London-based New Zealander Karen Cole is giving merino wool a designer edge and succeeding.
Karen Cole is a name you may not immediately recognise but this Kiwi-born, London-based designer's clothes can be found in more than 150 boutiques throughout Britain, Europe and Sweden. From her studio in W1 London, this elegant blonde has slowly and quietly been introducing European women to her collection of body-conscious clothing, crafted largely from the finest New Zealand-grown merino wool.
"We do sit alongside people like Paul Smith and Nicole Farhi ... then in higher end boutiques where you find the likes of labels such as your Dries van Notens and your Pradas," she explained recently while on a visit home to see family in Auckland.
Cole was originally inspired to work with merino when she realised how wonderful it would be to wear in a city where central heating was a key part of daily life.
"You didn't have to have these bulky great jerseys and it's just a really beautiful thing to wear next to your skin. People did seem to be doing merino in the sporting area but not in any tasteful way. It was second nature to me to actually put it into beautiful shapes and beautiful colours. I started out with the tightest, tightest little collection."
Just seven years ago Cole "literally went around with my little merino tops and dresses and knocked on the doors of the boutique owners that I thought would be interested".
Her merchandise was well received and quickly sold out.
It was a baptism of fire for this fledgling designer who initially qualified as a speech and language therapist.
"I didn't understand anything about having to hold stock or anything like that but you catch on pretty quickly," she says.
Cole says her typical customer is "just very busy, out-there, involved, well-read and interested and absorbing, quite often a career woman". In other words it's the type of woman epitomised by actress Emilia Fox who is the public face and champion of the label.
"She is very representative of the brand and she's indicative of who we are. She's just an English rose, she's an amazing actress and she comes from a family that is very, very real and in touch."
Themes of reality and practicality are ever-present in Cole's mind.
"It is really important to accommodate people's changing shapes and just understand how women's bodies are changing. We can't all be stick insects but that doesn't mean we don't want to look really good. Most of us want to look like 25-year-olds. We can't, but that doesn't mean that desire ever goes away. I always cut to accommodate the danger zones ... to make something look beautiful but be very practical about how it's going to be worn on a realistic body."
The Karen Cole merino range includes zip dresses, long skirts, tops, tunics, leggings, coats and twist-front cardigans. But what would she describe as her signature piece?
"It's the classic merino wrap dress. It was just massive. You know, Diane von Furstenberg has been doing [the wrap dress] for the last 30 years and there's probably a very good reason why. We have beautiful merino dresses, beautiful merino coats. Most of the winter collection is merino. We've got a huge lace collection which is really successful, too."
If she had to distil her fashion brand down to a single pithy idea it would be "Just really smart things that people want to put on every day. They can dress it up, dress it down. This season there's this amazing wool crepe Chanel-type suit which the buyers are going completely mad for. The Mad Men/Audrey Hepburn/Grace Kelly-theme has been enormous for us for the last spring/summer. We've got this really beautiful boucle suit coming through with nipped-in waists, and amazing sundresses called 'Love in the Garden'. We've sold masses of cotton voile dresses - and women absolutely love our capris."
Cole credits her traditional upbringing in rural Clevedon with establishing many of the principles she still holds dear. "At the risk of sounding like the Bennett sisters, we literally were taught how to do drawn-thread work on linen-shirts and hemstitched nighties. I was the middle [sister] of three girls; that's what we did. We were sewers and we were knitters."
She may have had "no formal training whatsoever" in fashion design, yet Cole found inspiration in the creativity of her embroidering grandmother and bead-working aunt. "When you're brought up actually being taught to notice the difference you get used to looking at texture and colour and fabric. It's just sort of in you, I think."
The Clevedon paddocks are a long way from the Grosvenor St showroom in London where the Karen Cole collections are shown.
"Buyers come from all over," says Cole. "In the buying season the buyers just descend on you ... from Ireland, England, Sweden, Europe - I mean, wherever."
Prestigious publication Drapers, widely regarded as the British fashion industry's "bible", listed Karen Cole as having the third best-selling dress of the season and fifth in the best sell-through for the season. "The reason I think the Drapers article was so significant was, in this really, really difficult market, we were getting more clients wanting to come and see us in the showroom than we've ever had before. And that's because it represents a commercial label really. It's selling. And you're vindicated by what the buyers are saying about you and what the industry's saying about you."
Together with her lawyer husband Robin, Cole has raised three sons aged from 16 through to 20 with "no interest in fashion whatsoever". In their Wandsworth home, Sunday night is "an absolute collapse-in-a-heap night" when they insist the boys come to dinner to catch up on everyone's news while feasting on home-cooked dishes such as the River Cafe's slow-roasted pork with chilli, fennel seeds and lemon. On Friday or Saturday it's usually curries on the Tooting High Rd. "That's an absolute hot, hot favourite. There are lots of Indian restaurants: Formica-topped tables, multicultural, really cheap but just fantastic."
Travel is a vital source of inspiration for future collections. "Going off to places like Marrakech and doing things like that really does feed you, it does." Along with twice-yearly trips back to New Zealand. . "So I'm sort of popping off and stopping off on the way and just absorbing. But then you see the most amazing things just in the landscape in New Zealand and in the incredibly creative people that are here."
Cole always tries to pack economically. "Go light if you can. They're just so exhausting those [trade shows trips] and you just sort of have to be so practical about it. I do take my fur-edged possum wrap with me absolutely everywhere I go because it is the warmest thing and you always get freezing [cold] on planes." Called a Brushie, this wrap is a trademarked piece made of merino/silk/ possum interwoven fibre, and, according to the Karen Cole website, is "coveted by true fashionistas".
* For Karen Cole in New Zealand, ph (09) 522 0904 or email info@karencole.co.uk for your nearest stockist.
