A collection starts about nine months before it reaches the shop. This one began in January, at the mills, when the first bolts of cloth arrived on the long table in Marylebone. Between that morning and the day the pieces went live, the collection passed through hundreds of small decisions, most of them about cloth.
It starts with the cloth
Clara Avenell and Imogen Hale, our head of design, spent two weeks that month travelling between the Scottish Borders, Yorkshire and northern Italy. At each mill they looked at wool flannel, cashmere yarn and silk, feeling how each one fell, how it pressed and how it held a line. The cloth came first, well before any drawing.
The palette of ivory, oat, camel, chocolate, black and claret grew out of those bolts rather than the other way around. We chose the flannel for the Ada blazer because of the way the nap sat in low light, and the silk for the Iris dress because it fell like water from the hand.
Patterns on paper, fittings on people
Back at the studio, patterns are drafted by hand on the cutting table. The first samples are made in calico, a plain cloth that shows every line and every mistake without flattering the maker. Each one is fitted on the studio team, women of different heights and shapes, so that a sleeve or a shoulder works on more than one body.
The Harriet coat went through five calico versions before we cut it in cloth. The first was too narrow at the back, the third too long in the sleeve, and each round solved one problem and revealed another. Fitting on real people, rather than a single house model, is slower, but it is the reason a piece can be worn by many.
Small runs, on purpose
We make in small numbers and restock the pieces you love, which means we hold little stock and waste less cloth. A run of forty is common. A run of four hundred is not, and we would rather sell out of a good piece than discount a poor one. When a piece sells out we can often make more, because we keep the patterns and the cloth on file. The collection is in our Marylebone and Manchester stores now, and Ruth Okafor and the fittings team can pin a hem while you wait. Bring the shoes you plan to wear and we will set the break of a trouser from there.
