Part III of our plans for 2025.
We’ll be producing more jumpers, ceramics, a tote bag and possibly what we’re calling a car bag, which is a giant bag for storing stuff in the boot. Then we’re hoping to do quilts. And there will be scarves and bandanas and a new jacket and maybe some hats. This will all be made in the UK exclusively for us.
But we won’t be doing seasonal collections. We’ll add things when they feel ready.
This is a true luxury, and it helps us to make better products. As Sarah eases herself back into pattern cutting, she finds the slow steady tweaking of ideas and shapes really suits her. Caroline also prefers to work like this. I am massively impatient and hurried, but I trust and like this process.
Where do you start?
By which I mean something like a new collection of clothing and homewares, when there is so much choice, there are so many styles, so many ideas. I mean, you have to start somewhere. You need a jumping off point. But where is that?
A real mood board. A scrap book, even.
Right at the beginning of Gladstone / Hellen we decided to create a mood board that acted to collate physical references; labels we liked, fabric, photos of my mum and Ernest Hemmingway fishing, (not together…sadly), postcards, string, buttons. We keep updating this.
And we started a scrap book, inspired by Julian Broad who took the top two photos.
These remind us what we want to do, where we started and where we’re going.
There is so much amazing stuff out there. Instagram is truly remarkable but there is just so much stuff that at some point we have to stop and anchor our ideas to something. Digital is great, analogue is great; for this we chose the latter, it works better for us.
Then, this year we came across a Ralph Lauren photoshoot from 1984 and that was our jumping off point and anchor. Ralph Lauren is a particular form of genius and part of that genius is his magpie-like use of British lifestyle. He borrowed it and we’re borrowing it back.
There are two main things that made these photos really sing to us.
First, the clothes look great -and no doubt work well- in the city and in the countryside. That was one of our aims when we started Gladstone / Hellen. I mean, here are some very cool looking women dressed in solid but super chic ‘country’ clothes, standing in the city in the snow. Boom!
Second, this image still looks great today. That is a rare and beautiful thing. We are in the business of clothes and homewares that are not fashionable but eternally stylish, so, well, you get the idea.
Anyway, here is the original shot and here are my partners, taken by Arran Cross, doing it for you in our soon-to-be-restored show room and studio.
As an aside, Ralph Lauren doesn’t get much mention in fashion circles and probably the widest association with his work are the tonnes and tonnes of cheaply made polo shirts that flood discount villages across the globe every year. But there is so much that’s great about his work; great quality, a strong point of view, the ability to mix styles like no one else.
