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vanity with a touch of vagrant
appeal of the collection. “I’m still wearing jeans and T-shirts but I feel like I have more presence in those things now,” Bartley explains. “And those are the clothes we’re making, that give a woman presence. It harmoniously fits with an experienced personality.”
TEXT ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN
“We’re not trying to make catwalk clothes, we’re trying to make clothes that have a design quality to it but
All imagery courtesy of Hillier Bartley.
also a real quality to it. It hasn’t got bells and whistles,” she says. A pause ensues. “That jacket with the
Once a rebel, always a rebel. Challenging the unwritten rules of the industry, Hillier Bartley is the defiant new label fronted by two of fashion’s most influential contemporary designers.
tassels is pretty bells and whistles,” Hillier laughs. They were first introduced by mutual friend Katie Grand in 1999. Soon, Hillier – Greenford-bred and educated at the University of Westminster – began designing accessories for Luella, the eponymous label Bartley – a Central Saint Martins alum from Stratford Upon Avon – had founded that same year and would front until its closure in 2008. They both spent their twenties in the golden age of London’s underground scenes, in a time before social media would gentrify subculture. “We never felt like we were in it,” Bartley says. “Oh I did,” Hillier ponders. Bartley: “Hindsight creates a lot of underground. Actually, being at a rave you felt like you were.” Hillier: “You really did.” Bartley: “It just felt like youth. You were an army of youth and very different. That was a good feeling.” In the 2000s, Bartley played a huge part in the rise of the indie Brit girl movement and put Mulberry back on the map when she created their Gisele bag, while Hillier has been behind some of fashion’s most famous accessories through her work for designers from Stella McCartney to Marc Jacobs and Victoria Beckham. If the accomplishments that shot them to fashion fame sprung from the environment surrounding their youth, however, they haven’t allowed it to define them. Quite the opposite, Hillier Bartley is the embodiment of the cool indie girl, who has now grown up and is feeling sexy in a different way. (Not that it in any way excludes women under thirty, as proved by early customer Florence Welch.) “I still wear sequinned leopard print dresses with thigh high suede boots,” Hillier says. “But they’re flat boots, they’re not high boots. And the dress is a certain—you know, it’s decent.” You could say the collection – much like Bartley and Hillier themselves – is youth in a grown-up shell. But with their aged, authoritarian femininity there’s a certain sort of eccentricity to the garments. “Vanity with a touch of vagrant,” Bartley says, echoing a quote used about Lucian Freud. “It’s that kind of eccentricity: an aged eccentricity, a subtle eccentricity.” It’s certainly reflected in the characters that inspired it: Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen, Withnail from Withnail and I, Edward VIII, David Bowie, Virginia Woolf, Princess Anne, and Katharine Hepburn. But, as Bartley says, “You’ve put the years in so you’re allowed to use the references. They feel personal as opposed to going, ‘That’s cool. I’ll have that.’ Which, admittedly, is what I used to do. I’d go, ‘Ooh, Kathleen Hanna, I’ll have a bit of that!’ And I hadn’t even listened to the music.”
Luella Bartley recently bought her
recently reinvented Marc by Marc
first pair of heels. “Oh they’re so
Jacobs together, until the line folded
slutty. Proper slutty Saint Laurent
into the brand’s main collection. They
heels,” she says, chuffed. “It’s
were already planning the new label
more of an empowered slut,” Katie
before that happened, and what
Hillier adds, “because you do feel
Bartley calls the “grown-up, woman-
in our product, but we’re not going for world domination. We’re going for cottage industry.” In other
very bossy in that stuff.” Giving into
friendly” spirit of Hillier Bartley isn’t
words: no shows, no presentations, and no
the sex appeal of the stiletto was
a reaction against the hyper-young
pre-collections—anytime
something of an epiphany for Bartley,
aesthetic the pair perfected at MBMJ,
“These sweeping statements you always
a lifer in the flats department. “I feel
but an answer to what they felt
regret,” Bartley laughs, “but at the moment I
like I’ve changed loads in the last
fashion was missing for women like
feel like I could happily not do another show. I
year. It was that dress,” she admits,
themselves—wrapped in a label run
don’t think it fits with what we’re trying to do. I
referring to a floor-length crepe gown
by themselves, on their own terms.
would much prefer to show someone, and talk
with a tuxedo scarf attached to it,
(Hillier continues to work for Marc
about it myself and have them trying things on
the showstopper in the debut Hillier
Jacobs.) You could say they’re building
and feeling it.”
Bartley collection the two designers are launching this season. “As you get older you
a new empire, but you’d be wise not to. “We’re building a semi-detached, made out of
become so much more in tune with your own sexuality. This collection I feel is the
sandstone,” Bartley quips. “It could be Georgian,” offers Hillier.
sexiest thing I’ve ever done. And I know it’s completely covered up and it’s mainly
It’s the independent core of Hillier Bartley, and part of an ethos that’s really quite
menswear, but it’s so elegant and sexy. And it was kind of redefining what sexy can
rebellious in an industry where megalomania is heaven and youth worship is the
be,” Bartley says. “For me that menswear-y loucheness is very sexy.” Hillier: “A satin
reverence that’ll get you there. “It’s a different kind of rebellion when you’re older.
blouse with no bra!” Bartley: “That reminded me immediately of Madonna in a blue
Young rebellion is full of angst and energy, and older rebellion is a real kind of personal
Gucci silk…”—“Oh yeah, you could see her nips. That’s what I like,” Hillier smirks.
don’t-give-a-shit-about-what’s-going-on and you become so comfortable in your skin
Perched on a sofa in the foyer of their studio building, the Rochelle School of Arts in
that you just do what you want,” Bartley says. Their first collection, shown only to
Shoreditch, the BFF designers are like a non-stop ping-pong machine of wry mischief,
buyers in the spring and shot for its public unveiling on these pages, is a handsome
even at 10 AM. Just on the other side of 40, they’ve spent the past 20 years influencing
and somewhat princely line of pristine tailoring, the perfect camel coat, silky pussy
the fashion landscape – Bartley via womenswear, Hillier via accessories – and most
bow blouses, and that grand de-formalised gown that defines the sophisticated sex
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Above all, it’s about taking charge and the independence that comes with it, creatively as well as commercially. “It’s about not taking dictats from anywhere else. We’re doing what we can cope with and what we can control and what we feel comfortable with. We’re not gonna make a north-south tote just because everyone else is.” Bartley says. “And that might mean we don’t make as much money, but we’re kind of okay with that,” Hillier adds. “Obviously we want to make money, that’s why we’re doing it – it’s our vanity project – and we believe
soon,
@hillierbartley
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anyway.