'I wanted something very functional,' says British model Cara Delevingne as she embarks on a long-term design collaboration with Mulberry
BY Lisa Armstrong |
16 February 2014
What do you do if your brand is currently experiencing a hiring-malfunction and is minus a designer? You rope in one of the hottest models around, one with an Instragram following of more than four million, a similarly "quirky-Brit" reputation to the one you foster, and ask her to design a trio of bags in time for London Fashion Week.
It would be easy to be cynical about Mulberry's new project with Cara Delevingne, which was unveiled at Claridges today and on the web - particularly when one of her most notorious bags to date was a clear plastic one containing something white that probably wasn't talcum powder.
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However hold that scepticism. "I hate that thing where celebrities just slap their names on any old thing," the famously unguarded model told me afterwards. "I don't ever want to do anything I don't have a connection with. Mulberry was the first bag I was ever given. Before that it was always fabric bags from India. I loved that bag and wore it to death."
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She certainly seemed happy with the three bags on display next to her. And not without justification. Three styles, each in three sizes, zesty emerald, cobalt or grey camouflage, they looked expensively made (although they will available from prices that start beneath the £1,000 rubicon. The ingenious touch was those (detachable) straps that meant all could be worn as backpacks or carried over the arm. Simple - and yet no one's done it before.
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"I was so nervous before they finally showed the finished version to me," she said, fiddling with the squashy, camouflage one. "We only started working on them at the end of last year. These things can go so wrong. They covered my eyes before they finally showed them to me. The build up was intense, I can tell you".
The partnership came about spontaneously apparently, on a Tim Walker shoot in which Delevingne starred for the label last autumn. "We discovered a mutual love for the countryside, for animals - and for functional bags," she says. "I wanted something very functional." And she wanted dogs. 30 grey whippets swirled around Delevingne and her bags to the soundtrack from Peaky Blinders, as she wafted through a misty woodland scene. It's fair to say that one of the questions that most animated her when we chatted afterwards concerned her dream dog. For the record, it's a St Bernard. And a bulldog. And maybe a schnauzer.
READ: Cara Delevingne is Google's most searched fashion name of 2013
No time for any dogs at the moment though. Despite cutting her modelling schedule back to the bone, she's in demand on all her other projects. "People ask me whether I'm trying to be J-Lo, what with the singing and acting. But why can't you do lots of different things? It keeps you fresh. And think about the number of different hobbies people have."
The handbag hobbybists will find a rich subject for geekiness here. All three of the Cara designs bear the familiar Mulberry hallmarks of brass hardware and the chunky dimensions of the enduringly popular Bayswater. But it's their versatility that should ensure them a place on thousands of women's wish-lists. "Day to night to walk in the country" she says.
It seems Delevingne took this project seriously, visiting Mulberry's two Somerset factories and acquainting herself with the manufacturing process - so much so that the 700 workers there have named a sheep after her.
WATCH: Cara Delevingne gets dressed and shares her secrets
Cara Sheep will probably gratify her almost as much as those Cara bags, if some of her more new-agey tweets are anything to go by. Not that her agency Storm haven't worked out a gratifying business deal for her with Mulberry.
That seems right. At its height, the Mulberry Alexa bag, named after Alexa Chung, had a waiting list of 17,000 names. The Caras could easily equal or beat that. At any rate, the fees could tide her over while her acting career takes off.
She's just finished playing a student in Face of An Angel, a film about Amanda Knox starring Kate Beckinsale.
A onesie-wearing, trainer devotee whose Instagram handle declares a love of eyebrows, she's not interested in suffering for clothes, or, come to that, for modelling. "I certainly don't want to work anymore for the people who treated me like c*** before I got successful".
She won't have to. The Cara collections (this is the first step in a long-term contract) may well beat the Alexa record and remind the public than while it is undoubtedly going upmarket (switching most of its manufacturing from China and Turkey back to Britain, and sourcing the same suedes as Hermes is part of that), Mulberry hasn't forgotten the young women who made it a cult hit in the first place.
And it hasn't forgotten Cara's granny. "She's 101 and she will like this bag. My five year old cousin will probably like this bag. He's a boy".
Until Mulberry announces its new creative director - very soon, promises Anne-Marie Verdin-Mulot, head of marketing, this should tide them over nicely. In the meantime it's hard to think of any trained designer who could garner them this kind of attention.
All photos: Julian Andrews
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