Interview with Lou Dalton

Lou Dalton Spring Summer 14

S
Tell us a bit about how you started out.

Lou Dalton
I left school at 16. I come from a little town
called Market Drayton in Shropshire. I wasn’t particularly interested in school and decided to leave with a handful of GCSE’s to take up an apprenticeship with a bespoke tailor which was part of a scheme called YTS, the Youth Training Scheme. It was a fantastic opportunity and I decided to 
take that because I didn’t feel like school was offering me anything.


L
I didn’t have the desire to go on any further in Higher Education so I chose to take up this role. 
I wasn’t really sure at that the time if I was being drawn by a yearning to be in fashion. I did 
not know what it was really like because the tailor I was working for, called Arthur Pardington, 
was producing shooting gear for the likes of Purdey
and Sons in London. I was exposed to everything at a very formal level and not really fashion 
design related. I suppose the only way I was exposed
to a more glamorous side of fashion was when I was in a doctor’s surgery and seeing a Vogue 
magazine on a table.

So I chose to do this and was not really sure how it was going to balance out. I learnt to be like 
a sponge, as if it were a part of my DNA. I yearned for fashion and working for a man as talented as Arthur, being exposed to all the skills I feel are really important in fashion, i.e. design, pattern cutting and construction, at that age was incredible really.

When I started working for him, I was a YTS apprentice at the age of 16 and at that time I had two groups of friends. One of which was quite rebellious and the other group that was very much into study and pursuing what was seen as the normal route through education, GCSEs, ‘A’ Levels, Foundation, which may have been the right way to do things.

S
You’re obviously a menswear designer. Why menswear when most designers tend to veer towards women’s wear?

L
It was just because at the time I started working for Pardy Clothing it was pretty much all that was going through the door. That’s what I was being exposed to so it just felt like second nature. I was always very much a tomboy and always gravitated to that kind of thing. It was being exposed to these amazing cloths, Prince of Wales checks or shooting Tweeds and that kind of thing. It just felt so right and as you say I was a woman in a male dominated area of work but it didn’t really come into it. I felt that I can do this.

S
Tell us a little about your skills, you know the kind of skills you need for designing men’s or women’s wear.

L
It’s quite interesting because I think sometimes what people believe fashion to be is very different from the reality. The design aspect feels very minimal in comparison to creating and designing a collection and for me the practical side is key over everything. Having those skills; being able to sew from an early age, construct and understand how a garment is put together, being able to then pattern cut that, then develop that, makes you a better and stronger designer because you know the skeleton form. Instead of just sitting there and being able to design a pretty picture you can go into a factory and explain to them exactly what you want. To me that’s the core of it and having those skills I was kind of hell bent on that. In a way, I suppose, I came in from a more practical angle.

I get asked myself, how do you transfer that into design? You have this little narrative in your 
mind and it’s just a process that comes like a natural form really.

S
Talk us through the process. Some people start with the cloth, others the sketch or some other form of inspiration. What is your process?

L
When I first started this, and it has evolved although I have less time now, I used to be able to go off to a gallery. You also might be walking around town or you’ll be on holiday and there will be an idea. That for me is a starting point, a concept which is integral to building a collection. Then I start to think about the colour, the fabric and obviously start researching depending on the season, whether it is Autumn Winter or Spring Summer. Then you start to build a mood board.

There’s a constant link from the aesthetic to the fabric and then we will start to think about a form and what kind of silhouette and obviously, although it’s your own aesthetic, I do a lot of research into past collections which worked for us. I also look at things which have historically sold for us and think actually I quite liked that and maybe I should touch on that again. You have
to be aware of trends and what other designers are doing. It’s important to do that, but not 
necessarily emulate it because you want a point of difference that makes you stand out from 
everybody else.

I think it’s also important to look at designers from the past so you can pull from that and a good
body of research is core to a good collection.

S
How do you maintain the Lou Dalton aesthetic?

