‘I suppose there’s always been that feeling of camaraderie with us...’ says Molly Goddard. We’re talking about the familial quality that makes the British fashion industry feel so unique. London has always had a history of close-knit creative communities, with a mix of design-school alumni, artists, photographers and stylists all moving to the city to make it. In the Eighties, Central Saint Martins students clearing out of college on a Friday to make outfits for a three-day club crawl became the names driving fashion: John Galliano, later the creative director for Givenchy, Dior and now Maison Margiela, met the photographers (such as Nick Knight), make-up artists and stylists with whom he still collaborates. And throughout the Nineties, Alexander McQueen was London’s enfant terrible, calling favours from friends, bringing together Kate Moss and other supermodels on a shoestring for his epic productions.
Decades later, that same spirit sees designers such as Jonathan Saunders and Roksanda Ilincic cheer on the likes of Erdem and Christopher Kane. In a way, British fashion is about togetherness, not competition, and everyone chips in, so it’s little surprise to see those same values driving the success of the next gen: designers like Goddard.
Following in the footsteps of Kane, Mary Katrantzou, and those before them, Goddard entered the industry through one of London’s great art schools. After studying BA and MA knitwear at Central Saint Martins, she, like Kane and Katrantzou, was the recipient of NewGen sponsorship, showing her first collection with the organisation’s support in 2015. She’s also collaborated with retailers on sell-out collections, from ASOS in 2013 (before she’d even launched her own label), to Topshop, which saw her produce foil-wrapped moon boots and Mary Janes in 2016.
‘It’s such hard work to build a business,’ she says when we meet at her new studio in east London – it’s a step up from working at the kitchen table, as she did with her first collection. However, Molly’s way of working with those she’s close to – including her mother, Sarah Edwards, a set designer based in west London, where she raised Molly and her stylist sister Alice – is clearly a winning formula. ‘Fashion is a tough industry, and working with people I’m close to makes it easier. You can talk about what you do more often, and everyone’s involved from the very beginning. It’s nice.’ And, you know, when everyone chips in, you might just win an Emerging Talent Award at the British Fashion Awards, as Goddard did in 2016, or end up shortlisted for the LVMH Prize.
You wouldn’t guess that the designer, 29, is just two weeks away from showing at London Fashion Week. There’s a low-key mix of Sampha and Drake playing; no one looks frantic. There are sketches on the walls with names – Pamela Mann, Charles Kirk – and adjectives in shouty caps to describe key shapes: ‘MASSIVE NAVY’, ‘STRANGE TULLE’; an adjective that you can’t make out beneath a post-it followed by the word “BUM.” Molly is chilled, hugging a cloud of frothy peach – like the plumes following a blast in a baroque candy store. ‘I’ll pose like I’m hugging my best friend,’ she laughs while pal Dougal, a photographer she met on Instagram, gets the final shot.
Despite having spent three hours in and out of the studio for our shoot – unwell, while it’s three degrees out – Goddard has boundless energy and character. She’s all in. She’s direct; forthcoming, not brash. When she smiles, she’s all grin, eyes on you; engaged and engaging. That’s no doubt how she’s ended up with so many close friends – many high-profile, like Adwoa Aboah and Edie Campbell, keen Goddard poster girls). It’s also how she put her first show together in six weeks for less money than a night out, with everyone offering favours. There’s no ‘you can’t sit with us’ mentality here, though. Molly’s shows are a party, and everyone’s welcome – and it’s not just on Wednesdays that you wear pink.
‘I love Molly because of her humour, dedication and authenticity.' Adwoa Aboah, model
Molly’s big debut in September 2014 wasn’t a meticulously planned production. ‘I wasn’t plotting it months in advance,’ and nor did she feel like she was doing particularly well – academically or mentally. ‘I wasn’t very happy, I wasn’t sleeping. I just felt like, after spending a year on the MA course and dropping out after failing the first year, I had nothing to show for it.’ She was uncharacteristically unsure of herself: ‘I wasted so much time panicking. I was always running home to work; you had to be so focused and confident in what you were doing because you were doing it in front of everyone. I didn’t have much confidence at that point and I just went home and cried!’ What followed is testament to the support of friends and family, and the benefits that come from trusting in that network.
