The royal’s appearance on the green carpet sent brand sales up to 400 pairs, causing a “massive” 500 per cent sales spike, and “a drastic rise in visits to the site,” said a brand spokesperson.

Verona started the brand, which currently sells four styles — the HEVEAs, which are tennis-trainer style, are joined by the WALDENs, a bulkier ankle sneaker (£130, purified.eco), as well as the ABACAs, a canvas-looking shoe which come as high tops (£105, purified.eco) and low (£105, purified.eco) — explains “it took a huge amount of time to to get done because it was a case of waiting for the manufacturing side to catch up to the science.”

He started as a designer working with fashion fast companies, including ASOS, sourcing from factories across the world. While in Sri Lanka, he was shocked by his commute which took him past the Meethotamulla garbage dump (known as “trash mountain”). The towering landfill site collapsed in 2017 killing at least 28 people. “You couldn’t help but feel some responsibility — I really wanted to create a product that just didn’t have these impacts,” he says.

And so his journey to create Purified began. “The idea was to be actually zero plastic — a lot of places claim to work sustainability, say with bio based leather alternatives derived of fruit, because it sounds good, but realistically it’s still polyurethane and other plastics that give the products durability,” he said.