Enter Emma Hill and Mulberry. In the twilight of 'it-bag' mania, Emma was asked to be the label’s creative director and, after 13 years of living and working in the Big Apple for the calibre of mega-brands that define the term American-style – Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Gap – the English girl came home.

Ponystep caught up with Emma before and after she showcased Mulberry’s AW10 collection in the New York and London –presentations that managed to put a smile on editors’ faces yet again – and to find out how Hill has seamlessly inserted herself into a historic brand’s DNA, how she can tell when a handbag is designed by a man and what it is about a girl called Alexa and … well, you know the rest.

 

Kiki Georgiou: Congratulations on both the SS10 and AW10 collections. They were really great, so upbeat and fun! Was that your intention from the start? 

Emma Hill: Yes, totally. I’m classically trained. So I get quite obsessed by something – normally a film, a book or an image – and the themes from these carry on all through the season. Whether it’s the clothes themselves or the bags. When I think about Mulberry, I feel we’re quite optimistic and not too serious. I think it was really nice that we used so much colour. I love colour. I love print. I think that fashion should be fun. And for our brand, it’s fun and playful and we always do things that are sort of ironic for example, the millions of balloons for spring. Every event we did, we were blowing up 5,000 balloons. It was fun.

KG: So, from Spring's fairground to the jungle for Fall.

EH: For Fall ‘10 I became obsessed by the movie “Valley of the Dolls” and by naughty English royalty and leopards. We incorporated those obsessions and inspirations all over the place. They’re in the theatrical silhouettes of our puff Neely sleeve of the season and cone skirts. In the super-posh finishing, the iconic prints, the soon-to-be ‘it-bags' of Lily and Edna - which are uptown in attitude but given a big dose of effortless Mulberry cool - regal charms and ironic crests. We also went leopard-tastic!  And, finally, we mixed the “Bare Necessities” soundtrack into the show music, along with sporadic voiceovers from excerpts of Eartha Kitt narrating “The Jungle Book”. Fierce!

KG: It seemed that every group of pieces, whether shoes, bags or clothes, had an even representation in the show, instead of one dominating the rest. Is this an indication that you're pushing the ready-to-wear further than before? I also loved how hardware usually associated with the accessories was incorporated into the clothing.

EH: It was really about making the bags, ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories really feel like one world, one theme, one family. And having ready-to-wear be a fully-evolved, luxury, gotta-have-it collection that was  standalone in its own right but also related to the accessories. And weren’t you paying attention! I loved that you noticed how we applied our iconic hardware pieces. This was deliberate, and was done not only to make the two collections more cohesive, but also to sprinkle our ready-to-wear with that iconic Mulberry X-Factor. We think it worked.

KG: Do you think the British character of the brand means that it has to be a bit cheeky and charming?

EH: Totally.  When I think about brands in general, it’s only ever British brands that can really do that. I mean, there are other brands, like Italian, that can be quite humorous, but they always seem to take humour a bit more seriously. I think with English people, there’s always an undercurrent of eccentricity, just looking at the world in a slightly different way. I don’t know if it’s our weather but definitely, that’s always there, an effortless sense of humour. When I look at celebrities, the ones that we love the most, dress not with a stylist but dress themselves.

KG: I guess that leads us really well onto a certain Ms Chung and the whole Alexa-mania that seems to be everywhere. Were you prepared for that or has it caught you by surprise?

EH: No, it didn’t catch me by surprise only that we didn’t make enough of the bags. So, that might have caught our production team by surprise. It’s one of those things for me and my team like a gut instinct. We almost describe it as that moment when you see something and it’s whether you squeal or not. The thing that I always say is, “My nose is itching! I can smell the money, it’s itching.” 

KG: When where you working on the ‘Alexa’?

EH: Oh my God, when were we? We’ve already done Spring ’11. We start Fall ’11 in a month or so.

KG: Wow, you’re really on it!

EH: Yeah, we just get on with it – with some weird inspiration from my childhood or something. With the ‘Alexa’, when we first saw the prototype we thought it was really good. For me, it’s not about going into the Mulberry archives per se, I’m not really somebody that goes back and gets an old piece and reissues it in exactly the same way. What I think is really successful is – and I’m really obsessed with brands – when you have something that looks like you’ve always had it in your life. And when I look at the ‘Alexa’, I feel we couldn’t have possibly never had it, ‘Alexa’ has always been here, always been with us. And in that way, it isn’t an it-bag, it sort of becomes the anti-it bag. So, it speaks to our heritage. We saw a photograph of Alexa carrying our Elkington bag, which is a really old classic men’s briefcase which we have been doing for years and that’s where it all started. And in her amazingly stylish way, she’d put it together with her classic Alexa look – a cute little, short smocky dress, a long cardigan, a lovely boot – then she had this really old, battered Elkington and she was wearing that instead of wearing a handbag. And we just loved the way that she looked and that’s how the ‘Alexa’ was born.

