Fans of Universal Works will already know that good quality food fuels the design process for UW founder, David Keyte. His personal Instagram account is peppered with posts about his favourite cafes and restaurants in his hometown of Nottingham – and beyond. With this in mind, the ideas behind the latest collaboration with independent Indian street food specialists Bundobust was a no-brainer.

Known across the U.K. for modernising Gujarati street food and for championing craft beers, their thriving restaurants in Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are widely regarded as industry game changers. With critically acclaimed menus, they have become a beacon of successful casual dining across the North of England. Now, thanks to a unique friendship with the HIP store in Leeds, Universal Works and Bundobust have come together to create a mini capsule collection and uniforms for the Bundobust team.

In early 2020, we started chatting about doing something together, and working with UW to create a Bundobust staff uniform seemed like an amazing idea to start. We set up a three-way meeting between all parties in Leeds, and once David and the UW and sampled the Bundobust food they were sold! Here at HIP we have been stocking Universal Works since day one (2009) as a key retail partner. Since then, we’ve had an amazing representation of each of the UW collections – and it has remained in our top 5 brands for since the very early days. If we were to condense HIP’s aesthetic into one brand, it would simply be UW.

As long-time stockists of Universal Works we wanted to grow the uniform concept and create a HIP store only collection so that those in the city of Leeds and beyond could see the famous Bundobust graphics and the most iconic UW silhouettes from the last decade. The collection is based around the iconic Bundobust Tiger and classic UW silhouettes. The collection features heavyweight sweatshirts, military pants and chore jackets in denim and heavy cotton canvas – heavily inspired by Indian railway staff and what types of heavy duty uniforms they wear on long trips from one side of the country to the other.

Universal Works founder David Keyte remarked about how Bundobust founders Marko and Mayur are, “talented, enlightened, charming and funny. You’d be hard pressed to meet two more thoroughly nice guys! They produce great food, great beer and all with a commitment to great service that is often very hard to find. They do all this with an individual style and proper vision of what they offer and how they want Bundobust to grow. So, when they asked us to make a new version of a staff uniform, instead of our usual polite response of, ‘Sorry. No. We don’t do uniforms!’ we jumped in headfirst and started designing some fun pieces for the Bundobust team to wear.”

Further going into detail about the collection, David explained “The guys at HIP were keen to champion a local success, and they also loved the ideas we were all sharing about the styles; mixing UW with Bundobust street food and craft beer vibes. We’ve produced a mini collection for HIP that includes great UW pieces, with fabrics, prints and embroideries that celebrate Bundobust. The Pants, tees, sweats and fleece jackets are all super wearable. Alongside these, we’ve made pieces for the staff to wear at the Bundobust restaurants. I’ve been road-testing all the prototypes and print trials for a while now, and everyone in the team at UW is really loving the pieces. We know the HIP guys are excited by the collaboration and can’t wait to get it in store. As for the uniform, we think you’ll want to steal a piece or two from the staff on your next visit Bundobust in Leeds and Manchester or Liverpool!”

The Universal Works x Bundobust x HIP collaboration is part of the Future Friendship Project initiative, which sees Universal Works connecting with, and working alongside brands and companies that share their authentic vision of Peace, Love and Soul. Choosing to combine forces with other like-minded brands creates real future friendships that exist across countries without borders.

The Universal Works x Bundobust x HIP ‘A Future Friendship Project’ capsule collection is available online now and in Leeds.