Molly Goddard (Q3413)
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Molly Goddard is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Molly Goddard |
Molly Goddard is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Ladbroke Grove local Molly Goddard threw her first fateful off-schedule London Fashion Week installation/party back in September 2014. “It was in a church hall in Mayfair,” she recalled today. “I paid £300. I was given some rum, and went to Brick Lane for bagels. Oh and I had a wedding singer.” Her guests were given Goddard’s tulle-buttressed t-shirt bodices and party dresses to swoosh in. As she added afterwinningthe 2018 BFC/VogueFashion Fund: “I did the party presentation because I thought I’d get a job. But then we got orders. I didn’t have any set-up, so it was just me, sewing away. Then, it’s like, ‘Molly Goddard’, the brand!”What comes around goes around. Once again today it was just Goddard, showing away, in her Bethnal Green studio. She stripped back her structure and returned to the source. Just like that debut collection, this first 'resort' collection of the new-Goddard era is being picked up by Dover Street Market. It will be on show (and sale) there from January. As her interludes explaining some of the intricacies of the fabric cutting techniques and smocking ratios that allowed for the creation of these 10 titanic tulle dresses attested, for Goddard the making is the thing.But why the rupture? “This structure and this system is mad. And it’s so risky.” Goddard said that the collapse of MatchesFashion brought home the Jenga-fragility of the make-now, get-paid-later (maybe) wholesale system, and prompted her to get off the hamster wheel of speculative SKU-churning in order to recenter. The primary consideration, she emphasized, was creative rather than financial: “it’s not been about money, although it has been a harder year.”Change is hard, and there was tangible regret when we discussed her absence from showing in September, but then excitement too at scouting the way ahead. Goddard isn’t straying down the midlife designer cul-de-sac of rejecting fashion for art; she simply plans to prioritize her fashion artistry over commercial upscaling. “I want to create pieces that I’m proud of and have fun making and then want to be able to sell them, rather than just putting a lot of random cotton dresses wherever.” She will continue to do made-to-order and bridal commissions, and is already scheming on collaborations with other free spirits she admires. “This is totally a choice I have made,” she added. Decade two starts here.
19 November 2024
Snuggled sleepy and serene against the chest of her father, Molly Goddard’s 11-week-old daughter was arguably the most impactful influencer at her mother’s show this afternoon. That’s because it was her arrival into the world that punctuated the process of preparing this collection, and which obliged Goddard to condense her usual gestation from creative conception to runway reveal. As she put it: “I’ve had to consolidate. And I’ve realized—having stepped away and then come back when the things that I designed at the beginning were more finalized—that it’s really good to stick with the thing that I want to do at the beginning of planning a collection, which is often when I feel most confident about it.”The result was undiluted Goddard. The designer confessed there was no great agenda behind her choice of the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society as her venue, but the room’s frayed, very English dignity—and the Ivon Hitchens mural that dominates it—very much complemented her work. Also appropriately, Goddard was throwing shapes: painstakingly engineered forms in taffeta, tulle, and knit were laid atop one another to create fundamentally abstract material sculptures. Sometimes, Goddard said, she felt “they were so ugly they are beautiful,” as if she worried that some of the looks were ones only their mother could love. This seemed harsh. Instead, by leaning deep into her core palette—red, orange, magenta, pink—she worked expertly to scoop gorgeously unorthodox forms of multitextural worn gelato around her models. Often the silhouettes were most interesting when seen side-on, as bulbous layers of colored ruffled tulle with different weights and springiness moved up against the offbeat of their wearers’ walks: The hallucinogenic Terry Riley tune on the soundtrack only amplified the sense of carefully curated, color-saturated dissonance that this collection rendered. The bags were lovable scrunches of frill in more taffeta.The one aside to this collection’s central exercise in merging textures and form was a reference to Westernwear based on her algorithmically curated eBay suggestions for clothes for her children. Goddard has often referred back to the clothes of her youth, and now is adding the clothes of her youths to that mix to simultaneously blend her nostalgia with its anticipation for her offspring.
Here, piped and floral decorated double-face knit faux Western shirts were placed against similarly decorated denim and flat, round-toe ballet-cowboy boots.“It’s all about the craft,” observed Goddard. This collection spoke volumes.
