Here's to Luella
Tonight, as 2009’s Designer of the Year is announced at the British Fashion Awards, I feel we should be raising a glass to the outgoing incumbent, Luella Bartley. No matter that her label recently went under after the Italian factory producing her work went bust and her Singapore-based backer pulled out; that does not detract from the fact that Bartley achieved what few designers (Brit, or otherwise) ever do – a brand-world view, whose quirky, pony-mad, naughty wit ignited true love and affection among hard-to-con teenagers.
There aren’t many designers who inspire that kind of fervour in young girls. Her name has resonance with eight- to 18-year olds and, handled cleverly, could fan outwards to reach mothers, aunts, grannies and godmothers who need to know the “right” gift to give our little darlings. Luella Bartley hair bobbles, pencil cases, secret diaries, numnahs and memory sticks – I see it all.
What went wrong in the last business set-up was that almost everything produced under the label was completely out of the reach of the customers who adored it most.
Bartley has wisely headed off to Cornwall to look after her three children and to do more riding while she mulls over what to do next, but I predict a bright future for her. As a sparky ex-journalist with a satirical bent and a sharp talent for observation, she has other cards up her sleeve. Long-term, I bet she can turn that irrepressible persona into all kinds of merchandising spin-offs that might not have much to do with the onerous business of producing fashion collections four times a year.
Meanwhile, if you need to make any teenager’s year, Luella’s clothes and accessories – collector’s trophies to anyone with the wit to recognise it – are selling at steep discounts on luella.com and other outlets on the internet. Her spring/summer 2010 collection was never produced, but items from her hit collection last year are available.
Coat envy
Last week, I was in Shanghai for the Chanel show, but the scoop I’ve brought back – in spite of the outrageous, surreal and excessive experience of sitting on a moored pontoon in the Huangpu River, watching models wearing Chanel versions of Chinese Red Guard caps walk by – is about something home-grown.
Imagine the vignette: I’m walking through the lantern-lit gardens of the Yongfoo Elite dining club and spy an encounter between two of the world’s most stylish women, whose clothes are obsessively documented by press and bloggers. Lady Amanda Harlech, Lagerfeld’s stylist and muse, is sitting on a wall on the edge of an ornamental pond, hunched elegantly into a slightly stiff, three-quarter-length, khaki wool coat, with the collar flipped up. I’ve not set eyes on a coat of instant wantability for a long time. It’s the epitome of ahead-of-the-game rightness, falling as it does within the genre of “military” that is the coming thing for next year, while also appearing to be of classy quality, cut and finish.
At first sight, I assume it’s Chanel, but don’t recognise it from any previous collections, so that’s odd. I fall to speculating whether Harlech’s wearing some sort of advance item Lagerfeld’s whipped up for her? It could be Balenciaga, I supposed, or Fendi, perhaps. It also had the plain-but-beautiful air of a new Phoebe Philo-era Celine about it. Anyway, it’s clearly a garment of such distinction I could never get my hands on it. Damn.
Just then, I see Carine Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue coming up on the flank. She stops, turns her glance toward Harlech and, like me, visibly experiences irritating coat-identification failure.
After two beats, she cracks. “Very nice, this one,” she says, leaning over for a better look. “But who’s it by?” Harlech pulls open the coat and flashes the label. “Oh! It’s Aubin & Wills, a new company I found in London.” I suppress a yelp of laughter.
Aubin & Wills, to my knowledge (I wrote about it in this column last summer), is the older profile sister-brand to the teenage cult, Jack Wills. I get emails from them every week, but I’ve never bothered to open them, chiefly because the pictures looked naff. Now I have, I can reveal that the mystery item is the Aireshire coat, (pictured left, £498; aubinandwills.com). A triumph, then, both for the affordable British upper-high street and for Lady Amanda, whose sharp stylist’s eye selected the best thing from a little-known source.
Shopping heaven
I’m in love with Urban Outfitters. I’ve been working up a small passion for the British arm of the American retailer, because it has such a rapid turnover of fantastically original home and gift things in its stores. Whoever’s behind that shop understands that, apart from wanting to dress up and go out on a Saturday, kids and young people have other passions, chiefly, taking photos of themselves for Facebook, listening to music and decorating whatever tiny spaces they occupy. Thus, recently, I’ve bought a zebra-patterned rug (£20); a variety of ingenious photo-display devices, including personalisable Christmas baubles (£5); and I’m hovering over a vintage-style digital camera, (pictured, £170), Fifties pink earphones (£50) and a vinyl-record player (pictured, £120). There’s even a mini-sewing machine (£15) in there – and at pocket-money prices. OK, this is all seasonal stuff but, year-round, I always look into Urban Outfitters weekly to see what it’s thought of next. Nice to see, then, that this retailer has just released figures to show it’s thriving – it deserves it. There are now branches in most major cities and urbanoutfitters.com is booming.
