Girls talk with Zosia Mamet
Who better than Zosia Mamet, quirky, chic star of Girls, to serve as muse to Deborah Lloyd, chief creative officer of Kate Spade New York. Here, the pair talk about growing a billion-dollar brand and the mood-lifting power of a glittery heel
The actress-turned-muse teams up with Kate Spade’s Deborah Lloyd to talk femininity and brand-building
Like the clothes she designs, Deborah Lloyd is full of surprises. It’s a muggy September evening – just 12 hours before the chief creative officer of Kate Spade New York is to debut her spring 2017 collection to the international press on the rooftop of the city’s Nomad hotel. By rights Lloyd ought to be overseeing her design team making last-minute hem adjustments or checking in with the production crew to ensure every moment of her Moroccan-inspired presentation is spot on. Instead, she and one of her current muses, Zosia Mamet, star of the TV series Girls, are being photographed for Red inside the tiny, candy-striped lift of the brand’s Madison Avenue store – although the temperature is soaring, time is short and there’s not much room to manoeuvre. Both women are gamely striking poses on the lift’s plumcoloured velvet banquette, wearing elegant cocktail dresses borrowed from tomorrow’s catwalk show (Lloyd in an oversized rose print, Mamet in sleeveless black crochet). There’s no drama. Everything flows.
And between shots, the genuine rapport between the two is palpable. “What’s your good side?” Mamet asks Lloyd at one point. “Any side that makes me look 20 years younger!” laughs Lloyd. Cut to 40 minutes later and we’re wrapping the shoot, Lloyd still magically unruffled as we prepare for a quick chat (with me, half wilted with the heat) before she Ubers away into the New York night. I’ve never known a designer to appear so relaxed, nor work so unbelievably quickly in front of a camera. “That’s Deborah all over,” her PA tells me as she orders the car. “She just gets it. She knows exactly what to do to get things done.”
It’s a mindset that’s allowed Lloyd to forge a seriously impressive career on both sides of the Atlantic. Having cut her creative teeth at fashion houses such as Kenzo and Aquascutum, the British
designer worked as vice president of women’s design at Burberry for five years, prior to Christopher Bailey’s appointment in 2001 (it’s said Lloyd landed the job when Rose Marie Bravo, then CEO, proclaimed her “the only person I’ve met who knows what she’s doing”). America beckoned and Lloyd then joined Banana Republic as executive vice president of design before heading to Kate Spade in 2007, when Spade herself stepped down from the company. It was, Lloyd tells me, a move that “felt like coming home”. Indeed, the transition from Spade (who founded the company in 1993 with husband Andy as an accessories brand) to Lloyd has been so seamless that most of my friends, even the loyal Kate Spade New York customers, have no idea Spade is no longer involved. “I think it helps that Deborah basically is the Kate Spade New York woman. Timeless, yet on trend and dressed for success in every sense of the word,” says Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of US Harper’s
Bazaar and long-time Lloyd cohort.
IN THE DECADE SINCE SHE JOINED THE COMPANY
“that made lovely handbags and some nice stationery”, Lloyd has combined her creative vision and commercial savvy (a pairing not necessarily innate to a fashion director) to expand the Kate Spade New York empire into ready-to-wear, jewellery, homeware, athleisure, furniture, childrenswear and bridal collections. She also overhauled the website to make it cleaner and more slick, plus re-imagined its stores into colourful temples of chic (there are now 175, including a glossy new boutique on London’s Regent Street) with beautiful product displays that inspire furious Instagramming. “There’s a knack to how many bags should be placed on a shelf,” she says.