17 February 2024
Molly Goddard said that before this show at Christie’s auction house on King Street, the other occasions upon which she’d tended to visit were during the set up of displays. She elaborated: “It’s behind the scenes, when there are these masterpieces just lying on the floor: it’s kind of amazing to see and very exciting… which I guess in some way is connected to the collection.”Goddard fashioned a fair few masterpieces of her own in a lineup that focused on nudging the mechanics of garments to the surface, turning them inside out in order to create a patina of production. She said she’d done her research in the National Theatre Costume Hire, examining the stitched clockwork of garments ranging in style from Regency to contemporary.Long skirts were shirred at the hip to create drape down to edged froths of pale ruffled petticoat. This contrast device was especially stirring when used to edge the single vent of a black tailored jacket. The trademark tulle skirts were teamed with loosely corseted tops whose sheerness exposed the geography of boning and corsetry that defined their gentle geography. A dusty pink woolen cardigan was edged with a two-inch strip of satin, like some old granny blanket left bundled in the cupboard of a spare room. Washed out red rose prints used on more skirts and knitted into another cardigan—magenta paneled at the shoulder—added to the sense of comfortable, domestic nostalgia. Off-white quilted dresses came gridded with quilted beams, and the seams of checked denim pieces were traced in unfinished selvedge.A precise excavation of the deeply familiar but also overlooked, this was a quietly masterful collection. Said Goddard: “What I enjoy most is when I get really stuck in to how to make clothes; the techniques and the fabrics and the fit.” That pleasure in Goddard’s process was evident in its result.
16 September 2023
“I wanted to go back to a place of it feeling very simple. Like it was in the beginning. Just a little bit more honest. Fundamental, kind of, saying, ‘this is our reality’... basically, I’m feeling very stubborn.” To achieve that Molly Goddard decamped from the grandly cavernous Seymour Leisure Center and invited us into her Bethnal Green studio way out east, her work home of five years. The models emerged from the door of the atelier, where you could see the boots and accessories piled against the wall.“What I found the biggest challenge of the season was not doing the thing that actually comes to me easiest, which is like a big, bright, colorful, enormous showstopper,” said the designer. Those Villanelle explosions are wonderful, but Goddard’s instinct is correct that they suck attention away from the rest of her offer. Here she used that signature material in much more versatile and casually applicable forms. Additionally she deployed her knitwear mindset to create texture by manipulating the warp and weft of silhouette and fabrication.Grosgrain ribbon was horizontally integrated into handsome topcoats and blazers in blue and gray that resembled cleverly rethought prep school blazers. The dress below the first gray jacket was made of more tiered ribbon intersected with velvet. Later, when she succumbed to tulle, more ribbons acted to shape the silhouette and create pattern. There was tulle too in a couple of narrow-skirted leopard-print pieces—Goddard said she hadn’t used the pattern before—including a pink-tinted skirt, which worn beneath a blue blazer and a crewneck scarlet knit set with a design inspired by a vintage flyer from Kensington Market had a cutely skewed preppiness to it. There was also a dash of denim, some leopard patterned, some washed plain and boot cut. This last variant was worn over a long tulle shirtdress, off-white, set with five tiers of navy ribbon. Another look featured an oversized Peter Pan collar coat in black over a zip-up print knit, below it hung a white tulle skirt front. When the voluminous showstopper came at the last, it was cut in a pale gray fabric and cut on the bias—a pointedly uncolorful showstopper. There was barely a frill to be seen, apart from on a few edged shirts.Personal nostalgia and memories of clothes past both provided, said Goddard, some key creative inspirations.
The oversized poppers on the shoes and a few of the shirred ruched bags were inspired by a Gap Kids belt she shared with her sister Alice, who styled the show. A broader atmosphere of rose-tinted campus remembrance came through too. Said Goddard: “I think I’ve just felt a little bit freaked out by the fashion world recently. It’s easy to get so pushed along, and strung along, with the whole show of it.” By pushing back—and pulling us all out east—Goddard claimed her agency and delivered a collection worked on her own terms, and which needed no showstopper to impress.
18 February 2023
“I wanted there to be a clunkiness to it, and a messiness, and to slow down the pace and give everything a bit more breathing room.” Now an established star in the London fashion constellation—with a consistent, solid business there to provide gravity—Molly Goddard can dictate her own pace. She added: “When I start a collection, it’s sketches, silhouettes, fabrics, textures: we swatch fabric samples and work out frills, and frills in different fabrics, and the combination of prints. I love clashing prints, clashing colors, and clashing textures.”Goddard did deliver the explosively expansive and colorful tulle dresses that fueled her meteoric rise, but they came later in a show that was served in four phases, purposely disjointed against the soundtrack. This was in order, she indicated, to echo the unchoreographed organic spontaneity of pre-internet red carpet dressing.We started with a series of dresses and a skirt whose sumptuous silhouettes belied the purposeful plainness of their fabric, a calico-toned cotton she said was there to echo the toiles that are her starting point when realizing designs. Cut in jersey, some epically ruffled pink gowns with demonstrative darting at the torso were later experiments in this contrast between silhouette and material.Goddard’s cutesy ‘Twinky’ print returned, printed on knitwear, mesh and denim sometimes worn under a layer of contrasting opaque tulle. The models wore colorful Spanish-made cowboy boots and shoes and carried ruffled bags. Menswear featured shrunken-proportioned tailoring, some frill-edged; color-drenched aran knit hoodies; and a handsomely shirred high-waisted bomber. There was also a full-length pinstripe skirt.The fireworks phase arrived in a salvo of retina-drenching intensely-colored tulle dresses, sometimes worn against casual shirting in powerfully complementary tones; pink v orange, green v purple. Full length dresses in lemon or lime tulle came over bee-striped underwear. Then we circled back to that toile-referencing starting point. Three final high-volume silhouettes in not-quite-white concluded this expertly orchestrated exercise in high-impact contrast between color, fabric, texture, and shape.
