Colville (Q2817)
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Colville is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Colville |
Colville is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
A penchant for personal exterior design through fashion often precedes a later appreciation for interior design through decoration. Once you work out how to define your identity through clothes, shaping a sympathetic identity for the space around you naturally follows. At Colville, Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy have developed their eclectic range of rugs (shaggy), vases (beady), blankets (dreamy), and other lovely items in conjunction with their development of the fashion line. Watching their models move around the Westminster space during this presentation, it struck you that the vases could be used as bags and the Colombian woven, Italian-finished bags used as vases (for dried flowers). Or that the vibrant Spanish rug would make as lovely a shawl as the shaggy faux-fur would make a handsome fireside floor throw.The partner creative directors endearingly named their design directors—Danny did the prints, while Matteo masterminded the in-house shoes and two collaborations—as they chatted through their colorful and ease-filled universe. One of those collaborations was to reincarnate misprinted Diadora sneakers (they’d been mistakenly labeled "Glod" not Gold) by dipping them in a gloopy double layer of bright resin. Along with the wide-stitched slides and loafers and leather-gaitered boots and shoes these were the podiums for a series of Salone di Mobile-worthy human furnishings. The rounded-shoulder and pleated-arm house jacket, named the Club, was one of a series of established perennials that were given a seasonal tweak either via fresh print design (cheers Danny) or minor variations in some of the many pleasingly functionally abstract details that adorn Colville designs without ever obstructing function.Chambers and Molloy first flourished as a partnership in Milan at old Marni, before joining forces to create Colville and pursue their work from the UK. It was maybe this backstory—or maybe the new Jelly bag that looked like it was made to tote tubes of gouache—but this collection strongly reminded me of the work and vibe of another Italian-influenced female British artist. Through the non-conformist elemental gusto of their experiments in color and form (that always worked to serve the specifically womanly spirit they were striving to essentialize) this Colville collection seemed to contain an adjacency to the establishment-overlooked (of course) work of the Alberto Burri-mentored yet vigorously individual St. Ives artist Sandra Blow.
More concisely—this also looked like a lovely collection to live within, around, or alongside.
20 February 2024
The short, streamlined shapes of the 1960s are trending in Milan this season. There have been countless youthquake revivals over the years, and each time the era comes back around, it loses a little more of its graphic punch, to say nothing of its original connotations. So let’s give a shout-out to Colville’s Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy, who have absolutely no interest in revisiting the distant past. Like other women designers with original points of view, Chambers and Molloy are much more self-directed; they design what they want to wear. In turn, they’re building a loyal client base, with 70% returning customers, they reported at a showing of their spring collection.Discussing their new designs, they foregrounded those returning customers, explaining that the endless cycle of newness the fashion calendar demands is counterproductive. Clients come back because they appreciate the flattering, elegant way a dress drapes asymmetrically across the torso or because they fell in love with Colville’s arty floral prints. Rather than press ahead with a system that doesn’t work for them, Chambers and Molloy opted to recut popular dresses. If there’s consistency here, it’s never boring, not with their sense of proportion and mutual flair for color.They presented the collection against plywood panels painted in bold color blocks, not unlike the patterns found on their clothes. The McCardell dress, named for the pioneering American designer Claire McCardell and featuring a generous bodice between a drawstring ribbon neckline and waist, exuded the pulled-together ease she was known for. A floral-print number in slinky jersey was designed with a built-in ruched capelet, giving it a distinct look. Also very appealing: a new silhouette with the voluminous shape of a caftan, shown in both a chartreuse green with a black band around the skirt and in a yellow-on-black oversized scratch flower. A collab with Diadora yielded some of the most whimsical sneakers you’ll see anywhere.Chambers and Molloy are looking for investment. They have no dreams of becoming a billion-dollar brand—they’re hands-on designers and like to work at the human scale—but they would like to amp up the business. “We know what we do is niche,” Chambers said. “But it’s been five years, and we’ve built up this really engaged customer. We just want to grow it really sustainably and really solidly and make clothes that women want to buy.”
