Thursday, April 5, 2012

SHOW + TELL: SOPHIE HULME

Posted by Melanie Rickey, Fashion Editor at Large

The first time I met Sophie Hulme in person was last September at London Fashion Week when I stumbled across the young designer with her Spring/Summer 2012 collection in the Elle Talent Launch Pad exhibition at Somerset House. It was quite weird because only the week before that I was standing in Selfridges' enormous bag hall looking at a large and prominent display of Sophie Hulme luxury leather tote bags thinking "Who this is this Sophie Hulme person?" From the way Selfridges bought into her label and showed it off right next to the hallowed Celine area, the Hulme brand seemed fully formed and in full flight mode.

Then I dimly remembered, is this the same Sophie who graduated from Kingston back in 2007? I remember a Sophie Hulme who won Student of the Year, so I Googled around a bit and it was the same girl. She also won Student Collection of the Year in 2007, so a bit of a prodigy girl then. Turns out Sophie set up her label two months after graduating and has been quietly getting on with building her brand ever since.

Her trademarks are clean, tailored silhouettes with masculine and feminine influences, with an emphasis on chunky hardware and almost childlike detailing; and as such the designer is building quite a solid business almost under the nose of the talent watchers of London. At London Fashion Week in February Sophie did her first mini fashion showcase, sending out the models dressed in her modern young elegant ensembles every 15 minutes. The show was mobbed, and the whole thing was so overwhelming for Sophie, that by the time I caught up with her, she had cried most of her mascara off. This week she joined My-Wardrobe.com as one of their new roster of designers. I wanted to share my images of her show, and her gorgeous bags on My Wardrobe now. There'll be a second blog post very soon with a full Sophie interview.