18 September 2022
It was back to a proper fashion show for Molly Goddard this season. It made for a giddily happy reunion of friends, with one fresh face in the front row gazing intently on the wonder of people swishing their colorful skirts along the high-up catwalk: Goddard’s baby Frank.Inter-generational Goddard family memories of Molly’s early days of growing up in West London in the ’80s were the makings of her theme. Back then, Goddard said, she was riveted by the formative influence of seeing how her mom Sarah’s glamorous friend—a bleach blonde with a flower stuck in her hair—was dressed when she dropped into their home off Portobello Market. That was the period when there was a kind of DIY post-New Wave ’80s/’50s vintage craze going on, thrown together by arty girls with army surplus clothes sourced from Camden Market stalls and old men’s tweedy overcoats. “I thought she was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jones [of The Clash] and I based this collection around her,” said Goddard.Which explained the re-manifestation of multi-ruffled net poodle-skirts and swishy fishtail dresses, styled with contradictory oversized trad knitwear, big ’40s or ’50s coats and the odd helping of tattered fabric that might have been converted from country house upholstery.In other words: still true to Molly Goddard customers who apparently can never get enough of her ruffly net party dresses, but this time with more in the way of sensible outerwear to combat the weather in the streets—and, come to think of it, plenty of cozy layers which could be very handy to stock up on in anticipation of enduring the next British winter with the heating turned off.
19 February 2022
It’s quite the fashion in London to produce a baby alongside a collection this year. Both Molly Goddard and Simone Rocha have returned this season with infants. Molly’s Frank was charming visitors with appointments at her studio this morning, while his mother was explaining how being pregnant made her “think about baby clothes.”Well, that’s no conceptual (dreadful pun) stretch for Molly Goddard. In fact, it’s intrinsic to her origin story as a Central Saint Martins fashion student: “My graduation collection was all based on blowing up the dresses I had when I was a child,” she said. That’s where her obsession with smocking grew; and the happy/oblivious power of grown women taking up a good amount of space. This was a woman-centric staring down, laughing at and toying with whatever toxicity might be meant by “Lolita.” The multiple meters of pink net which typically explode from this designer’s little baby-smocked bodices are definitely not for women who simper.There’s one of those dresses in her spring collection: a classic Molly Goddard party frock. More noticeable, though, is her diversification from full-on going-out clothes. Instead of a show, she shot a video in her studio which demonstrates what Molly Goddard people can wear all of the time. Excellent wide-leg jeans. Neon-bright Guernsey sweaters and Aran-knit cardigans. Smocks to layer over track pants. Menswear—including flared trench coats, stripy sweaters, and ballet flats.Next season, Goddard is aiming for a full runway show again. That’s a gathering to look forward to. In the meantime, her baby-time has generated as much joy as ever, and possibly even more clothes that a lot of people will want to have in their lives.
18 September 2021
Despite the obvious limitations of the moment, the world has hardly stood still for Molly Goddard. Since the U.K. went into lockdown for the second time this winter, the designer has been forging ahead with her eponymous label, recently dropping a capsule of exquisite bridal dresses that’s primed for the current boom in micro- weddings. (At eight-and-a-half months pregnant, Goddard and Tom Shickle, her partner in life and work, are close to marking another happy milestone in their personal lives too.) “This collection was maybe the toughest to put together because of all the restrictions,” said Goddard, speaking via Zoom from her home in West London this morning—she’s been isolating since January, under doctor’s orders. “There was so much uncertainty even in the logistics, but that didn’t stop us from taking risks. In a way, I think we really went for it.”Goddard is well known for her daring otherworldly confections, though this season she took to honing the down-to-earth signatures in her repertoire. She leaned into the quirky Britishisms that make her work sing, starting with an extended offering of her adorable Fair Isle sweaters for both men and women. Goddard takes pride in the fact that much of the collection is manufactured in the U.K., and for fall she worked with a Scottish factory to produce traditional tartan kilts that looked especially good on the male model in her virtual fashion show, paired with colorful knits and a slouchy blazer.Tailoring has gradually become a mainstay for the label as well, and this time around it was a men’s suit in charcoal gray with subtle ruching through the waistline that stole the limelight, prompting several male staffers atVogueto inquire about Goddard’s new online preorder service. And though it was hard to ignore the exuberance of the tulle evening dresses in her lineup—she opened and closed the show with two especially flirty strapless numbers—the taffeta frocks with angular bows were just as attention grabbing layered over raw denim pants for day or with knee-high metallic boots for party time.“I missed the library and going to markets—all the people-watching!” said Goddard wistfully of making the collection. Though her new clothes may have been conceived in isolation, they gave glimpses of just how playful reemergence could look this fall.