L
It’s quite difficult sometimes and of late, well over the last four seasons, I chose to work with a stylist, because sometimes you’re in your own little bubble. You can get quite caught up in that and it’s very easy to do what you want to do and actually ignore what is right for your customer
or brand that you’re trying to build. Even though we’re not on the same level as Dries Van Noten or Raf Simons who also have a strong client base, we need to able to build and get folk on board, and as a consumer we need to be able to build an identity. If you go back to the drawing board and try to redesign the wheel then any client that has come on one season may drop off the next. So to me it is important that there is a thread. To make your collection seem relevant as a young brand, buyers want to support you but find it difficult unless they can see it fitting alongside the bigger brands which they are stocking.

S
You started five years ago. You’re selling internationally. Is it important that you are a British designer selling something that has that heritage?

Lou Dalton Spring Summer 14

L
I used to think it was really important but as a consumer and designer I like products that feel honest and well constructed and live up to what has been said about them. I think that the feedback we have had to date is that the product stands alone. We’re not having to force the fact that I’m British. I do think it is important, especially in Japan and equally the in the States.
I think folk want value for money and if the quality doesn’t back that up it doesn’t matter what 
you do or who you are, they just start to move away from it, they’re not interested.

S
How involved are you in the complete process? Do you see everything through?

L
I was talking to my assistant the other day actually, saying that the admin side, looking after the cash flow, I find really quite frustrating because I enjoy the practical side. If times were harsh and we had to bring it all in house I could do absolutely everything. That’s because it is part of my DNA. I know if a factory is trying to pull the wool over my eyes then I’m there straight away.
At the end of the day you’re bartering constantly to get a good price and quality and unfortunately some designers don’t care and just want to get the product out there. If I want longevity in the industry I have to back it up.

S
Tell us a bit about your Knitwear? I know a lot of it is made in England.

L
It is. It’s all made in the UK. Originally folk used to touch on it and say Lou Dalton Knitwear designer but actually I’m not. I just have a good understanding of knit and what I like. I think the taste level is more to do with it. I used to work for a Japanese company called United Arrows and I was asked to produce a range of knitwear for them in Shetland and Scotland. It was great actually. They did all the ground work and I just had to go visit them and tell them what we wanted. I built up this portfolio of certain factories and a great relationship with them. When I
did start Lou Dalton I was able to tap into that resource. Then I work with a lady in the South of 
England who is phenomenal. She’ll then do all the swatches after I have briefed her. This is
the design development because I can’t actually physically knit. That’s how I work.

Lou Dalton Spring Summer 14

S
A lot of labels have started to introduce bespoke or limited edition labels. Is that something you might do?

L
There are two more stores in London which we would like to sell to but we don’t. For one
in particular the collection is not right for them but their proposal to us was to create a 
special, something exclusive to them; a T-Shirt line or something like that. It’s important because it’s one way we might be able to do something that doesn’t compromise the Lou Dalton aesthetic.

S
Is it important to be able to use social media?

L
It is important. We get a lot of coverage on Blogs, there are a lot of bloggers out there. A lot of backstage footage is so instant and it’s great that it reaches so many people, so fast. I have great PR and they will get me to answer questions and then it will be fired out to the blogger and they’ll put it up. I would rather be on the sewing machine or doing the more practical things I suppose.

S
Tell me a little bit about the preparation for Fashion Week.

L
It sounds all so glamorous but the core of what we do is to get clothes on people’s backs, to get that chap on the street to buy what we do, and that whole process behind that is to produce a collection that a store will come and buy. We have just completed that, so obviously the collection for wholesale isn’t quite ready for fashion week because there are a few bells and whistles that you want to add to draw press to get a little bit of attention. When I wholesale a collection I don’t produce twenty one pairs of trousers, it’s more like eight, so we have to produce additional pieces. That’s the first thing we do. A collection comes back from Paris and I sit down with my stylist and work out the finishing touches. Then we’ll start considering boys who we’re going to have model. This is important because getting the aesthetic across in a couple of minutes is really quite tough. If you have the wrong chap it can make a massive difference. We get a lot of support. The British Fashion Council have been extremely supportive and so have Top Man. When I first started it felt quite daunting but now I say bring it on and we’ll have a go.

S
How different is the collection you show to the collection you sell?

L
Not too different. I know there are various designers out there, huge brands, who have separate collections but we’re not a big enough machine to do that. I can’t afford to do it, I have a very tight budget and I quite often say to the stylist you can have one special jacket because it’s all I can allow. It’s more accessories that we add than garments really.

