Keep it sweet: as Kate Spade arrives in Mayfair, we meet the Brit behind the billion-dollar brand
If the US retailer Kate Spade was a friend on your Facebook feed, she’d be the girlie one - the sort who posts quotes about shoes and Saturday night snaps of herself drinking cosmopolitans.
Somewhere between Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods and Sex and the City’s Charlotte York Goldenblatt, she’s a Park Avenue princess who likes perky prom dresses, peonies and anything pink.
Essentially, she’s everything we Londoners - a cynical breed with dirt behind our nails and vast navy sweater collections - are not. And yet it seems we can’t get enough of our optimistic American cousin.
Since launching in the UK in 2010 - the brand popped up in Covent Garden before opening three permanent stores - Kate Spade has evolved from a little-known handbag label to an emerging global super-force.
Described by its president and chief creative officer Deborah Lloyd as a brand that’s “more than just about clothes”, Kate Spade kidswear and home are among an enormous remit, which spans everything from Minnie Mouse iPhone cases to cocktail glasses and calfskin biker jackets.
This week Kate Spade - a household name in the US which reportedly enjoys sales in the region of $1.2 billion - opens its largest UK retail venture to date. Positioned strategically on the south of Regent Street - an area synonymous with big-budget superbrands - the new store will bring Kate Spade kids and homeware to the London consumer for the first time.
To coincide with the launch, Kate Spade has unveiled an ad campaign fronted by a dynamic cast of women, including Manhattan’s own Iris Apfel (below) and west Londoner Jourdan Dunn.
It’s a shrewd move certain to resonate with many - most notably the capital’s millennials, who may well be inspired by Dunn’s ability to transform an Upper East Side fashion uniform into something that speaks to them.
But the Greenford model is not the only Brit in Kate Spade’s corner. Far from it, in fact, because its leading lady is as English as they come. An RCA-trained menswear designer, Plymouth-born Deborah Lloyd (below) held positions at a host of British retailers including stints at Burberry - Lloyd was vice-president for women’s design from 1997-2001 - and Aquascutum before America came calling in 2001.
Following a spell at Banana Republic, Lloyd took up the reigns at Kate Spade in 2007. At the time the business, a one-time accessory brand founded in 1993 by former shop assistant Kate Spade, had just been bought out by fashion conglomerate Fifth and Pacific Inc. “I still remember taking that phone call,” says Lloyd when we meet at her Park Avenue HQ. “I knew very little about Kate Spade. But there was an elegance to the tone of voice and a cleverness that resonated. I’m also very feminine. It made sense.”
Back then there were just 80 people employed by the business. Today Lloyd heads up a team of around 650 - “There’s a lot on my shoulders,” she says, “a lot of mortgages to be paid.”
At the heart of the brand’s expansion is a ready-to-wear collection that launched soon after Lloyd’s arrival and the revamping of the brand’s flagship stores - which are instantly recognisable. Bringing together art and architecture, the shops are a paradise for modern-day girlie girls, with neon signs and vibrant furniture a regular occurrence.
It is this element of the business that seems to inspire Lloyd as much as the fashion. So much so that developing tongue-in-cheek homeware items - the brand’s All in Good Taste kitchen towel is a favourite - has played a key role in this success story. Lloyd, a keen interior designer and the daughter of an antiques dealer - “I’ve been a magpie all my life,” she says - is certainly qualified for the task.
Along with her husband Simon Arscott, she owns a Brooklyn townhouse and a modernist weekend home by a lake in upstate New York- both of which have been profiled by fashion magazines. “It was a complete labour of love,” she says. The couple have also recently purchased a “little manor house” near Bath and share a passion for vintage racing cars.
“Storytelling is what I do here and at home,” Lloyd says. “Each floor of my house has a different flavour of the places I’ve been. In our home in Brooklyn the dining room is a bit like a fool’s gallery. There’s everything from The Queen to a Banksy to Ernest Hemingway.”
Lloyd’s green-fingered tendencies - she planted 3,000 bulbs in the grounds of her lakeside home before the builders had chance to finish - is also a key component of the brand’s DNA. Thousands of flowering spring bulbs provided a backdrop for the spring/summer showcase last September while flora and fauna prints are a crucial addition to a Kate Spade collection.
The question, of course, is whether all this girlie stuff will translate to the London consumer. Lloyd, who is undoubtedly overqualified when it comes to telling the Kate Spade story on this side of the Atlantic, seems up to the challenge - “people are starting to understand who we are,” she says.
Her unfaltering sense of Britishness helps. “I miss the food, I miss the sense of humour, I miss Marmite and marmalade and I miss proper tea,” says Lloyd. “Susie, my assistant, is the best in the world but after she still can’t make a cup of tea properly.”
Her understanding of the subtle points of difference between Manhattan and Mayfair could well be the brand’s secret weapon. “New York women are very put together - they have the perfect hair and the perfect nails. The English girl has this amazing fashion twist. There’s a coolness and an eccentricity to her,” she says.
Of course, for Lloyd and her team, who currently operate within a retail model that demands a new collection each month along with two major ready-to-wear showcases at New York Fashion Week, the shift towards fashion that is seasonless and appealing in all four corners of the globe is also very much part of the thought process.
“The conversation is changing so much and I really feel as if we are on the cusp of something new right now. Now it’s time, more than ever, to be consumer-facing.”
With booming sales, 1.6 million Instagram followers and Deborah Lloyd in its corner, Kate Spade seems poised for the challenge. Truly, this is next level flower power.
Join Kate Spade New York to celebrate its new store opening at 182 Regent Street on Friday from 2pm-8pm, when the store will host an immersive edible window installation by artist Jennifer Rubell (katespade.co.uk)
ArticleAs Kate Spade arrives in Mayfair, we meet the Brit behind the brandKate SpadeDeborah LloydKate Spade New YorkThe brand has evolved from a little-known handbag label to an emerging global super-force