants" in black. This little chap was very happy with his ensemble and we think he looks smashing!

Whenever we make kids tailoring we leave as much excess fabric as possible in all the seams, this little guy can grow another 6 inches and we can easily adjust his ensemble so it fits him perfectly.

Here at Vanguard we love our 4 legged friends & our founder Mighel recently added a gorgeous Dachshund to his family. Grace often visits the Vanguard workshop and with winter not abating we knocked up a few coats to keep this gorgeous little pup warm.
Made in bias cut Scottish Tartan's we think she looks rather dashing in her Vanguard creations.

Our next task will be to make some jackets for Mighel to match!

Should you wish us to make some for your 4 legged friend, please do get in touch.

What happens when you amalgamate a sweat pant, a chino & a Gurkha pant? Fashionable luxury pants you can wear 24/7.
We call them our "lockdown pants" but this hybrid is smart enough to wear to the office, comfortable enough to live in 24/7 & cool enough to go out dancing in (when we're allowed to!)

Available in 12 fun colours, we have created these exclusively for our Etsy store. Head over there to order yours today!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/VanguardBespoke

Our #dashingmasks4india campaign continues to go from strength to strength. We have now crossed sales of over 17,000 masks & donated over 90,000 meals to those affected by Covid-19. We are funding 3 main projects in Delhi & Mumbai. One meals on wheels van taking lunches to slum areas in Delhi. A soup kitchen outside a large hospital in a poorer area of Delhi. An NGO project visiting slum kids in Mumbai, giving them not just lunch but also some basic classes
It's a little humbling to see just how much we have achieved so far and we will continue to make our masks in this social enterprise for as long as they are needed. We are really hoping we can cross the 1 lakh (100,000) milestone by the end of 2020, now that would be something!

With Christmas just around the corner how about some fun festive masks? Hop over to our Etsy store to snap yours up today!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/VanguardBespoke

We are putting the finishing touches to one of our valued patron's 3 new blazers.

This dapper fellow opted for 3 different jackets in Harris tweed, Scottish Tartan & an Irish linen/Italian Silk blend.
Bold & fun jackets make great additions to the wardrobe for those occasions you want to look effortlessly cool and make a perfectly tailored statement.

It has been a while since we updated the progress of our campaign. Things got really SO SO busy at Vanguard HQ, we have been working round the clock to keep up with demand for our #dashingmasks4india.

To date we have sold over 6000 masks (!) and donated over 32,000 meals from the proceeds of dashing masks.

Throughout the summer as countries have opened up we have been shipping our masks all over the world. From New Zealand to Botswana, Trinadad & Tobago to the Philippines our campaign has really gone global and we are humbled by the response to our small idea which grew into something much bigger than we initially conceived.

As with anything that scales rapidly there were some hurdles to overcome...
Scaling up the meal donations in the way were doing them at the start of the campaign - volunteers visiting poor areas & busy transport hubs around the city, became impossible to manage on scale. So we enlisted the help of a network of local NGO's that shared our vision. Our #dashingmasks4india campaign is now funding a number of projects providing meals to those in need. At the moment this includes lunches for children in slums in Mumbai, soup kitchens outside hospitals in Delhi & a meals on wheels van that visits slum areas in and around Delhi.

While we couldn't find a way to continue to support street food vendors, this change came at a time when Delhi was opening up and moving again so our support was less critical. As the NGO's we work with were better organized in this sector our average meal donation per mask has now gone up to just over 6 meals per mask - which is pretty awesome!
We also had to double the size of our factory. Mighel (Vanguard founder) quite literally got moved into the broom cupboard to make way for more craftspeople to have space in our workshop to make our dashing masks. He did manage to turn this into a compact & cozy office!

Along with more tailors we have taken on 2 apprentice women, one in tailoring and another in admin which are doing brilliantly. Working with another partner NGO Vanguard is aiming to provide training to women from our local community to help them gain skills & financial independence.

Our distribution in the UK got a little more organized last month. While we were (and are) eternally grateful to the volunteers who helped us overcome direct distribution hurdles by packing envelopes, the time came where the amount of orders were too much for 3 volunteers to handle. So we have now switched to a packing and distribution warehouse, enabling us to ship even more masks in a quicker time!

A designer collaboration with long time friend and very talented designer Manish Bansal was launched exclusively on Etsy last week.
We have updated our standard design to include a bendable nose bridge and internal filter pocket as standard. Many new colours and designs have been added to our ranges.
Including:
The disco ball mask
Some limited edition exclusive prints on silky bembergs & linens
Ikat cotton 3 packs
Pastel linen 3 packs
Madras check 3 packs
A blue camo vote mask - Trump leave the veterans alone!

And as of today you can customize any of our masks with an initial, a heart or 5-6 letter word. Using studs, springs, chains, sequins (& anything shiny!) this new addition adds a personal unique touch to our masks which we love.
Head over to our Etsy store to see all the fun stuff!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/VanguardBespoke

We have just crossed 1000 masks & 6000 meals donated!

Through our 6 feeding points across the city of Delhi our group of volunteers have given out over 6000 meals, 6000! This has all happened in just 1 month since we launched #dashingmasks4india on 3rd June. To these kind volunteers - who are not just giving up time but taking the risk to step out of home and help the vulnerable, while the pandemic continues, we salute you!

We are adding some new designs & colourways to our collection, coming this week visit our Etsy store to purchase!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/VanguardBespoke