S
Tell us a bit about one of your earlier collections

L
I always try to have a thread running through. One of my last collections had a sense of military. The concept was basically this. I grew up in Shropshire and I spent a lot of time at my
grandmothers’ farm and during the Second World War there were a lot of farm estates in the UK. There were Military bases built in and around them and my Grandmother’s farm was like that. The long and the short of it was that a G.I. comes over and falls in love with a land girl and he doesn’t want to go back and he goes AWOL. It was about her disguising the fact that this boy is living there and she is pulling from her father’s wardrobe. So it was a kind of oversized military feel.

S
How do you select the colours?

L
Once again I work with a mill in the north and we are sponsored by this mill. I go up every season and I go through their archive and collection and  quite often, along with the concept in mind, that will become the foundation to the colour palette. Very often it’s about gut instinct and what feels right for Lou Dalton.

Lou Dalton Spring Summer 14

Lou Dalton’s website is www.loudalton.com and she can be found on Twitter @TheLouDalton
Photographs by www.catwalking.com
.

Interview with Stephen Jones

Stephen Jones is undoubtedly one of the most prolific milliners today. He has collaborated with some of the biggest names in fashion including Dior, Vivienne Westwood, L'Wren Scott and Louis Vuitton. His work has been featured in an exhibition by the V & A - Hats: an Anthology by Stephen Jones - that has recently completed a 'world tour'.

Stephen talks to me about luxury:

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Stephen (SJ): For me, luxury can appear in many ways. It’s only sometimes that it’s an object. You could have a luxurious experience, like a luxurious meal. But, as people say, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, so is luxury in the eye of the beholder. In the early 21^st century people tend to think that it’s a crocodile handbag and it can be that, but normally it’s everything else. Luxury is a very convenient thing to hang something on. I think it sort of the level of affluence and sophistication in society. If you think in terms of post-war, for example, if you had a vacuum cleaner, that was a modern home improvement and that was considered the great luxury of the day, as part of for example a space-age kitchen. And that was sort of the whole idea of an American convenience. Whether it was a convenient fridge or a washing machine, the woman was normally there in front of her Kelvinator washing machine with a ball gown, long gloves and a tiara. So that was absolute luxury. That was convenience. And then came fashion, and suddenly, the new added value word was ‘fashionable’. And along with that was the idea of a fashionable food or a fashionable description. So for example at Marks and Spencer’s you would never have six cakes, you would have a medley of cakes or that kind of thing. 

Luxury nowadays is maybe more true luxury than it was, but it’s still just really a marketing tool. I think that people’s appreciation of luxury is so personal. For one person, luxury may be getting half an hour off work earlier. Within all the luxury brands, really the only one that comes from fashion is Dior. All the others came from saddlery, or leather goods, or whatever. That in fact is slightly a problem for Dior but also its saving, because they haven’t got a thousand different handbags to fall back on. The thing about Dior was novelty. The fact that you had it was just extraordinary luxury and a fantastic, wonderful thing, but you had to have a new one every season. Dior also invented that. But that’s not enough in today’s market. 

SB: How would you define luxury?

SJ: I think something which has had time. If we are talking about an object then time, design, and whatever has been spent on it to make it an evocation of the human condition. Probably aspiring to be making something beautiful and qualitative. Luxury is in the idea contained within the object. I think it is completely about the experience. For example Dior haute couture, the fitters will go and see the client at home; even if it's only on the other side of the road. There will be the directrice of haute couture; the fitter, there may be a sowing lady as well. So it's completely about the experience for the client. The whole thing is about how you want to look, what flatters you, the message you want to send. Couture is just the same experience as they have within Savile Row, of having a bespoke suit made.

SB: Does the experience differ from that of Bond Street for example?

SJ: Well, the experience in Bond Street can be absolutely fantastic as well, like going to a jeweller, or going to a designer boutique; you will really be looked after. However, that product will not be changed for you, whereas luxury is having the thing adapted to your needs really, or to your wishes, to your taste.

SB: If you are buying haute couture, do you meet the designer, for example, and is that important?

