Why Welsh Fashion Designers Say They Don’t Need to Move to London
Does breaking into fashion still require relocating to a big city? Not according to Julien Macdonald, a former creative director at Givenchy, or Ioan Bowen-Pickett, a young designer building a brand from Cardiff.
Macdonald, awarded an OBE in 2006 after stints at Chanel and Givenchy and a client list that has included Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Suki Waterhouse, says the industry has changed beyond recognition since his own start 35 years ago, when he left Merthyr Tydfil for Brighton and then London before Karl Lagerfeld spotted his talent. He made the remarks at a Cardiff panel event tied to Fashion Britain, appearing alongside other Welsh names in the industry such as Jayne Pierson and Charlotte James, arguing that smartphones have levelled the playing field: “Gone are the days that you needed to be in a city because now you’ve all got something that’s right in your hands or by the side of you. It’s called a phone. You can create a brand, a virtual shop on a phone and you can create your own business in Wales.”
A rocky start for Fashion Britain in Wales
The comments came at a Fashion Britain event — a British Fashion Council initiative touring UK fashion talent outside London — that almost didn’t happen in Wales at all. The BFC’s original rollout named Bristol, Manchester, Dundee and Edinburgh but left Wales off the list, prompting Bowen-Pickett and others to voice their frustration on social media. The BFC reversed course after the pushback, and when its chief executive reshared Bowen-Pickett’s video, it set in motion roughly a dozen events across the country.
Bowen-Pickett, 25, runs his own label Cambrensis from Cardiff, weaving Welsh heritage into high-end pieces, and has already partnered with Clarks Shoes and staged pop-ups in John Lewis stores. “What’s the point?” he said of moving to the capital. “It’s too crowded in London, there’s too much noise. There’s a massive opportunity in doing what we’re doing in Wales currently.”
His brand held a sold-out launch event of its own in a Cardiff bar, bringing together figures from the south Wales fashion scene. Attendees described the moment as a turning point for recognition of Welsh talent, while Amy Jenkins, an independent make-up and hair stylist working out of Pontypridd whose clients include actress Emma Myers, said the region’s talent is too often “overlooked” and “overshadowed.”
Natalie Potter of the BFC said the goal is to spread opportunity more evenly: “London is the global fashion capital, but British fashion has never been created in one place. We have to make sure opportunity, visibility and investment reach beyond London.” She added that she hopes the initiative becomes an ongoing commitment rather than a single isolated event.
Not everyone agrees the move to London is avoidable entirely. Naomi Pike, now a commissioning editor at Elle UK, left Swansea for the capital to build her career, though she called the expansion of events like Fashion Britain beyond London “really exciting” — and said the networking and sense of shared purpose they foster matter just as much as location.
Source: BBC News