KG: How do you take it forward while ensuring that it still retains what made it so desirable and popular in the first place? 

 

EH: Oh, yes! So, we have the Spring ones and then we’ve reinterpreted it for Fall in a fabulous, spot-on for the season, crazy, loopy leopard printed denim, given a love-worn-look enzyme wash and an uptown diamond quilt. We’ve also reincarnated her in gorgeous natural leopard haircalf, in multi-mixed leopard spot scales, a chic sparkle tweed leather and a slouchy summer tweed. We’ve also added new “family members” – a hobo and a shoulder clutch – sure to become new favourites. Yes, she’s had a facelift. But it’s so funny, we’re slowly getting our staff orders in and we’re all worrying that we’re not going to get our ‘Alexas’. You can’t keep them in the store. I went past Bond Street and there’s no bloody window display, they had to take them all out because they’re selling them all. But I just got mine!

KG: You have to have one, you made the thing.

EH: I’m a slave to the brand so I act like a human compass. I don’t know if I would have continued much longer, I was getting very jealous of everyone else with theirs.

KG: That must prove that you’re really tapping into something if it’s got such an amazing response from people.

 

EH: I think that fashion is emotional. We have a lot of fun in the office. I have an amazing team. I happen to be a fashion designer but I don’t really buy into a lot of the stuff that goes along with it. We have a really good time, we’re like a little family. We don’t do as much as we’d like to, but we try and do things like have bowling nights and silly things like that. So, we have a really good time and I think that really shows. There are so many processes, there are so many stages it goes through, like pricing meetings. It can lose its lustre.

KG: Looking back, why did you decide to accept the position of creative director at Mulberry? What attracted you to it?

EH: I’d moved back to England for personal reasons – well, slightly personal and slightly work. However, there aren’t that many places to work here. Mulberry was the one place that I thought I’d really love to work. I only really accept jobs where I think that I have a natural affinity with the brand. I have been offered jobs by brands that I think are amazing but I don’t have a natural affinity with them, I wouldn’t really wear it. 

KG: I guess you’re honest in that way.

EH: I think you have to have that. It’s funny because I’ve done very different things, I’ve worked for very, very different people, so it’s not about having the same look. I think it’s about an integrity or a heritage. When I was at Calvin Klein for instance, Calvin could not be more different than Mulberry. I loved it. I think that Calvin was a genius, but there was a real sense of integrity in everything – every pencil, how we had our Christmas, what colour flowers. There was a real sense of brand.

KG: It’s the real character that’s there.

EH: Yes, and not fake. I can’t bear fake things they really upset me and it’s not about something being expensive necessarily. It’s about having something real. I don’t really like things that look like they function but don’t really and what I really love about Mulberry is that I think it’s a very authentic brand. I’ve lived in New York for so long that my attitude is now “Why don’t we do it like this or we should do it like that?” Quite sort of OCD, obsessing about things and some British companies can have the approach of “Oh, well, we’re British and we’re just bumbling along”, so we’ve both been good for each other. We’ve been a good marriage, me and Mulberry.

KG: That must have been quite a transition, moving from New York where you were for so many years, to back here in the UK and working for a very British company.

EH: It was different! I’d lived in New York for so long and I had my son there. I had it tattooed on my ankle, New York was my first love. I’m obsessed. So, that was difficult, I didn’t think I was ever going to make it out of there. New York is like London in the way that there aren’t that many places to work. I’d worked for the best of the best and I felt that I

wanted to do that European thing. Now I’m here I love it! Well, I am English but I always say that I’m more American in England and more English in America.

KG: As a designer, how do you tap into the identity of a brand? How do you move from Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs to the British mentality of Mulberry?

 

EH: I don’t know, it’s a really difficult thing. I don’t know that you should verbalise it. I think you can tell when something is easy for someone or forced when people are reinventing brands. I always look at it not as reinventing brands but taking them right back to their roots, to their original DNA, if you like. It’s more of a feeling here at Mulberry and I apply that filter to everything. Whenever we do anything I look at it and ask whether it is Mulberry to me.

KG: It’s an interesting fact that Mulberry now remains the only luxury British brand that retains its UK factory. Is that connection vital?

EH: Exactly, I think it’s really vital to who we are. Obviously, we don’t make everything there. We can’t possibly. But it is vital from a brand point-of-view but also a personal point- of-view too. My grandparents, and that whole side of my family were all Welsh and were all miners or bakers, and they all lived in the Valley. They did things, they made things. They produced things with their hands. London and Britain right now are all about moving money around and I think it’s really important to keep alive these kinds of traditions. We have whole generations of families who’ve worked there, we’ll have three generations, the granddaughter, the mother and the grandma, all in different parts of the factory doing different things!

KG: You can’t buy that experience and knowledge.

