It may seem like non-stop glamour and fizz, but London Fashion Week is one of the most stressful events in a designer’s year. For, they have a brief window of time during this bi-annual event to make the right kind of impression on buyers, press and influencers; otherwise, they can find themselves staring down six months of financial woes. This blink-and-you-miss-it moment in the spotlight is when they get the chance to present weeks, nay months, of hard work and investment. Hyperbole aside, what happens can determine the outcome of their career. No pressure.
‘I think the biggest misconception with the fashion industry as a whole is that we just get to make nice things’, Henry Holland, the designer behind LFW powerhouse House of Holland, divulged, ‘and whilst that is true, making nice things takes a lot of time, effort, money and organisation causes quite a lot of stress.’
Though a relative newcomer to the profession, Clio Peppiatt agrees with Henry who has over a decade in the industry under his belt. ‘Money and time. Always, money and time,’ she groaned. For Peppiatt who started her eponymous label after graduating in 2015, time and financial management are crucial to her growing her business. ‘Three months down the line, a lot of problems seem very minor. But, when you’re dealing with tight deadlines and tighter budgets, every little problem seems like end-of-the-world level,’ she confided.
When we speak, a handful of days before her show, Peppiatt was grappling with this very problem. ‘I pour so much time, care and energy into the collection in the lead up to fashion week so many other things take priority it can be hard to them all justice. For instance, I don’t know which models I have until the day before the show, which is the same for all independent designers with similar budgets to me, but this keeps me up at night because I don’t know if I’m going to get the girls I want and whether the clothing is going to sit properly on their body, because body shapes are so different. I find it gut-wrenching.’
Ten years in and with industry accolades stacking up, Henry viscerally feels the same as Peppiatt. ‘I still have anxiety dreams about turning up to fashion week, and Anna Wintour arrives, and I’m still backstage tie-dying t-shirts,’ he half-jokes. ‘I still worry about the deadlines, but I think it’s really important to make sure that the deadlines don’t interfere with the quality of your output.’
When asked how he deals with the restrictive deadlines and delivery dates that rule a designer’s career he gave a pithy reply that he ‘misses them’. Though his response suggests a laissez-faire attitude, there is reason for his tardiness. ‘The question you have to ask yourself very often with deadlines is if you stick to a deadline, is it going to jeopardise the quality and the standard of the work you’re doing? And if so, then miss the deadline. And you’ll figure it out,’ he explains.
Today, designers work in an age where they are as much under the spotlight as the clothes they present. ‘In the current climate there is an encouragement to be out there and be present in social media and the public eye because it’s an easy win when trying to promote your brand and promote your products.’ explains Henry, revealing, ‘I was far too sociable and far too gobby when I was younger, and I started this that I wasn’t staying in for no one.’ Laughing, he adds, ‘I think I actually got told at some point by a PR to stop going out, and I was like, “whatever”!’
While Henry thrives in the public eye, the idea of having to represent your brand at all times can be another strain for a designer at the outset of their career to bear. Clio jokes that people never recognise her, not even at her own LFW presentation because she’s always ducked the selfie-spotlight. In fact, she embraces this because it allows her to draw the line between business and personal lives. But, with Henry’s years of experience and brand’s longevity, is Clio missing a trick?
Not adrenal or anything illegal, but endorphins have become the secret drug that’s got both Henry and Clio through the most stressful of times. Nearly every morning you can find Henry sweating it out at cult HIIT class Barry’s Boot Camp at 6.30am. He claimed his way of, de-stressing is sweating until I vomit on the treadmill.’ Likewise, Clio has found yoga helps, ‘I go to the gym two or three days a week even though I’m not naturally a sporty person. But, I think it’s helped. I think if you can look after yourself with a bit of exercise, eating reasonably healthily, trying to get enough sleep then you’re going to be more ready to combat the stresses that naturally are going to arrive.’
Clio’s designs are characterised by a vivid and care-free use of colour, embroidery and texture. Though her work puts an emphasis on spontaneity and fun, the way, she structures her professional life is anything but. ‘I write a lot of really detailed lists, which are always like, colour coded and always in front of me. I’ll Blu Tac them above my computer with specific lists for the fashion week presentation, the sampling and production,’ she explains.
Last season, with just hours until show-time Clio found herself facing down a stressful situation that no amount of lists could help. The workshops producing her samples hadn’t delivered the pieces in time so the first she saw the looks for herself, it was at the show space with models waiting to step into them. In instances like this, the Clio has one coping mechanism, and it isn’t lists. She has a small group of people that will take her calls day and night. ‘If I need advice Adele my stylist will always help,’ she said, ‘she's very used to late night text messages asking which shade of pink they prefer. Adele is a great friend, so it doesn’t feel purely like work, there’s also a social element to it too. I think it’d be much harder if I wasn’t able to offload with the people close to me.’
‘My life hack was employing my best friends.’ Henry says echoing Clio, adding ‘One of the privileges of running your own business is choosing who you work with. Until very recently I only really employed friends and then I trained them up into different positions, which people often advise you never to do, but I would wholeheartedly disagree because working with my friend's means that it felt going to a youth club every day.’ For Henry, who is currently working with online job boards totaljobs and Milkround in their latest campaign around achieving a healthier work-life balance said having friends around him that he trusts helps eliminate some of the pressure.
Henry has figured out that you have to love fashion in an all-consuming way to be able to deal with the immense pressure designers are put under. But, as he lightheartedly admitted, ‘The fact that our work commitments include things like award ceremonies and free bars, it means you actually get to incorporate your social life with your working life a lot more than any other industries. And people complain that fashion takes over your life and there is no differentiation between work and play, but that is a massive bonus as much as it may appear to be a negative for some people.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.