These creators are designing chic, versatile and well-priced wardrobe solutions – and they’re as inspirational as their clothes
What do women want from their wardrobes? The short answer: a lot. The longer answer: outfits that can take us from having breakfast with jam-smearing toddlers to meetings with the formidable boss to drinks with rarely-seen friends to dinner with our neglected partners. Oh, and if you can make it all machine-washable, crease-free, kind to the environment and with change from £250, that would be great.
Most women find ourselves having to work harder, faster and longer than ever before. As more demands are placed on us, we in turn place more on our wardrobes. We want the impossible – clothing for any and every occasion. But where to find these affordable, gorgeous unicorns?
Increasingly, it seems, ‘from other women’. In a retail landscape dominated by high-fashion brands at one end and fast-fashion brands at the other, a small cabal of female-led labels are carving out a niche as purveyors of chic, versatile and well-priced wardrobe solutions. Style-wise, they know exactly what women want – because they are these women. They, too, have busy lives; they understand the struggle and the juggle. Price-wise, they eschew the increasingly steep four-figure price tags beloved of designers who show at London or Paris Fashion Weeks, while still being reassuringly expensive enough to suggest that their manufacturing is ethical.
Rather than advertising, paying influencers or throwing expensive catwalk shows, this new breed of designer often posts on social media wearing her own label – and has been the benefactor of those eager ‘ooh, where did you get that?’ questions that women ask each other at any gathering where one of them is wearing a good skirt, pretty dress or trouser suit that doesn’t make them look like a senior politician.