Lloyd was also quick to spot the crucial role social media played in creating an emotional relationship with the millennial shopper – a key part of the brand’s success strategy. Of this fêted but highly fickle consumer and their ‘see now, buy now’ demands, Lloyd says matter of factly: “Being affordable luxury, we deliver 12 collections a year across almost every category we do, so we’ve always worked at a super-fast pace – the beauty of that is we can deliver coats exactly when our customers want coats, and dresses when they want dresses. It’s not about fast fashion, it’s about delivering style, something we’ve always strived to do. Doing it with this 360° visibility, this need for storytelling, that’s just become another part of the design process. I think our Kate Spade girl appreciates that. She likes to feel part of the conversation.” And the result of this ongoing dialogue? Lloyd’s polished and feminine designs, all with a characteristic touch of whimsy (“I think being British helps with that. Us Brits aren’t scared to use colour or do things with a cheeky wink”) can be seen on everyone from Taylor Swift to the Duchess of Cambridge. And the once preppy, all-american accessories label is now a global lifestyle brand worth a staggering $3.1 billion.
That’s a seriously sweet spot to be in, I put to Lloyd, given the uncertain post-brexit, Trump-led times we find ourselves in. “Yes, but don’t forget we launched ready-towear at the height of the recession in 2008, including some really sparkly dresses, and everything sold out,” she replies. “We know exactly what our Kate Spade girl wants. She could be any age, but she has an adventurous spirit and a youthful attitude. She doesn’t have to buy into our whole world, but everything we make
– a glittery heel, a polka-dot teacup – gives her a reason to smile. I always say a smile and a bit of whimsy can get you a long way.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Zosia Mamet, who appears in the brand’s brilliant ‘Miss Adventure’ viral ad campaign, a series of mini online movies featuring Mamet as a modern, distinctly urban heroine (along with co-stars like Anna Kendrick, comedian Ali Wong and Miss Piggy). In the ads, Mamet elegantly side-steps modern dilemmas, like sharing an Uber with a stranger or going to a party with a frenemy, with grace and good humour (“It’s almost frightening how good her comic timing is,” Lloyd says of Mamet). “The world’s a pretty scary place right now and people need to be educated and do what they can to help our planet not explode,” says Mamet, “but at the same time, our brains can only take so much. You’ve got to have permission to smile, too – a little relief from all that weight.”
The beauty of Kate Spade for Mamet is that it resonates with a personality that feels relatable. “I’d never thought of myself as a girlie girl before I started
EVERYTHING we make – a GLITTERY HEEL, a polka-dot teacup – gives the Kate Spade girl a reason TO SMILE
working with the brand. I mean, I don’t even wear make-up in my real life. But I still find pieces in the store that allow me to express my feminine side in a way that feels genuine – so I’ll wear a skirt with my flats, say, or a pretty coat over ripped jeans. Someone in the Kate Spade team once told me their motto is ‘make it perfect, then fuck it up a bit’. I love that. It really chimes with me.”
IT’S RATHER LIKE THE WAY HER ZEITGEIST-Y SERIES GIRLS,
currently in its sixth and final season, chimed with millennial audiences when it burst onto screens five years ago and changed the landscape of television forever. Inevitably, comparisons were made to Sex And The City when the show first aired but, observes Mamet, where Carrie and friends kept their Manolos in the unused ovens of their unfeasibly enormous apartments, the Girls girls house their beaten-up sneakers in tiny Chinatown studios and ride the Subway to work. “Our characters probably grew up watching [Sex And The City] characters on television,” she says, “but that series dramatised a very specific kind of woman of a very certain era. Since then, television’s gone in a more realistic, gritty direction. It’s still about escapism and entertainment but that kind of show, where there’s consumerism for consumerism’s sake, feels outmoded now.”
Indeed, almost as outmoded these days – and rightly so – is a fashion brand that doesn’t champion the empowerment of women or support local communities. To that end, Deborah Lloyd works with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to mentor up-and-coming designers on how to market their products (“I love strong women. I was surrounded by strong women, like Rose Marie Bravo, when I was starting out and I want to be able to do that for others,” says Lloyd). She’s also kick-started an initiative called On Purpose, which sees her brand partnering with local artisans in Rwanda to produce a pop-up collection of exquisitely beaded and decorated scarves, jewellery and totes. “It’s a whole new business model and it’s very exciting. Their products are beautiful, you’ll see them in the London store soon and online. We work with the collectives to educate and build up their communities, and I’m hoping to continue that. I want 2017 to be our year of inspiration,” enthuses Lloyd. I have no doubt she’ll make it happen.