New season The flattering dresses for every special occasion
Needle & Thread isn’t concerned with ‘cool’ – it’s focused on ‘feminine’ instead, says Charlie Gowans-eglinton
At a stylish friend’s wedding in December, the groom’s mother and sister both wore embellished dresses – the mother a beaded high-neck, long-sleeve top half with floor-length tulle skirt, the sister an embroidered minidress. Both were by London label Needle & Thread.
In her former job as womenswear design director at All Saints, Hannah Coffin spotted a gap in her own wardrobe, and those of her girlfriends. She launched the brand, of which she is creative director and CEO, in 2013.
Her average shopper ranges from 25 to 35, and – a rarity in the current fashion climate – is loyal to the brand, returning to buy again and again. As for the dresses themselves, there is an overt femininity that runs through everything. Core colours are pastels; those pieces not encrusted with sequins or beads boast ruffles or lace instead. But Coffin has hit on a look that appeals to women of all ages. Drew Barrymore, 43, is a fan, as is 53-year-old Sarah Jessica Parker. Dame Helen Mirren, 72, wore a grey Needle & Thread dress with semi-sheer sleeves and multicoloured flower embroidery on the red carpet last year; Helena Christensen has worn the minidress version. While many labels will flatter only a specific size or shape, there’s an understanding here that some women always steer towards low-cut necklines but love long sleeves, or choose to cover their legs. That breadth of silhouette has inadvertently given Needle & Thread ageless appeal.
The focus is on beautiful dresses, though not necessarily championing the latest trends, and not necessarily cool. If that reads as a criticism, you misunderstand me. Many brands seek out the most fashion-forward, “coolest” customer – women who will wear much-hyped labels like Vetements and Off/white, or spend £595 on Balenciaga’s sell-out Triple S trainers. Needle & Thread might not appeal to her – but as Coffin well knows, she’s vastly outnumbered by women looking not for the cutting edge, but the flattering, the beautiful, the still-stylish-in-a-year’s time.
“When I had my entrepreneurial hat on, I felt that we didn’t really have British brands that were unashamedly feminine. A lot of brands feel the pressure to be cool, to be relevant, to be styled with certain other brands, and actually I think that space is occupied.”
Instead, Coffin has carved out her own space in the market. Rather than ploughing tens (or even hundreds) of thousands into establishing a presence at fashion week, Coffin has invested in her team – 35-strong in London, and just less than half that in India, where the clothes are produced. By keeping production in one country, and working closely with factories, Coffin stops costs from spiralling. Which brings us to the price. Needle & Thread bridges the gap between high street and designer, with £300 price tags catering to that in-between sweet spot. The brand was picked up very early on by Asos, where it still sells. At the other end of the market, Net-a-porter has increased its buy by nearly three quarters in the last year alone, and Needle & Thread has so far designed seven exclusive collections for the e-tail giant. New drops arrive eight times a year,
as opposed to the usual designer calendar of four, alongside 10 or so core styles that have yet to run out of steam: priced £185 to £425, customers don’t seem to tire of them. Needle & Thread has consistently ranked in the top five dress brands on global fashion search platform Lyst over the past year and they’re number one for pastel versions. The bridal market is no small factor. Those pastels quickly became favourites for wedding parties (for model Kate Upton’s Tuscan nuptials in December, her four bridesmaids wore pale pink dresses by the brand). Wedding dresses seemed an obvious next step. “The emails were coming in thick and fast from the consumer – telling us that she wanted this dress in white, does this come in ivory, do you do this in a long sleeve, have you got a veil to go with this.” In early 2016, Needle & Thread’s bridal collection debuted at Net-a-porter and Harrods.
Sales are up
49 per cent year on year. An impressive figure – though small fry compared to the previous year’s 94 per cent increase, thanks to the launch of bridal and the brand’s own e-commerce site. They’re gratifying figures for Coffin, who had to take external investment
– and sell stakes in the business – when her own savings ran out. She talks me through her next threeyear plan in meticulous detail over tea. Territory expansion is a priority: so far, Needle & Thread has only a few stockists in the Middle East, but is performing very well there, which is perhaps not surprising when you remember those long-sleeved, modest options.
Product diversity will be a focus too, partly thanks to a string of copycats. Coffin sighs over the expense of claiming for intellectual property infringement. “Nike rely on their tick. The athleisure brands, the denim brands, they’ve got the advantage of a button, or brogue stitching on Church’s shoes – they have branding. Our branding is our motifs.”
When a brand’s aesthetic is so widely copied – and indeed, when its own designs are selling on this scale – over-saturation becomes a problem. Self Portrait
– one of Needle & Thread’s direct competitors in the affordable occasionwear market (also launched in 2013, also followed up with a bridal collection) – provided the sell-out dress of 2015, the strappy lace Azalea. Guests wearing it to a wedding would find themselves in good company, inadvertently matching other guests and even bridesmaids. Instead of becoming a timeless staple in women’s wardrobes, as Coffin intends her dresses to, its trendiness dated it to that summer alone.
A wider spread of product – from the Victorian blouse Coffin is wearing at our meeting to the sweatshirts currently selling out for £95 online – is key in Coffin’s mind to future-proofing the brand, as well as offering a lower entry price-point.
Rather than focusing on one recognisable dress of the season, frequent new drops and exclusives for different stockists mean that while you may not be the only woman wearing Needle & Thread at that summer wedding, you’ll likely be the only one to choose your specific dress.
The breadth on offer also means there’s somewhere to go if shoppers ever do tire of those signature dresses. So far, though, it seems there’s no danger of that. “My cousin’s getting married in May,” says Coffin, “and she’s wearing the brand. I’ve got another cousin getting married in the autumn, she’s wearing one of our dresses too.” She laughs. “It’s quite a wide appeal.” And that’s quite the understatement.
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