What good is being a business women if your not willing to learn and improve?
This project was instigated by listening to customer feedback; you told me how hard it was to buy a jacket on the high street that would button up across your boobs without gaping yet would still define the waist.
Move over Christian, Rowena's coming through! Ha ha.
Here was version one. I know, I know. It was a size too big for this model. It was the first time we met Victoria and we hadn't realised she was more petite than we had counted on. I did the ultimate fashion industry standard but something I personally consider a total faux pas, i clipped the jacket in the back for effect in the photo. You don't know how much it kills me to admit this! In designing my own range the one thing i had hoped for was to be truthful in the representation of my clothes. My excuse? The jacket was a whole size too big, it wasn't just an issue of fit. Anyway, I'm outing myself. Judge me as you will.
So, our first jacket, our single breast style, there was enough room in the bust but what i kept hearing from customers was that you wanted it more nipped in at the waist.
I could this see myself but initially I resisted the urge to nip it in more at the waist because we haven't all got perfect hourglass figures! I needed to start with a versatile fit and go from there. But having created sizes 8-18 in our first production and tried them on a whole range of women I could see that there was room for change.
This means a complete technical reconstruction though, its not the small tweak you might think. I'm remembering the look on my pattern cutters face when I told her!
Anyway, it's done! After several samples we are ready for production and are back with a gorgeous new wine colour wool mix with a herringbone pattern. It's gorgeous. We've also started giving proper names to our products - it's a thing! All themes around London places as we are a London based company and our range is very much British based around seasonal weather.
Here it is, The Richmond Jacket.
