Jenny Packham: Fashion In Motion
We caught up with one of Kate Middleton's favourite designers at her catwalk retrospective. See what she had to say about royal style and more
How did you choose which dresses to feature?
Jenny: I teamed up with Lucy Ewing who’s a stylist we’ve been working with for a while from The Sunday Times. I felt I needed to work with someone as I would be picking out all my favourites; which is actually what I did!
I didn’t want to do a retrospective where we had 'this is one is from this season; that season'. I really wanted people to go away feeling that they had just seen a very glamorous show of dresses and you wouldn’t really be able to tell which ones came from what season. We picked out ones that just worked well together.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
What were your favourite pieces from the show?
Jenny:I absolutely loved the red dress at the end just because I think it has such an impact. And also because it was shot by Tim Walker for a shoot with Tim Burton and Karen Olsen, which was just a fabulous picture. And the dress with the hand-painted flowers, which is the ultimate dress. I just love that. I always love long shirt dresses with hand painting on it, it’s just wonderful. Ultimately they are my favourites from the years.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
How closely related are the wedding and the main line collections?
Jenny: We do design a whole bridal collection and I would say possibly from each collection there might only be one or two or three taken from an eveningwear collection. So most of them now are designed as bridal wear.
We might take inspiration from the beading, and sometimes it works the other way round where something we’ve done for bridal we might pick up on the eveningwear collection. So they’re very related, but I think bridal wear is a different criteria; it has to have something, you know, to make someone fall in love with it. It has to have that little bit of magic. Not that the evening wear doesn't, but then has to be a bit more contemporary, I suppose.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
What inspires you?
Jenny: I think the colours, generally, are the thing that really get me. If you find you sometimes choose a bunch of colours that nobody is wanting to work with - the rust colour or something - then we just feel that it is probably wrong. I think it is very hard to design in colours you don’t feel right about.
A couple of seasons ago a sales lady we worked with said 'I need bright colours, bright colours' and we said "We can’t do bright colours". So I think there is a lot in the colour that takes you onto the next sort of inspiration point.
Every season it’s different. And some seasons there just isn’t an absolute direction, you just get a feeling you want to work in a particular way.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
This is your 25th year in fashion. What have been the biggest challenges you have faced?
Jenny: How long have you got?
No, I suppose getting a business going. Now it’s so different - it’s probably more challenging in some ways because when we started the business 25 years ago we didn’t have a mobile phone, which is just so weird to think about. And I think we just had one PC and then when the Internet happened we all used to share it for a bit.
But I think at that point - not having that access to the world and having to visit shops - it was a lot of energy finding the shops and getting them to be interested in what you do and then you put it in their shop and they have to sell it and then you have to get paid. So it is quite a long journey to get something off the ground like that.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
What have been your highlights?
Jenny: When we started doing the catwalks...because actually we had been in business for about 9 or 10 years before we had a catwalk. It was our belief we should have a customer base and that the catwalk was actually supporting and increasing the business. We wanted to be financially stable enough to continue to have fashion shows.
We were lucky enough to be sponsored with the early ones. So that was a great creative push actually, being able to present the dresses so that people see the way they move and enjoy the colours and the beading that we do. You know the fashion business is very tough; it’s critical and it really brings out the best in you. So that’s been great.
And I’ve really enjoyed all the travelling. I’ve been all over the world visiting factories, shops. Now we’ve got our own base in New York, so, I think that’s an amazing thing to have in your life.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
You've worked with Sex And The City's Patricia Fields before, would you ever consider doing a TV show now?
Jenny: Oh I’d love to...that was amazing with Patricia Field. That was one of the most memorable shows, she was crazy, dark, wonderful... very, very good. Yeah that something that’s been really nice; working with different stylists throughout the different shows and just sort of seeing how they reinvent or interpret what you’ve done.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
With a new documentary on Diana coming out now, what do you remember most about her fashion?
Jenny: With the whole 80s thing going on now, it’s something that won’t go away...I hated the 80s for years, and now I look back and think, actually, there was something really cool about it. That shoot Diana did with Mario Testino - where she looked absolutely amazing, I think she had a Versace dress on - was actually, for me, quite an inspiration because it was completely beaded and quite unusual… There are certain things I just remember and obviously the dancing with John Travolta was also a big moment.
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
What's next for your label?
Jenny: Well this year we’ve had quite a few events to do with 25 years of business. Opening our own office in New York and really developing the American business… There seems to be a lot of opportunities there at the moment and I think business is coming from new areas. So there’s really quite a lot to do!
See our Vine highlights from the V&A catwalk show.