SJ: If you are buying Dior haute couture, it depends who you are. You might meet the designer, absolutely, and certainly the designer will be doing the sketches and supervising it, but whether he can actually be there and be particularly hands on is another question... most designers don’t see the clients, and never have done, because actually within the couture houses, the vendeuse, the sales lady, is the one who really rules in that situation and they will have their own clients, and they will have commission from sales from their clients as well.

SB: Do you think it's important to have contact with the maker if you are buying into this idea of luxury rather than a luxury brand?

Vapour Trails

SJ: Oh yes, absolutely. Whether it's having a Porsche done for you in the colour that you want. Normally when we buy a product, the product exists and if we like it we buy it, and if we don’t like it, we don’t buy it. Actually, often even if we don’t like it we still do buy it because it's convenient. But the thing about true luxury therefore, and slightly in conclusion, is that it's halfway your thing and its halfway the person making it for you. And the interesting point is how far you go and how far they go. So it is a creative process, but with somebody in mind. And that exists in all levels. For example if a woman goes to a hairdresser she has got something that is done specifically for her. That’s why people will spend a fortune going to a hairdresser and give a giant tip, because it is that personal service.

SB: Is luxury about re-invention?

SJ: It can be. If you look at a lot of those luxury brands, what they do is they use their heritage. All of them, in particular people like Gucci. They will use their archives. I think every designer does. It's so funny, because you think that during the early sixties every designer or whatever was trying to do something space-age. Now they are desperately trying to look into their archives. They are incredibly proud of that. Burberry has existed since 1856; Dior has existed since 1947. The history of the company is more important than the newness of the object.

SB: What about the celebrity and luxury?

SJ: Interestingly here, for those people who are buying real luxury objects, if a celebrity is wearing it, they don’t want to have it. Often what they are about is discretion not celebrity. It's a private luxury, something to enjoy at home with your family or with your friends. I know some very wealthy people and they go out of their way to make sure that they are not photographed.

SB: What role has history played in that luxury is understood today?

SJ: Well, the ingredients in luxury; there’s craftsmanship, and there is authenticity, and so this whole idea that this thing has been passed down from father to son, and because of that it's a good thing. It's a connection to a time which was maybe slower or more time was spent in the creation of a beautiful object. If you look at companies like Burberry or Brioni, particularly menswear of course, and the Savile Row book, The Perfect Gentleman: The Pursuit of Timeless Elegance & Style in London, by James Sherwood, it is about their history. Today luxury is not about the fact that they are going to make an outfit for the man on the moon, but it's all about ‘heritage brands’, which is a particularly British thing and of course related to history.

SB: What does authenticity mean then, within the context of luxury?

SJ: It means that, within a luxury product, authenticity means that it's made using a traditional technique, which is perceived as being high class, and having soul within it.

SB: Do you think celebrity has a role to play in defining luxury?

SJ: : Yes because if Daphne Guinness is walking around with her new Dior handbag there are a whole lot of people out there who will go and buy it because they think she is a tastemaker. They will go and buy what she has. It is very similar now as it always has been. If you look at printed archives from the 1920s or the 1930s, it's always the Marchioness of Cholmondeley wearing a Vionnet ball gown, or it will say something like ‘She will always go to the White House in Piccadilly to buy her fine bed linens.’

SB: What about celebrity endorsement?

SJ: Celebrities are paid for celebrity endorsement; they have been here for a very long time. I think, what happened is that in the last century there was this sense of decorum about it, which happened probably in the fifties, sixties and seventies, but that all got blown away by the revolution in media in the eighties really, when suddenly you knew that Raquel Welch advertised Timotei Shampoo. She was getting paid for it, whereas before when the Marchioness of Cholmondeley was saying how divine Simpson’s was, it wasn't a hard sell. And then suddenly, of course now we know that everything is paid for.

SB:  Any funny stories you may wish to share?

SJ: There was a wonderful story about Mr. John who was a famous milliner in New York in the early sixties. He draped a turban on a famous client. It was like a scarf and he draped it all up and he fastened it with a big pin; a big brooch on the front. He handed the client a bill, and it was $100, and this was in 1963 or something; $100 was a fortune at that time. And the client said ‘ I am not paying that,’ and made a real stink, and there were other clients there, and they were all listening. He was really embarrassed, and he just undid and he said ‘Madam, the fabric is for free, You make it!’

I Was A Rich Mans Plaything