‘My boyfriend Tom [Shickle] said, “How about you host a party, make some clothes and everyone can wear them?”’ Everyone being mates, whether they worked in fashion or not. ‘I made the collection in my kitchen and my friends tried it on. We rented a church hall in Mayfair during London Fashion Week and threw a party with 20-odd people,’ along with a Portuguese wedding singer from a friend’s club night, ‘and people actually came!’ This was an important lesson in casting, laying the foundations for the format she’s used ever since. ‘Knowing my friends and seeing what they felt comfortable in has affected a lot of the decisions I’ve made. I can’t imagine doing castings and fittings the way others do.’
The reason Molly’s work has so much character – why big frocks mean big fun – is because it’s designed with that in mind. ‘Personality is important to me;I like to know the models.’And those Molly and her sister Alice choose ‘are a 50/50 mix of looks and personality’. That realism is what’s engaging customers, striking a chord with women wanting to wear skirts while still wearing the trousers (literally and figuratively). ‘I can’t get enough of her tulle dresses, I wear them all the time over jeans,’ says Ida Petersson, buying director for womenswear at Browns. ‘Her work is fun, romantic, sexy and edgy all rolled into one, which is why her collection appeals to everyone.’ Everyone including the ‘kiss it and swivel if you don’t like it’ model-of-the-moment Slick Woods, as well as musicians Solange Knowles, Rihanna and Björk – women who really know themselves.
‘Rihanna is a great Molly Goddard woman,’ adds the designer. ‘She just doesn’t give a shit. She wears what she wants and is really relaxed about it.’ And if you’ve seen RiRi rocking Molly, in a square-necked neon smock with the high ponytail of a do-gooder student, you’ll know that saccharine doesn’t mean submissive. ‘You don’t need to wear a suit to show you’ve got power,’ says Goddard – look at Rihanna wearing a Molly mini dress over jeans with a ‘This Pussy Grabs Back’ hoodie at the Women’s March in New York.
That’s what makes Molly Goddard more relevant than ever. She’s reflecting the reality of how women are today – their different bodies, personalities and interests. She’s embracing the typically ‘girly’ – cropped smocks and candy-coloured tulle – to reassert femininity at a time when it feels threatened. ‘You don’t have to reject those things to be taken seriously.’ You also don’t have to be boxed in by stereotypes: ‘I grew up in Ladbroke Grove, and we were all into different things, different types of music, going to indie gigs and listening to hip-hop.’ That same diversity is reflected in the bodies Goddard designs for. ‘My friends aren’t all six-foot tall and a size eight. I don’t see a distinction between designing for my friends and customers. They’re all women with different figures and I think about that when I make things. I also think about me – I have boobs!’
So what’s next for the designer, her team and the familiar faces we’ve seen walk her shows each season? ‘They’re not going anywhere. It’s nice that a lot of the girls have been with us for six shows; two of them are best friends now.’ The former knitwear student is also revisiting her roots, building on her collection of dresses by introducing more separates. While you can currently find Goddard’s designs in more than 50 stores, including Matches Fashion, Browns, Selfridges and Dover Street Market, perhaps her own store is on the cards, too. ‘I would like a shop that looks a bit like a show, or a place where you can do something unexpected. More ways to rope friends in – for customers,’ she laughs, thinking of the life-drawing and sandwich-making she’s had models do for presentations at Fashion Week.
As we leave, clocking an XL tuft of tulle bopping in the background (animated by two assistants, like a Chinese dragon on two poles), Molly leaves us singing the praises of friends we ought to keep an eye on: a jewellery designer named Georgia Kemball (‘she makes amazing rings’) and Dougal, the photographer on this shoot. That’s the benefit of working with people you’re close to: you can use your network to expand theirs. You can lift one other – or at least help each other lift 30 metres of fabric.
