Karen Millen

It’s the high street’s best kept secret and Karen Millen’s stealth weapon. The Daily goes behind the scenes at the brand’s design atelier to witness the birth of Karen Millen’s stellar S/S10 collection. For those who thought that only luxury labels conjure up clothes in ateliers, think again. Karen Millen’s design team has been doing just that from its design atelier since 1981.

“I think there is an extra layer of creativity in such an environment”

says Gemma Metheringham, Karen Millen’s MD and creative director. She believes it is this set up that has enabled the brand to up the ante with an offering of intelligently designed pieces.

Cue the delicately embellished champagne shift dress from the S/S10 collection. It features 3800 number of bugle and circular beads, lozenge crystals, sequins, metal ball, beads chains, tear drop crystals and studs that were sewn on by hand and took 11 hours to embroider on to every dress.

“It was about wanting to do something incredibly beautiful, but vintage too. It was a modern take on party wear. The silhouette is modern but the embellishment
harks back to another era. It’s almost quite art deco” says Metheringham who enlisted three separate factories to realise the embellishment and together with her design team spent weeks tracking down the precise hew of crystal and pantina of sequin to realise their vision.

“We didn’t want the beads or sequins to feel too tinny or too bright. We worked really hard to create a vintage feel.”