The focus may be on youth and the thrill of the new, but if anybody best represents Topshop’s continuing and influential cool it is veterans of the British fashion industry Kate Phelan and Gordon Richardson.
Creative director and design director of Topshop and Topman respectively, the pair are the most effortlessly cool people you’ll meet and have helped shape the brand as the global fashion juggernaut it is today.
Backstage at the brand’s higher end Unique show, held at the grand Tate Britain museum during London Fashion Week last month, Phelan is the epitome of cool, calm and collected. In black trousers, grey cashmere and Celine sneakers, she credits the stable of influential British models — Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn, Sam Rollinson and Malaika Firth — as defining London style right now.
“For me, I’m always so curious about their personal style because British girls do have this incredible way of dressing that’s really hard to put your finger on; it’s about them doing what they want for themselves.”
That very British, nonchalant attitude is characterised by the now-ubiquitous concept of high-low dressing, an idea Topshop has helped champion around the world.
Jacqui Markham, who joined Topshop last month as global design director and is in Auckland for tomorrow’s opening, describes it as a “maverick approach to dressing, taking classic pieces and putting a new twist on them. I also think British style is that kind of unexpected mix of garments and how people put things together in a slightly new and original way.”
As Topshop continues to expand into new markets (other new openings this year include Amsterdam and Texas), the job for Markham and Phelan is to translate that “Britishness” internationally.
Phelan is something of an expert, having helped visually define a certain type of British style during her tenure as creative director at British Vogue. She left in 2012 to take up the creative director role at Topshop, before being lured back to print a year later as a part-time contributing editor.
She visited Sydney in 2012 for the opening of Australia’s first Topshop flagship, and notes a style relationship between the countries.
“It wasn’t a great surprise to me to know that Topshop was going to be successful in Australia, and I think will be in New Zealand. Our connections and our relationship as countries are still very, very close. I think culturally, even though we’re on the other side of the world, there’s something that really connects us together,” she explains.
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Advertise with NZME.“The way that the Topshop girl looks is very in keeping with the New Zealand girl. There’s this real sort of free spirit that you get. She’s as happy on the beach as she is in the city.They like their style, and wants to be a bit individual, not conform and look like they are all from one tribe.”
On Thursday March 12, the Topshop Topman machine finally arrives here with the opening of the first New Zealand flagship — a 1000sq m double-level store on Auckland’s Queen St.
It’s a major moment for the local retail market, on par with the opening of flagships from luxury brands Prada and Dior late last year — although Topshop speaks to a much wider, mass market (prices will range from $9 to $440), and will likely mark the beginning of more global brands to come.
Talking exclusively to Viva following the Unique show, Topshop's owner Sir Philip Green remarked on being one of the first of the high street stores to open here.
“It’s interesting that some of our competitors are not in Australia and New Zealand. It’s interesting being first to market,” explained the 62-year-old, shadowed by two burly security guards (Green’s net worth is $5 billion, according to Forbes).
The chairman of Arcadia Group, the company that owns Topshop and Topman amongst other brands, is in the business of retail and retail innovation.
Topshop has been a pioneer of designer collaborations, sell-out collections with everyone from model Kate Moss to rising fashion star JW Anderson. Last year Green signed a deal with Beyonce, forming a new company with the superstar to produce an athletic streetwear brand to be sold through Topshop stores. It will launch later this year.
Green is convinced that, despite the growth of online shopping, consumers still want to visit physical shops — an opportunity for a “little bit more theatre”.
“It’s part of their lifestyle — people want to go shopping. I don’t think they just want to pick up parcels.’’
Like her boss, Phelan is intrigued by the changing relationship between luxury and fast fashion and the lessening gap between the two, especially given her dual roles across Topshop and Vogue.
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Advertise with NZME.“It’s interesting, in the luxury world they now want to talk to that younger customer, so they’ve had to lower themselves down to speak to them, to get them into their stores and give them an appetite for what they’re doing,” explains Phelan, “Meanwhile, Topshop is lifting itself to go even higher [with the Unique line].
The whole thing is just changing all the time, and I think it is due to the fact that the customer is so much more savvy about fashion. They know what they’re looking for, so you have to keep raising your game all the time to make sure they’re still interested, with new ideas and making it special.
“It’s a combination of youth now being such a big player in our business, and everything that we can do with fashion with technology. Fashion, even 10 years ago, was this elite world that no one had access to unless you were invited. Now the doors have been flung open, the whole thing’s been unveiled.
“The girl on the street, she knows about fashion, she knows about everything.”
— Additional reporting Dan Ahwa
• The Topshop Topman store opens at 10am, Thursday March 12, at 203 Queen St.
FINE YOUNG THINGS: Our fresh-faced models on their personal style
Zara Nagle, 17 (above right)
Describe your personal style?
Relaxed and feminine.
What are you looking forward to most about the future?
Meeting new people and experiencing new places.
What was the last thing you bought?
My ball dress.
Bria Condon, 19
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I love to dance.
Describe your personal style?
Always changing.
Favourite music?
Anything you can dance to!
Whose wardrobe would you most like to raid?
Dree Hemingway.
Denver Gray, 17
What is your greatest achievement?
Getting Excellence endorsement for NCEA Level 1 & 2
What do you do in your spare time?
Hang out with my mates, surfing and table tennis.
What was the last thing you bought?
Food, probably.
Describe your personal style?
Pretty decent normally, I generally don’t bother following trends.
Talea Tatupu, 15
What was the last thing you bought?
Denim overalls.
What are you looking forward to most about the future?
Travelling the world.
Whose wardrobe would you most like to raid?
Cara Delevingne.
Today I am feeling…
Happy!
Jonathon Evans, 20
Favourite movie?
Space Jam.
What are you looking forward to most about the future?
Flying cars.
Whose wardrobe would you most like to raid?
David Gandy.
Today I am feeling…
Alive.
Renee Wilkins-Foster, 17
Describe your personal style?
Relaxed and tomboyish.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Create good memories with good people.
Whose wardrobe would you most like to raid?
Tilda Lindstam.
Photographer: Andrei Blidarean. Stylist: Danielle Clausen. Hair: Benjamin James from Ryder Salon. Makeup: Samantha Holley, assisted by Raeesah Sacha for M.A.C Cosmetics. Models: Bria, Denver, Jonathon, Talea, Renee and Zara from Clyne Model Management. With thanks to Shadowlands studio
