The Cool English Queen

Luella Bartley doesn’t create only Best-sellers bags: the clothes created by this English stylist are also very popular around the world. In 2002 Gisele Bündchen opened Luella’s collection holding a bag full of hearts named after the model. The success was almost instantaneous. Nowadays Luella (32) represents more than bags, she is the cool queen of England and her pieces are much disputed around the world. Launched in 99 like a joke between friends, her brand is now thing of grownups people and it is selling from NY until Dubai. The recently collaboration with “Target” helped her to reach the popular taste, with striped blazers, cherry patterns, skinny jeans and good price (USD 30 – USD 130). Her huge success is the female style, very young and very English. The clothes looks like tailor-made to a girl who date a surfer, friend of rock stars and ride horses on the weekends (like her lifestyle). Married to the famous photographer David Sims, whit 2 children (Kip, 3 and Stevie, 1) she has an enviable list of friends, like her best friend Katie Grand, founder of the magazine Pop and stylist of Prada and Miu Miu, Katie Hillier, Marc Jacobs designer and Giles Deacon, ex-Bottega Veneta. They all work together in a house located in east London. The group met each other at Central Saint Martins, a famous fashion college in London in 1990. As the Luella wrote on her website, she never sewed dresses for her doll or heard the call of fashion but she decided to bet in this area anyway. In her first year at University she found the course very oppressive and changed from fashion designer to patterns designer and then fashion journalism. At age 20 she was writing to magazines, including a few articles was published in the front page of newspaper Evening Standard and, the next step was join the team of journalists of English Vogue. In february 2000 she was invited to participate to London Fashion Week and the name of her collection was: “Daddy, who were The Clash?”. The funny name, along with the others chosen to the next collections, recalls at her personal life. Her father was passionate about horses, boats and music from where we note her references. The followed year she launched a more grownup collection, full of sophisticated clothes, pearls, cardigans and bow, with clear references to Chanel. The stylist says that now she can mix all her interests: the countryside of England, art and punk music. Bartley is tipped to replace Phoebe Philo, who is leaving the brand Chloé, but this invitation is not confirmed yet. For now she is living in Highbury with her family, both a farm in Cornualha, very close the south beaches of England and affirms that, even thinking to move to countryside, she will always be a teenager who likes punk rock.

WE HOPE!

A.Stern