A miniature box bag brightly painted with fashion illustrations, a set of luxury Christmas crackers and a charming luggage tag are just three of the enchanting accessories Aspinal of London launched in partnership with Giles Deacon yesterday.
In the middle of the chaos of London Fashion Week, the British couturier and the famed leather goods brand launched their Christmas collaboration. About eight months ago a private client of Giles, Aspinal’s head designer, Mariya Dykalo, suggested they create a capsule collection together.
‘You get Aspinal through my eyes and you know it is me bringing my stamp of personality upon the brand’, Giles tells me as we stand surrounded by his sketches, which are decorating the brand’s St James’ store. Beginning with an iPad doodle, the elegant drawings that decorate the collection feature sumptuous women in eveningwear and wiggle skirts, trouser suits and wild pink roses. These prints have been printed and embossed across the leather collection, including the popular Hepburn bag. The pieces are available from October 15th (but are available to pre-order now here) with prices start at £45 and are head off just before the £1000 mark.
He was keen to design something that complimented Aspinal’s customers, not alienate them. Since shuttering his own ready-to-wear line to focus on couture, finding a collaboration with an entry-level price-point certainly appealed to the designer. He explains, ‘It wasn’t about making a whole lot of one-off pieces that were £25,000, we have luggage tags, passport holders, journals, mini trunks all the signature shapes.’
‘Aspinal is a great British brand and I love what they make and what they are about. They have that quintessential Englishness and quirky English eccentricity, which I really like,’ he effuses. ‘ I have always been quintessentially British myself, even the couture that I do is very much British couture’. In simple terms, it's their shared playfulness, a touch of subversion, a heady mix of modernity and tradition and undeniable whimsy that makes this partnering a success.