22 September 2023
Milan has taken a turn for the minimal. Cargo pants, ribbed knits, and slip dresses have dominated the runways in the first two days of shows here, as trends have started to take shape. But not at Colville. Founders Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy don’t concern themselves with trends, but in any case they’re too committed to artful prints, fluid draping, and collage-like assemblages to be persuaded by the umpteenth return of the ’90s.Wearing the colorful patterns of their fall collection—they are their own best advertisements—Chambers and Molloy pointed out highlights for spring. There are asymmetric tops and skirts in lively stripes or color blocks; Chambers likened them to flags, an apt comparison for the sweeping but not impractical silhouettes. An array of flattering printed dresses showcased their verve for draping, one with blouson-ish volume on the bodice and a cape-like back, another with grand sleeves, which reappear on aStar WarsT-shirt that is part of their upcycling project. A third printed dress was finished with a twisting shoulder sash made from used and rehabbed puffer jackets. Knits are also part of the picture, and they too packed a graphic punch.Walking into the brand’s Via Cappuccini headquarters is like stepping inside a kaleidoscope—it could make a maximalist out of just about anyone. But even women without the Colville designers’ magpie style can find something here. Their spring suit is cut in soft washed fabric, giving it a utilitarian bent and easy-wearing attitude.That spirit likewise imbues their accessories. Colorful woven bags made by the Wayuu people of Colombia and raffia totes crafted by a community of female artisans in Madagascar are designed with an eye to practicality and user-friendliness. Achieving It bag status doesn’t enter into the equation for Chambers and Molloy, and yet in a world of same-y designer handbags, Colville’s woven Cylinder and smaller crossbody have that It factor. The designers’ closeness to the product is what makes it so compelling and good.
22 September 2022
In a rejuvenated Milan Fashion Week dominated by global names, Colville is the little brand that could. It’s growing organically, not with multimillion dollar marketing budgets, but with something more reliable: word of mouth, the shared tips between one fashion-loving woman and another. Founders Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy are fashion-loving women themselves, with years of experience at Marni between them.Listening to their inner voices, they were after protection and tenderness this season. They called it their most feminine collection to date, but they can drape with the best of them, placing a ruffle down the front of a bias cut dress to accentuate the waist and conceal what are colloquially sometimes called our “problem parts,” or ruching the asymmetric neckline of another to enhance the hourglass of its silhouette. Their fall stunner is a long-sleeved number with a ribbon-cinched neck whose overscale abstract floral print was pulled from a piece by the artist Kavel Rafferty, who paints over old postcards—a process, they pointed out, that has parallels to their own commitment to recycling.Since the beginning of Colville three years ago Chambers and Molloy have been sourcing and reworking used garments—silk scarves, T-shirts, shell jackets. This season they added denim to their repertoire, grafting light and dark washes into a dress-length gilet and wide-legged flares. An upcycled down jacket was put together like puzzle pieces, its whimsy equaled by a matching wide-brimmed puffer hat.Having already partnered with women’s collectives in Colombia and Mexico, they recently began working with another in Madagascar that helps vulnerable women find work and meaning; it’s responsible for the colorful weaving on a new soft bag Chambers and Molloy named the Pudding. An upstart it may be, but Colville is the full package. The label also makes some of the coolest, most collectible earrings in this city.
25 February 2022
Lucinda Chambers and Molly Molloy enlisted artist Blue Farrier to create prints for their new Colville collection. Farrier was a student with Molloy at Central Saint Martins in the 1990s; her remit here was to do something “really bold,” and she probably made close to 100 paintings. Two of them ended up in the new lineup; one, in swirls of aqua and bordeaux on a silk draped top and matching skirt finished with a striped sash woven in Mexico, and another in more primary shades of red and blue that they cut into a cotton drill dress.“Really bold” is an apt way to describe the entire Colville outing. Asked how the long months of lockdown, which forced them to work via Zoom, impacted their outlook, Chambers said, “I think we feel braver.” That manifested not just in lively prints and colors, but in fabric development and their continued efforts around upcycling, both of which are driven by their belief in sustainability.Among the novelties on the material side was an easy tiger-stripe dress in cotton and wool jacquard. The usual thing to do would be to use polyester for the three-dimensional stripes, but it was important to them to use only natural fibers and dyes. “After the summer of extreme weather we’ve had, we have to be responsible,” said Molloy. The collection’s wide-leg trousers were cut in a hemp- and-linen blend. Women will buy them for their terrific fit, but they’re also a boon to the environment; both require significantly less water to grow than cotton.Upcycled pieces have been part of Colville’s DNA since the beginning, but the designers pushed the concept this season, piecing used T-shirts into a tidy but fun long dress and a ’70s-slim button-down, and cutting a lovely ’30s-ish number with different swatches of fabric that they picked up IRL and on eBay-based vintage trawls. There’s also a cool new bag patchworked from colorful tracksuits, as light to carry as it is lively. A showroom reveals that they’re broadening their exuberant vision to include home design. A collection of colorful tables will be ready by next year’s Salone del Mobile. Chambers and Molloy have creativity and ingenuity in spades.