20 February 2021
Like many of her peers in London, Molly Goddard was in a sober mood when the city went into lockdown earlier this year. As factories grounded to a halt and retailers across the world closed up shop, the future of her business and others like it seemed increasingly precarious. In that moment, any big-picture ideas around creating new clothes were drawn between narrow black and white lines. The mission at hand seemed to be one of paring down, stripping back, and essentializing.But as one walked into her studio in Bethnal Green today, where she presented her new collection, it was quickly apparent that her thinking has shifted. The mannequins that dotted the space were dressed like vibrant exclamation points. Ruffled, full-skirted dresses in vivid green, checkerboard neon sweaters, and explosive orange and pink gowns provided a caffeine-like jolt to the senses. Of these looks, the most impressive offered a minimalist gesture of color through joyous, maximalist shapes.Though exotic by nature, Goddard’s taffeta and tulle clothes tend to have a dry hand and a utilitarian aesthetic that works for day. Her new pretty A-line anorak dress was a great example. And if there were ever a season to collaborate with Uggs, this moment is surely it. The colorful shaggy slides and comfy platforms were primed for a life working from home.Also in keeping with the times was Goddard’s decision to make many of her statement-making dresses available in white. For cool young brides shopping in the era of the socially distanced wedding, they’re bound to be a perfect match.
19 September 2020
Well, here we are together again in Molly Goddard’s studio, just Molly and me. We’re in a former gallery space, she’s telling me. The next-door neighbors packed up and left when the pandemic was sweeping in, so now she’s been able to annex a big extra space. The windows are open to Bethnal Green Road, the sun’s slanting in on the racks of her first pre-collection, and she’s pointing out a long white block that runs the length of a wall. “That’s our catwalk!” she says, from a distance. “We shot our look book here the other day on Liberty, our house model. Just five of us.”The new normality feels like a return to optimistic simplicity around here. Goddard’s clothes are as cheerfully Goddard-y as ever, dresses and skirts made “in all the ways I can think of,” she says, with the smocking and ruffling techniques she developed as a student. The shirred polyester taffeta—this season in neon pink with burgundy velvet trims or inky blue flounces—is “so comfortable to wear because it just stretches with you,” she explains. “So you can sit down, lie about, do anything in it. I think that’s why people like it. Because you can wear these things in an everyday way, not just for parties.”True to her hands-on resourcefulness, the designer decided to keep things going during the height of the lockdown. “We all worked remotely, doing fittings on ourselves, which was quite funny.” She runs a tight and friendly business. “I didn’t furlough anyone. I thought it’s important to maintain our relationships with all the people who we rely on, the fabric suppliers and the local London factories who managed to keep ticking over, with people taking work home.”There’s knitwear too now—shrink-pleated stretchy sweaters and wool cardigans made in England. She’s also spent her time developing accessories: ruched bags made from her signature fabrics and solid but perky leopard-spot and emerald green creepers in collaboration with the British brand Underground. “They only do creepers. I love them—they’re the best!”She’s mulling over what to do next. “Well, I’m thinking I want to make something really creative to show—and now we’ve got all this room, I think it’d be nice just to have a few people over to see it here. We could easily put out 10 tables, invite two people to sit at each of them at a nice distance from one another, and pull out the catwalk in the middle. Everyone could relax, have a chat and a glass of wine.
”Goddard’s at-home plan is tentative, but her eyes were glinting at the prospect. Who knows whether there will be a Fashion Week schedule, a circuit, even a date for things to start happening again? But then again, who cares? “ Really, I never meant to get into that whole Fashion Week thing of having huge shows and all the nightmare that goes with it,” she says. “Honestly, I’d love to get back to what we did at the beginning—just being able to do something that feels spontaneous and fun.”
