Lisa Armstrong The art of easy dressing
That languorously elegant way that some women have of dressing – beautifully cut, timeless layers in deceptively simple shapes and quietly luxurious fabrics – the sort of look that’s usually described as effortless?
It’s not effortless if you don’t have the right clothes.
Frustratingly, those clothes tend to come with effortful prices. It’s not their fault. Small runs, high quality, sustainable business practices and a chain of middlemen don’t come cheap.
“Then again,” says Suzie de Rohan Willner, CEO of Toast, “someone came into the office the other day wearing a Toast jumper that was 20 years old, so that’s quite good going”.
Toast has never been cheap. Its founders’ – Jamie and Jessica Seaton – commitment to British craftsmanship and their quirky eye remain a cornerstones. Clearly, cost per wear, things balance out, particularly compared with The Row, Brunello Cuccinelli, Celine, Gabriela Hearst and Margaret Howell, all labels associated with languid, lasting, chic “simplicity”.
And together with its implicit promise of longevity, it has recently acquired a knack of chiming with the moment, too. “When I look at seasonal trends, I can see we tick off a lot of them,” says de Rohan Willner. “But that’s more to do with having a design team that’s tapped into the feel and mood of the times, rather than slavishly eyeing up the catwalks.”
Current Toast bestsellers, such as its jumpsuits, corduroy trousers, velvet skirts, pinstripes, jumpsuits, suede jackets and coats and blazers, all in artfully muted shades and rugged fabrics, testify to its gradual makeover from dreamy Aga-hugger to something more globally resonant. The generous cuts are still there but, anchored on a far narrower shoulder, they now look fashionably androgynous rather than merely baggy.
The Toast customer hasn’t given up her rural love affair (or the Aga) but she’s acquired a contemporary edge. There are more worldly trips to the city. The championing of artisanal British crafts – Fair Isles, cable, tweed – remains, but married to an international sheen. The customers love it. Sales are up to £17 million.
More importantly, it’s making a profit – £1million last year. Perhaps the most telling indicator of success is that
de Rohan Willner’s 27-yearold daughter and her mother, who is in her late seventies, both wear Toast, “of their own free will. And they’re constantly getting stopped in the street. I’ve never had that before with a brand.”
The art of easy dressing, she says, “is taking the American utilitarianism that was always part of the Toast language, and making it as soft and luxurious as possible. That’s what makes clothes feel cool and contemporary, but not too ‘fashion’.”
One of de Rohan Willner’s earliest moves when she joined Toast in 2015 was to hire some former Margaret Howell and Nicole Farhi designers, including one she coaxed out of retirement. “Barry Dean built this wonderful team for us. He’s just this amazing character. He comes in once or twice a month and he’s taught us all to look at something and ask: ‘How do you make it beautiful?’ ”
That’s a question we could all apply to our habitual uniform. The extra layer of refinement has helped Toast reignite the buzz of its early years.
Age is far less a determining factor in how women shop now, says de Rohan Willner, who is 55. “Our fastest-growing market, percentage wise, is the 25- to 33-year-olds. It’s a shift from buying throwaway into a more thoughtful way of dressing.”
That thoughtfulness carries through into the Toast book club (customers exchange often quite lengthy reviews on the company’s website or in one of its stores). De Rohan Willner can often be found browsing unobtrusively in the recesses of one of Toast’s 14 boutiques (all in Toastlike smart, market towns) observing. She’s quietly but resolutely customer focused. Marcia Kilgore, the founder of Fitflop, where de Rohan Willner previously worked, tells me that in the office, de Rohan “was like a toned-down Tony Robbins [the forcefully inspiring motivational speaker]. Just prettier, and more aristo-european.”
The morning we meet for forcefully inspirational power juices (and croissants) she’s more of the Boho-european. She lived in Paris for years and was married to a French man, and it shows. Today, the silvercropped de Rohan Willner is wearing an indigo work dress (from Toast, obviously) that her daughter’s been eyeing up.
De Rohan Willner wants Toast’s values to reflect the values implied in its muchloved, often rural-based photographs (“our customers tell us the brochures are actually a moment of escape that they look forward to”). “We’re not shouting about sustainability – we’ve still got a lot to learn.
“But there are lots of things a relatively small company like Toast can do to make an impact – not using plastics in the office, growing plants on our balconies, donating all our leftover cloth to fashion colleges, developing our organic denim, working with Women of the Future to bring in young people to work with the team creatively.
“If you tighten up your practices and make them much more effective, you can cut out so much waste.” The same is true in our personal wardrobes.
“I want all the clothes in each collection to work together so that women can keep on adding to them season to season, year after year. I’d much rather we concentrate on an aesthetic that has soul, rather than on age, or trends.
“Really, it’s all about how clothes make you feel.”