24 September 2021
In Colville’s new look book, model Amane Taniguchi shares pride of place with a series of Murano glass vases, each one handmade by glassblowers in Italy. Founders Molly Molloy and Lucinda Chambers are passionate about vases, so why not? Working by feeling, rather than by strategy, has been their approach since they started the label in 2018, and it’s helped Colville become an insider’s favorite for everything from sculptural earrings to handwoven wayuu bags to tufted Turkish-made rugs and poufs.The swirls of those glass vases are echoed in the hallucinogenic marble print that appears on a draped and twisted silk dress and its matching leggings. This collection was positively chockablock with color. That was another instinct: A year of Zoom meetings have taught Molloy and Chambers not to save the boldest, brightest pieces in their own closets for special occasions—when are those coming back?—but to pull them out and wear them every day. “Nobody needs another black handbag,” Chambers said.You could call it the house motto. They brought their flair for kinetic mixes to a color-block piqué twinset, a hoodie spliced together from Nike sports gear, and a pair of fabulous gilets patchworked from upcycled down puffer jackets. The surprise of the season was the romance and femininity of certain other pieces. The “Oh La La” dress, for instance, is nipped and ruched at the waist in a manner that’s both sexy and forgiving. There’s also lace, a material making its first appearance at Colville, worn under either a peplum bustier or a tunic in wide-wale corduroy. Describing their process, which was handled mostly over Zoom this season, Molloy said, “We respond to things very much in the moment.” It’s working.
19 February 2021
Sometimes you watch a collection from its genesis and you marvel at how quickly its designers built a world. Colville is absolutely one of those collections. Its founders Molly Molloy and Lucinda Chambers are industry veterans; that helps, of course. But it’s still cheering to see such a distinct point of view, and how, in their case, the shawls, the bags, and the vegetable-dyed rugs and poufs, made respectively by artisan collectives in Mexico, Colombia, and Turkey, all work so brilliantly together.Besides the designers’ obvious flair for color and print, the more vibrant the better, the unifying principles at Colville, it seems to me, are comfort and joy. As women, Molloy and Chambers know those two things are interlinked; you’ll see a preponderance of upcycled trainers and track pants in these look book pictures. But their dresses, too, have a sensuous ease, tied effortlessly with ribbon at the waist or at the nape of the neck above an exposed upper back. Those shawls, locally sourced and dyed by the Tzotzil ethnic group in the Chiapas region of Mexico, are the collection’s hero pieces: They would enliven any outfit, or home. A jacket pieced from a patchwork of traditional Indian bedspreads is similarly colorful, with the feel of a keepsake or heirloom.The pandemic might’ve made their work more challenging, with Chambers in London and Molloy in Milan, but on a Zoom call they were enlivened and positive. Where other brands are shrinking or outright collapsing, Colville is expanding. “There is a kind of level playing field, where if you’ve got a strong story to tell, you get a voice. And that’s a wonderful thing,” Chambers reflected. “It doesn’t matter how much money you have to chuck at it anymore, you can’t buy your way out of this. It has to be about what you’re making and the love you’re putting into it.” Molloy and Chambers are the real deal.
18 September 2020
The ambitions of Colville’s Molly Molloy, Kristin Forss, and Lucinda Chambers aren’t small, but they’re not of the world-dominating kind that once animated designers. These industry veterans all have experience at large corporations, and they’re building their little label to be different.They’re committed not just to sustainable practices, but also to projects with a women-helping-women social mission. Both concepts are in vogue at the moment; the virtue signaling was laid on thick at one of today’s name-brand shows. At Colville, in contrast, upcycled trenches and puffers are integral to the collection, not branding projects. Ditto the bags handwoven by a Wayuu collective in Colombia, though the designers are happy to tell you that if they sell 30 of them, they can feed 16 families for a month.The patterns on those bags are the Wayuu’s, but the colors are Colville’s. The trio’s many virtues aside, their lively color sense and flair for prints, together with their relaxed, idiosyncratic way of cutting, are what’s attracting women now. Fall finds them layering a printed dress with a modern cut over upcycled track pants, adding a chunky sweater to a Pina Bausch silk slip dress, and pairing one of their new pieced-together cropped trenches with a striped wool blanket coat. Everything is accessorized with their whimsical jewelry.Back to their ambitions: This season marks Colville’s official foray into home goods. In addition to blanket coats, there are actual blankets, which they’ve made in partnership with an Italian supplier in business since 1925, and they’ll be selling rugs of their own design—hand-tufted in Turkey and handwoven in Dakar—on their website. The fuzzy Turkish rugs in particular showcase their gorgeous palette. They’re growing exactly the way they want to.