3 July 2020
In lieu of a press release, Molly Goddard sent out a throwback London street-style photo as the explainer for her new collection. First published inFruits, the cult Japanese magazine, back in 1992, the image features just the kind of cool-looking dad and daughter duo you’d expect to find on bohemian Portobello Road: him in distressed denim on denim and a baker boy hat, his insanely cute sidekick dressed in a tiny ruffled skirt over jeans and a chunky knit sweater. “The little girl is me!” said Goddard backstage at the show this afternoon. “I remember those times growing up in Notting Hill so fondly, and really wanting to get dressed up for the market and all the characters who lived there.”Though she might have only been 3 or 4 years old in the picture, Goddard is instantly recognizable in her now trademark billowing silhouette and irreverent styling. You could trace the influence of her toddler self in the new collection, starting with an exploding blue taffeta dress that was layered over a salmon pink cardigan and worn with chunky brothel creepers, then topped off with a beanie hat that was replete with a giant bow. Baby Molly was clearly all over the cloudlike sunshine yellow tutu dress that came floating down the runway over checkered pants, too. It was a fitting reminder of the unbridled, youthful energy that buoyed her debut.Goddard has been guided by her style impulses and those of her creative and fashionable friends since the beginning. This season she was inspired to make the colorful Fair Isle sweater after many flea market outings with her pal,Vogue’s own Lynn Yaeger, who was at the show today. Models Adwoa Aboah and Edie Campbell have been regulars on Goddard’s runway; this time they came out in support, cheering from the front row where bottles of white wine and bread and butter were laid out.Goddard showed menswear for the first time this season, largely at the behest of her musician turned fashion PR boyfriend, Tom Shickle. “He always moans that there’s nothing for him to wear, so I made a suit,” said Goddard, laughing. The retro-leaning checkered tailoring she created had a nerdy, Brit-pop sway about it, something you could imagine Jarvis Cocker might have worn in his ’90s heyday. The suiting would certainly look good on Goddard’s other half, or any number of her female friends for that matter. Even when the designer is out of her comfort zone, somehow, she manages to make it all seem like child’s play.
15 February 2020
From the moment she appeared on the London scene five years ago, Molly Goddard has been synonymous with an ethereal kind of romanticism. The light, airy tulle layers on which this designer has built her brand, however, belie a steely design focus. And today, she showed her mettle with her most confident and exquisite collection to date.Nearly always voluminous and often ruffled, Goddard’s signatures are unmistakable; in fact, you can almost recognize the rustle of her clothes with your eyes closed. Such was the case at her show this afternoon, where models in full-skirted looks literally brushed past editors and buyers sat in tightly packed rows. In a moment when experiences have taken a backseat to fashion, it was an intimate reminder that nothing beats the frisson of carefully considered clothing.Rather than conjure some elaborate theme, Goddard spent her time refining her technical know-how for Spring. The main goal was to find ways to blow up the silhouettes that have become familiar in her repertoire without any hidden tricks or underpinnings. The new pieces appeared effortlessly light, buoyed by new pattern-cutting techniques and expert layering with sheer ruched dresses that alluded to skin worn over billowing ankle-length skirts. There was a charming allure to the more casual looks as well, including the sweaters tied with ribbon that revealed a sliver of the upper arm, paired with micro-floral-printed bubble skirts that were gently raised over one knee. After the unapologetic nakedness on the New York shows, this subtle brand of seduction was especially persuasive.Goddard worked with denim for the first time this season, though the results were far from basic. Embellished with 3-D flowers and cut to the ankle in ever-increasing circles, the raw denim frock carried all the lightness of her tulle looks. Though Goddard doesn’t plan on launching accessories just yet, the new studded crossbody bags were another reminder of her range. Whatever move she decides to make next, surely sky’s the limit for this talented young designer.
14 September 2019
Molly Goddard may have risen to fashion stardom on the wings of her ethereal tulle dresses, but peel back the prettiness and you’ll find that there’s an earthy soul in her designs. “Dressed for the storm,” was how the designer described the look of her new collection. To that end, models marched out with balaclavas wrapped around their heads and all-terrain knee-high boots on their feet. What’s more, each one of her gorgeous party looks was layered over a pair of no-nonsense gray trousers.There were wind machines installed along the runway this afternoon to amplify the tumultuous metaphor. Charming full-skirted smocked dresses in neon green and pink silk were blown up in the air Marilyn Monroe–style, though as Goddard insisted, the special effects were staged with Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy’s ill-fated 19th-century British heroine, in mind, and not the 1950s blonde bombshell.After last season’s jaunt to the Mediterranean, Goddard was feeling for the English countryside. The designer replaced the floral prints of Spring with her own take on traditional British motifs, including argyle sweaters with frayed patchwork finishings and vintage-inspired Lurex ribbon textiles. With eiderdown-like clutch bags and padded military-green ball gowns in the mix, the collection was underpinned by a sense of practicality and protection. Goddard elaborated on this mood backstage after the show, expressing her desire to create clothes that might offer stability in uncertain times. It was clearly no coincidence that the show was held in the beautiful atrium of Dunbar Court in Westminster, what is skipping distance from the houses of Parliament, where a real-life tempest is raging around the fate of the country in the European Union.Ultimately Goddard seemed to be challenging the notion that style-conscious women might have to chose between the levity of her tulle frocks and the strong shoulders of her pin-striped suiting. With her new collection she made it clear the two are hardly mutually exclusive—indeed the tailoring was rendered with a more confident hand than ever. Overall the collection was one of the designer’s strongest to date, and further proof that Goddard has what it takes to steer her brand in the right direction, come rain or shine.
