"I haven't seen Downton Abbey," admits Jenny Packham. "I don't know why, but you know when you don't get into it and you've gone past understanding who's who? That just sort of happened." Admittedly, I'm surprised at this revelation. Not only because of the show's ever-growing popularity, but because of the considerable influence that it has had on fashion in recent years, especially on bridal wear. There is a Downton-esque feel to some of Packham's wedding dresses, particularly in her spring/summer 2015 collection, with its straight-lined, chemise-like dresses, shorter hemlines and intricate beading. She admits that customers have asked if she was using Downton as an inspiration, but the answer, it appears, is a resounding no.
We are sitting in a cramped room filled with cream-coloured couches and plush wing-backed chairs, in Bloomingdale’s Dubai. Packham is in town to show her most recent collections, now available at The Dubai Mall store. There are people moving frantically around the room as we chat, but amid all the chaos, the British designer is the very essence of calm. And her ease is neither a facade nor a front. Having been a part of the upper echelons of the fashion industry for the best part of three decades, Packham has all the credentials of a well-established designer, with none of the pretentiousness. In fact, she’s uncommonly warm for a designer whose client list includes the likes of Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and (perhaps most famously) the Duchess of Cambridge.
Packham attended Saint Martin’s School of Art in London (now Central Saint Martins) and launched her label in 1988 with a collection of 12 short black-and-white silk evening gowns. She now designs ready-to-wear, lingerie and accessories, but is perhaps best known for her bridal collections. “From the time that we started doing bridal wear to now it’s been an amazing transition in the style,” she explains. “I think the red carpet has really sort of influenced what people are wearing on their wedding days. This is how it used to be in the early part of the last century. In the 20s, they’d wear a 20s dress, and then they’d wear a really long veil with it or style it differently. Then it all went a bit historical during the Lady Di time, with the slightly Victorian look. And then everything went towards strapless. I think women used to think that they had to go into this whole other sort of world to get married. I don’t know; it’s not like that anymore. It’s much more contemporary.”
Packham has witnessed a fair number of shifts over the course of her career, one of the most notable being the growing prevalence of powerful women in the fashion industry. “I think it used to be that there were a lot of women in the fashion industry, but all the decisions, like with magazines, were being made by guys at the top. There’s that book called The Beauty Myth – that women felt they were in charge, but actually [they were] all being made to feel insecure so that they would buy all these products while everything was being handled by men. But I think that has to be changing now as you have more of these powerhouses.”
Indeed, it is a “powerhouse” who is at the heart of Packham’s spring/summer 2015 collection, which made its debut during New York Fashion Week in September. Inspired by Marilyn Monroe, the collection is straight out of a 1950s film, featuring boat-cut necklines, longer hems and A-line dresses. “During the actual season we used [Marilyn] as a muse,” she explains. “If we were looking at the design and wondering whether we should do this or that, we’d ask: ‘What would Marilyn do?’ We did it jokingly at first, but actually, it was quite clarifying.”
But using the actress as inspiration meant that Packham had to tap into every facet of Monroe’s persona, including her darker side. It was the thousands of images of Monroe that she came across at The Hollywood Museum that most struck a chord, Packham recalls. There was also the realisation that the physique that Monroe was so famous for was in itself something of a construct. “I had an amazing experience where we met with a guy who owned many of her dresses,” she recalls. “When we looked inside the dresses there were all sorts of these little tricks, things pulling [her] in and pads. So she was really kind of modelling her body.”
Of course, the concept of movie stars “modelling” their bodies, with or without any “tricks”, is certainly not alien in this day and age. In an era dominated by Instagram and Twitter, celebrities are under immense scrutiny, as is their every fashion choice, particularly on the red carpet. Whether it’s donning skin-revealing designs, sheer fabrics, or simply using Spanx to pull it all in, it seems we’re still following in Monroe’s footsteps, comfort be damned.
So does Packham take the concept of comfort into consideration when designing her dresses, I wonder? “Very much so,” she says. “I think, especially for a bride, it’s a very hard day. You get married. You have guests. You have to move about. You have to dance. And you’ve got to keep going for a very long time. So it’s very important that it’s a comfortable thing to wear. I would never try and construct something that would cause anyone any discomfort in any way.
“Also, I think on the red carpet stars want to feel confident – they don’t want to think about what they’re wearing. I’ve met some of the celebrities and they have a pair of shoes they always wear or hide under their long dresses – shoes that they’re very comfortable in. They know that they’ve got to be standing up in them for so long, looking great. It sounds a bit prosaic to say ‘something must be comfortable’, but actually it gives you the ability to be what you want to be.”
The British designer’s refined, intricately crafted creations have proven popular with both brides and celebrities around the world. So her move to New York Fashion Week in 2010, after years of showing in London and Milan, was somewhat unexpected. As New York tends to showcase more contemporary and casual collections, it seemed like a strange choice. “What I like about New York is that I’m able to sort of show the dresses in a way that one can imagine wearing them,” she admits. “In Milan, there’s more politics with the whole schedule, so it was quite difficult. However, there was a real appreciation for glamorous dressing. In London, it had to be very avant-garde and there wasn’t the kind of passion and respect for glamorous dressing that you’d maybe find in America where they have more occasions to attend.”
It is the American “can-do” attitude that also attracts Packham to New York. Nodding along in agreement, I realise that my own American enthusiasm (something I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to tone down) is starting to show. Yet it would seem that this is the exact kind of excitement that draws Packham across the pond. “Everyone is very enthusiastic about the project and I just feel the minute we started showing there, I could show beautiful dresses and make a beautiful show. Whereas I felt in the United Kingdom, a certain pressure to be ... different. Or to sort of style something up in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. Which is really interesting, but I like the business element of it, too. It is a business. And I like the fact that New York really respects that.”
While Packham has a strong presence in both North America and Europe, she is certainly no stranger to this region, particularly the UAE. She first visited 23 years ago and has returned sporadically ever since, for both business and pleasure, developing a firm following that is as enthusiastic about her designs as any red-carpet diva or fashion-forward royal. “Fashion has become a focal point here, and it’s quite clear that people are into the retail experience,” she concludes. “It’s such a fascinating place. It’s truly amazing.”
alane@thenational.ae