EH: You totally can’t. We’ve also started an apprentice programme. ! I’m a real factory girl, as well. When I was at Marc (Jacobs) I literally lived in Florence. I spent all my time in Florence, always at the factory. I really believe that you have to have that, you have to be that close to your product. I encourage my team to spend a lot of time in Somerset, at the factory, and working with the pattern-maker. I believe that’s the only way you can do something and have something very realised.

KG: I guess from a practical level, it’s all very well designing something that looks fantastic but you also have to be able to make it into a real product.

EH: Totally, and have a relationship with your pattern-cutter and the teams that are making it. I know when I first got here and went down to the factory like in my first week I know they all said, “Oh God, she’s from New York and Marc Jacobs and she’s going to think we’re very provincial and she’ll want to do everything in Italy!”

KG: It’s not just about being romantic and reminiscent of the past. There are important skills there that add to a brand.

EH: Nobody is going to do something at a huge financial loss but it’s been really good doing the apprenticeships. We did a survey and realised the average age of a worker at our factory was really rising. That’s what’s happening with Italian factories right now. Young people don’t necessarily want to go into a trade they think is old-fashioned. But you know, these things need to be passed on. And it’s great, I’ll go to the factory now and the workers are really engaged with it. When you walk around it’s really cute – all the young guys have pinned up pictures from magazines with all the celebs wearing the bags. I think that’s really nice. Much more now, there’s a real connection for them, “This is what I work on and Kate Moss is wearing it!” There’s a real sense of pride. We’ve also got a really beautiful sweater and cardigan we’re doing for Fall that we joke is so Fairtrade. It’s very intricate and this Scottish granny is knitting it up in Scotland. Most of our dresses and scarves are made in England. Obviously the leathers are all made in Italy and some opening price point items are made in China, but we have an honesty about that, I think, and maybe other people don’t. I’m quite happy to say that a £400 bag is not going to be made in Somerset. We talk a lot in this company about being honest.

KG: The whole ‘it-bag’ thing that came and went, is it something that you even consider when you sit down to design a bag – the impact it’s going to have?

EH: No, no. There’s been a lot of talk about ‘it-bags’. But it doesn’t matter, you can still not think about it and still come up with an 'it-bag'. When I first got here I was completely the reverse. I was concerned that they had so much of their revenue based in the Bayswater, from an aesthetic tradition, but also from a financial position, that I think it was rather precarious. That immediately makes it an it-bag and we all know the fate of ‘it- bags’! They’re as unwelcome as last year’s restaurant! From the way that I dress and my friends dress, it’s not about wearing one thing head-to-toe or really conspicuous consumption. Who wants to look like everyone else? One of the things that we talk about a lot is how you can wear things differently. I joke, I call them “two-fers and three-fers” like the announcements in American supermarkets “it’s a two-fer deal” – you get two for the price of one. So lots of our bags do things – you can wear them across body or on the shoulder or take the strap off. I think all those things help to make it more individual. In spring, for example, we knew that ‘Alexa’ was going to be huge, not to dismiss anything else in the collection, but Fall for instance is more of an even spread.

KG: How do you come up with a new design? Is it usually something that you personally want to have or what you see missing in the marketplace?

EH: No, I never really pay attention to what’s around or missing. I have a three year old and I’m always busy. We do it from a feeling. It always starts with a Mulberry filter and we work in a normal way. We go to a lot of vintage fairs and we scramble around in dirty boxes and God knows what.

KG: Do the bags and accessories inspire the clothing, or vice versa?

EH: We used to start with bags because the timetable dictates it. Bags always take longer and there’s a million components and pieces. But when I first got to Mulberry, I felt that the clothes and the bags were quite disconnected so we’ve changed the calendar now. I kick-off the season by showing a film that I’m really interested in and showing bits and pieces like a little Emma show-and-tell, and then we start to feel the season. And now bags and clothing all start at the same time. Obviously, the majority of our business is bags but ready-to-wear is a real focus.  We’re really loving applying the same bag philosophy to the clothing.

KG: The ‘Alexa’ made your nose itch for spring, what is it this time around?

EH: My bag-nose has been itching non-stop this season! My itch-worthy bags are the ‘Lily’ in anthracite python and the natural leopard haircalf; the ‘Edna’ shoulder bag in camel and of course the ‘Alexa’, but oversized in plum loopy leopard quilted denim and the ‘Greta’ hobo.

KG: I read an interesting quote you gave, when you said that you can tell when a bag has been designed by a man because it’s usually too heavy. Isn’t that true?

EH: It’s so true! You can always tell when a man has designed anything. But you know, I do think there’s a natural affinity towards your own sex. Sometimes it’s the way a man wants a woman to look. As I mentioned before, I have a three-year- old and I’m a working mum and have a million things going on. You know when you pick up a bag and before you’ve even put in all your shit, it weights 10 kilos. There was something in the paper the other day about the average weigh of a woman’s handbag and how much more it is now. Apparently there’s a new medical term “WAG elbow” caused by carrying a bag in the crook of your arm and causing your elbow to… I don’t know what! WAG elbow, I love it!