16 February 2019
Molly Goddard loves a dinner party, and this season, she took that idea on a Mediterranean vacation of sorts. There were makeshift market stalls set up alongside the runway, designed by her talented set-designer mother, Sarah Edwards. “It’s that moment when you’re ready for the party, but your mum asks you to go to the market,” says Goddard—in this case, a picturesque, open-air market in southern Spain would fit the bill. The holiday vibes were rolling right from the start, with Edie Campbell opening the show in a pair of crisp black cotton short shorts—hardly what you’d expect from Goddard, who’s known for her frothy tulle confections. Still, the gingham housecoat that swung from Campbell’s shoulders bore all of the designer’s hallmarks—trimmed with frills and cross-stitched with Goddard’s initials, by far the cleverest reinvention of the monogram to have surfaced this season.The designer has been experimenting with slinkier silhouettes lately, and for Spring, she’s embracing a more skin-revealing look, too. In addition to leg-baring sequin frocks, there were daisy-print dresses cut with a plunging neckline and a pleasing flamenco-inflected sensuality.Goddard scooped the British Fashion Council/VogueFashion Fund Award this past May, and she is clearly in expansion mode. Her latest collection spoke to the width and breadth of her talents with an offering that encompassed easy day separates (the cropped floral knits and ruffled cotton maxi skirts were the picks of the bunch) and the full-on drama of evening (see the tiered floor-length dress that was a glorious explosion of ruffles). Further proof that this brand is going places.
15 September 2018
Molly Goddard girls like to have fun. In fact the designer usually makes her shows a bacchanalian celebration, complete with banquet tables and flutes of Champagne. This season the set suggested a far more unassuming mise-en-scène: industrial kitchen worktops buried in the bowels of a hotel ballroom. Models stopped to swig on open bottles of wine stationed in the middle of the runway alongside empty silver buffet trays. “It’s where I always end up at a party,” said Goddard with a cheeky grin. “Usually that’s the best part of the night.”If Goddard’s new party looks could talk, they’d surely have deliciously juicy stories to tell. Edie Campbell opened the show in a teeny tiny crop top and a frothy tulle ball skirt that seemed primed for good times. The slinky ruched body-con dresses Goddard introduced a couple of seasons ago were back, this time cut from a woozy ’90s-inflected gingham. And if Cher Horowitz were ever resuscitated for aCluelesssequel, then she’d be wise to update her wardrobe with the label’s thigh-grazing smocked skirtsuit. Goddard took the voluminous silhouettes she is known for a step forward, sculpting an orange number from ruffled tulle that appeared like a delightful confection.Molly Goddard may have launched her brand on soft, fluffy tutus, but she’s since proven that there’s far more to her designs. “It gets very boring to be confined to the pretty bracket,” she said. “Being girlie is fine, but I think that girlie is often misinterpreted as wishy-washy or prim. I’m the opposite of prim.” She’s certainly broken the mold with her unbridled sense of joy and attitude. But beyond that, Goddard has shown she's adept at communicating to women across size and age within the language of her own line. What could be more inviting than that?
17 February 2018
It’s been three years since Molly Goddard floated into the London Fashion scene on a cloud of tulle. And in that time, her pretty, pastel-color confections have become the cool girl’s antidote to a conventional princess dress. Godard proved today that there’s more to her work than girlish charm, presenting an impressive collection that went far beyond the parameters of a tutu.Edie Campbell got the party started, sauntering out in weatherworn Frye boots—a glass of wine in one hand, an e-cigarette in the other—wearing a floor-length dress that was cut on a slightly off-kilter line (call it an empire waist gone tipsy). That uplifting, unabashedly naughty attitude set the tone for the show and was completely infectious, with models twirling on white plinths to whoops of applause from the audience which included one of London’s most important VIPs, new mayor Sadiq Khan. Smocking has been Goddard’s thing along with tulle since the beginning, though this time her use of the technique read more sensual than sensible, and one stunning white dress hung low across the smocked bodice with cheeky peekaboo cut-outs at the back that were hardly virginal (modern brides, get ready to swoon!).The designer has experimented with slinkier shapes in the past, and this season she nailed her version of the body-con party frock: ruched and sometimes covered in pretty black and white petals as well. There was a fun, flirty vibe to the swingy cotton and sequin minidresses here, too; proof that her epic layer-cake looks work just as well done in miniature. It was also clear that Goddard doesn’t need tulle to work her magic. Erin O’Connor, who closed the show in a gorgeous ’40s-inspired midi-length dress, had but a wisp of it tucked under her skirt and managed to steal the spotlight all the same. Whimsical, romantic, and sexy—it was just the stuff that grown-up fairytales are made of.