21 February 2020
More and more of Milan’s most enterprising and energizing labels aren’t on the runway. Behind the iron gate of the historic Palazzo Berri-Meregalli, Molly Molloy, Kristin Forss, and Lucinda Chambers are building Colville into one of those labels. The trio has insider credibility to spare—having worked together at Marni—and style too. Chambers was Consuelo Castiglioni’s longtime stylist, and she’s fashion-famous for her eclectic layering and innate sense of cool. But there’s more than that working in their favor.Without all the resources of a giant conglomerate behind them, Molloy, Forss, and Chambers are resourceful in their approach to things. They work collaboratively with a Colombian women’s group on charming woven bags, and they’re sourcing vintage silk scarves and old shell jackets from the ’90s and turning them into graceful dresses and clever sleeved shrugs respectively. Social responsibility and upcycling are buzzwords that fashion companies use to rationalize the hyper-production of endless stuff. But this isn’t marketing speak at Colville. It’s built into its collective way of doing things. Molloy, Forss, and Chambers are really, truly close to the product. Customers can feel that.And for that product, it’s not anonymous. There’s a sleeveless jacket whose tailoring registers as classic, but their trousers are distinctive: high-waisted and belted. Hailing as they do from Marni, the Colville trio has a flair for bold floral prints and off-kilter silhouettes, like an upside-down shirt whose sleeves drape below the hips and a trompe l’oeil skirt that looks like a folded-over dress. No one else is doing raincoats made from boat sails; they call them their “crisps package” coats. And those upcycled scarf dresses and shell jackets-turned-shrugs are one of a kinds. They’ve also done a small collection of jewelry. The double hoops that Chambers was modeling can be separated and worn multiple ways—another detail that showcased the intimacy and human scale of the project.
20 September 2019
Fall 2019 marks the third collection from Colville, the label created by a trio of former colleagues at Marni—Molly Molloy, Kristin Forss, and Lucinda Chambers—who also just happen to be very good friends. Why that latter fact matters we’ll get to in due course, but for now, suffice to say that this collection more than delivers on the enormous promise shown by their Colville debut less than a year ago. Of course, why wouldn’t it? Between them, Molloy, Forss, and Chambers, along with Marni founder Consuelo Castiglioni, conjured up a label that became an unlikely global powerhouse, beloved for its offhand luxury and artisanal flourishes. In turn they were able to create a powerful and intimate dialogue with the women who wore its clothes; to wear Marni was to be heard and feel understood.Colville follows that ethos, and in this moment, when so much fashion seems to be only interested in speaking at women, not with them, its presence is hugely welcome. Which neatly brings us to the importance of that friendship: This is a label built on honest and personal conversation, the aesthetic push and pull between friends figuring out what exactly works for themselves and for one another. Still, Colville’s no Marni 2.0. There’s something else going on here, perhaps because its founders are determined to keep their label small and personal, and intent on taking a slow and measured approach—not to mention taking what seems like an almost punkish delight in rewriting the rule book by their own hand. And their point with that is simple: You should take the same ungoverned pleasure in however you want to wear their clothes.Put like that, and all of a sudden you can find your own way into wearing Colville. Perhaps with the fantastic black and white sweater in an almost ikat-like pattern, its gazillion raw threads flying hither and thither and knitted out of a yarn developed in Japan. Or the capacious trench cut from a beige cotton with a rippled and wrinkled patina as if it had been beautifully weathered, which you might throw over a color-blocked, multi-striped sweater, say, or a long dress in a floral wallpaper-like print that was described as wistful but would likely invoke more happiness than melancholy when it’s worn. A slithery crepe was put to good use for another dress, cut on the bias in panels of heather and dusky rose and slipped under a matching parka in a paper-light technical fabrication.
There are also things you might find madly useful but which you’d never realized you needed until you had them: the striped wool arm warmers and neck cowls that could give warmth without a whole lot of heavy weight, or one of the clever little draped puffy boleros made from repurposed ’90s shell jackets, an instantly transformative piece that is also one of Colville’s forays into sustainability, along with the chunky ribbed beanies, the result of cutting up vintage knits. There are even Colville-logoed soccer scarves and tees and sweaters emblazoned with a very Jamie Reid–esque treatment of the brand’s name. Something says this isn’t about egotistical display, though, but instead about taking a quiet pride in being a label that’s striving to do things its own way and the right way.
3 March 2019