A Brand With A Difference: Honest, Transparent Fashion
Pictured: Connaught jacket in Red Jacquard, £148
Our effortless, professional style is the antithesis of fast fashion. We combine transparent, responsible sourcing with cutting edge British design, to create luxurious garments that are intended to be worn all year round, for many years to come.
Below is the story of our bestselling Connaught jacket, from design conceptualisation right through to manufacturing.
DESIGN INSPIRATION
Each season Libby works with our in-house designer to create new collections. Our bestselling Connaught jacket is truly Libby’s handwriting. Design inspiration can come from many different places; the idea for Connaught originally came from one of our all-time favourite TV shows House of Cards.
All of our designs are named after special British places. In Libby’s previous career in finance she had many meetings at The Connaught, a stylish hotel in Mayfair, and wanted to name the jacket after this memory.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
At our SS20 photoshoot, we thought the Connaught jacket needed an extra something. Libby asked our product development manager to quickly sew a grosgrain trim onto the cuffs. Our design development manager misheard and put the trim above the pockets as well as the cuff. Sometimes great designs happen by accident!
FABRICS & TRIMS
Fabrics and trims can either make or break a good design, and since the Connaught jacket is so special, it required an equally luxurious fabric to bring it to life.
When choosing any new fabric, our design team endeavours to meet 3 key criteria: aesthetic (will it remain relevant for years to come?), feel (is it comfortable and soft against the skin?) and performance (is it strong and durable?).
Our beautiful Red Jacquard was specially woven to our own design by Dutel, the world’s leading French jacquard manufacturer. Dutel supported Libby when she first set up the business over 9 years ago and we have had a successful partnership with them ever since. The buttons on this jacket are custom dyed from the family run British button company Jones and Co. who have been making buttons since 1909.
Each one of our garments is bound on the inside with signature taupe binding. We feel strongly that the inside of a garment should look as perfect as the outside; it is these luxurious touches that make our garments unique.
SAMPLING
We resampled, re-fitted and tweaked the pattern for Connaught 6 times. We meticulously fit every one of our designs on our fit model Vicky, often numerous times. We have worked with Vicky on every collection for 5 years to ensure sizing consistency throughout.
MANUFACTURING
Our carbon footprint is incredibly low as we make the majority of our garments within 12 miles of our London design studio at our factory in North London. We also produce in limited quantities so that no excess stock ends up in landfill. This is why from time to time you may see particular products on pre-order, or ‘delivery 3 weeks’. We make this option available when the original production run has sold out.
Our QC (quality checker) Josephine meticulously checks all of our garments on site at the factory before they are shipped to our distribution warehouse.
Our Connaught jacket is also available in:
If you have any other questions that we didn’t cover here, we’d love to hear from you.