16 September 2017
It was an interesting morning at the V&A today when Molly Goddard, and her mother, father, sister, and boyfriend, moved in and converted the vast new subterranean Sainsbury Centre into a delightful, on-a-shoestring Molly-world. “I was brought up coming here with my mum on Saturdays,” said Goddard as she sprawled out on a huge, red velvet–draped bed on one side of the cavernous hall. “I realize when I start talking that I know such a lot about the things in the museum. Like this bed’s based on the 1700 State Bed from Melville House in Scotland. Mum painted an old dust sheet for the cover—she had to take it into her local park to do it, because her front room’s about as big as this bed. She tacked the back drapes on a board, and she made those rosettes with tissue paper,” she said, pointing 11 feet up to the canopy. “And you see that stack of Wedgwood china there? They’re actually plastic washing-up bowls she painted!”The family homage to the 165-year-old British temple of arts and crafts was the setting for Goddard’s “Fashion in Motion” show, an invitation bestowed by the museum upon designers to show their work charge-free to a public audience in three sittings. This time, though, the honor was a doubly big deal: Goddard was chosen as the first guest to show in the new wing, designed and built by Amanda Levete’s AL_A architectural practice, a space excavated from deep beneath the Victorian museum, and grandly opened to national fanfare a couple of weeks ago. A bit of a pressure on a young designer, then? “Yes. We wondered how we’d fill it, and I knew it would be ridiculously pretentious to call it a ‘retrospective’ because I’ve only been going five years!” So, there was a surprise for Molly-watchers: some things not seen before, in the shape of soft tartan flannel and flower-sprigged cotton prints. “I don’t want to call it Resort or Pre-,” said Goddard, reluctantly quoting the standard terminology. “But we did show it to buyers, and it’s sold really well! And the V&A has been so on my mind that I suppose the tartan came about by thinking about the costume department: the punk things, which will be in the case next to 18th-century gowns.” The flower-printed cotton, flounced dresses and midis, and one hooped skirt reminiscent of a Westwood mini-crini of the ’80s stood out as refreshing breakthroughs.The family enterprise rolled into high gear in preparation for the daunting scale of the event months ago.
Sarah Edwards—Goddard’s set-designing mother, who has put together all the props, from Goddards first life-drawing presentation to the sandwich-making factory, up to last season’s dinner party—was charged to remake some favorite V&A things, but with stuff from a dollar store. Goddard’s stylist sister Alice re-rounded up all of Goddard’s favorite models and went on a further London street-casting mission to corral a troupe of 35 girls, a mixed-race spectrum of normally lovely people with unselfconsciously okay-with-themselves attitudes whom Goddard has always pointed out as her kind of beauty. Tom Shickle, her boyfriend and partner, liaised with production, and her dad assisted his wife, stepping up to last-minute flower-arranging additions to the blue and white Delft section, where a striped tarpaulin formed a tablecloth, the “tiled” wall was sticky-backed plastic bought on a roll, the tulip bowls were stacks of plastic buckets, and the antique place settings were hand-painted paper plates.Goddard remixed her archive pieces: all the sweeping smocked and ruched taffeta and tulle frocks that tomgirls have fallen in love with; a rainbow-striped sweater and crochet dress; and a retrieved patchwork of plasticized paper doilies she made for her BA graduation collection from Central Saint Martins. The girls wound around a central set, an impression of statues in the V&A plaster court. Some stopped to sit on stools and sketch, others piled onto the great bed, the rest congregated to chat around the Delft table. The young girls who had stood in line to get in gazed on rapturously at a performance, which, in true Goddard form, embraced and enhanced the feeling of non-saccharine, indie English romanticism. Rarely are the nice, relaxed happy things that can happen in adolescence held up as the subject of fashion. That’s the first-person feeling that Molly Goddard sketches out season by season. It was on a much bigger canvas, in a much grander, modern space this time, but somehow the resourceful Goddards still almost made it feel like home.
7 July 2017
After last season’s rave on the runway,Molly Goddardwas craving something a little more intimate for Fall. There were banquet tables covered with a delicious spread at today’s show, and front-row guests were invited to join the fun, with trays of martinis at hand. The convivial atmosphere was a real treat and spoke to the spirit of the brand: For Goddard, dressing for the ball is an every day, life-affirming thing.The glorious tutu dresses that have become her signature came out in all shapes and sizes, and were worn with ballet flats and silver sequined thigh-high stockings that gave the tender look a futuristic edge. She pushed the limit of her more-is-more silhouette to its ultimate conclusion, and one multi-tiered, voluminous electric blue look was a joyous explosion of tulle—a literal party in a dress.Goddard is expanding her repertoire in more ways than one, and the printed floral sweatshirts that were worn under the pretty sheer tulle had a tomboyish sway about them that felt right in the mix. She’s also been experimenting with the idea of pants lately, and the ruched trousers worked well layered under her knee-grazing frocks; the pink satin cargo pants struck the right balance of cool and kawaii as well. Slinky floral dresses were a departure for the label, though with their ruffled hemlines, they were still right at home in the collection, a nice alternative for women who like whimsy with a more body-skimming line.Goddard has built her brand on a feel-good, come-one-come-all vibe, and her optimistic, childlike approach to fashion is an open invitation to women of all ages to come and play. Instead of disappearing off backstage, many of the models in the show took their seat at the tables on the runway, chatting and giggling over glasses of red wine. It was fashion at its most fun.
18 February 2017
There’s a playful, real-world magic toMolly Goddardthat’s totally infectious. In just a few seasons, she’s proved that her frothy, princess-worthy dresses have a place in fashion right now. They’ve been embraced by the circle of cool girlfriends who model for her and sit front row—artist Phoebe Collings-James and Brooklyn-based cellist Kelsey Lu were among the stylish women in the crowd at her show today. Her designs have been picked up by those further afield as well:Rihannawas spotted wearing the label in New York over the summer, and actress Agyness Deyn wore a custom Goddard gown when shegot married in Brooklyn last month.That said, you wouldn’t expect to find one of Goddard's tutus under the black light of an all-night rave, the inspirational backdrop for Spring 2017. Neon colors were a recurring theme at New York Fashion Week, and they had a strong presence in the British designer’s new collection. The ruffled highlighter yellow top with statement sleeves was a nice complement to a drawstring shift dress, and gave a slinkier line to the label’s familiar trapeze silhouette. The eye-catching tulle also worked well layered over cropped pants and a keyhole top that recalled the classic raver gear of cult trance music clothing store Cyberdog in Camden Market. Goddard added graphic tees that were printed with provocative imagery of New York’s underground scene by photographer Nick Waplington to her repertoire, a counterintuitive move that made sense in the mix of naive full-skirted looks.There’s a flip side to the label’s girlie aesthetic after all, one that’s defined by an empowered, feminist spirit. Goddard's cast of real women certainly wouldn’t have walked the runway in anything other than practical shoes. The dancing and hands-in-the-air exuberance of the models aren’t something you’ll see at just any show either; in fact, in some ways the traditional runway format subdued that experience somewhat. Nonetheless, there are plenty of new reasons to dress with Goddard for the party come next season.
17 September 2016
There’s an irresistible tenderness toMolly Goddard’s work that’s enough to leave even the most cynical of fashion insiders wanting more. Perhaps it’s because the British designer grounds her whimsical vision with realness and resourcefulness, calling on the help of friends to put together her shows, and convincing strangers on the street to model for her. The girls who Goddard cast in her presentation this season were a particularly adorable and diverse bunch, who wandered about the surrealist set, which was inspired by the ’60s Japanese cult classicTokyo Drifter, with a charming maladroitness.Unlike the setting, there was no overarching theme for the collection, and Goddard cited a taffeta orange skirt as a starting point. In addition to her dreamy fairy-queen tulle dresses, there were looks that floated closer to earth, including a micro-floral print corduroy minidress that was worn as a tunic over satin pants, and a gently ruched cropped cream sweater that was paired with a saccharine pink tiered ruffled skirt. Goddard experimented with smocking in more traditional ways on a mint knee-grazing silk dress, and more unconventional ones on sheer black tights. The most extravagant example of this technique came in an ethereal pink ball gown that was fashioned from more than 40 yards of tulle. As the speculation over what Hollywood actresses should wear to make their mark on the Oscar red carpet next weekend reaches fever pitch, it’s refreshing to see a designer who’s putting real girls in the spotlight.
20 February 2016
When you are grown-up, it’s easy to long for the carefree, entirely fictional days of youth, and forget the reality of dreary schoolbooks and even drearier summer jobs. Is it any wonder that as you take your first steps into the adult world, you so often arm yourself with powerful fashion fantasies?Molly Goddard, in her latest presentation, had her “real girl” models working at a replica of a sandwich factory, but they were going about their soul-numbing tasks in clouds of tulle and smocked raw silk ivory frocks. Is the designer telling us that this is the way life should be, that we must assert our fierce conviction that inside we are all fairy princesses! All ballerinas!—regardless of what life holds for us at the moment?Certainly, this young designer is striking a chord—during recent Fashion Weeks in London and New York, numerous fashion editors (including this author) could be seen squeezing into tiny show seats swathed in billowing Goddard tulle. In this latest outing, Goddard offered her classic outsize silhouette with a few new embellishments—a lovely acid green tutu featured hand embroideries; tiny pink skirts were awash in burgundy ruffles; and there were tartan dresses that seemed like the fantasy version of a school uniform that some little girl, who can’t wait to grow up, is dreaming of.
21 September 2015