Hillier Bartley (Q4281)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Hillier Bartley is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Hillier Bartley |
Hillier Bartley is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Several months before the pandemic hit, Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier took a hiatus from ready-to-wear, pooling their resources and time to focus on jewelry and building out the brand’s e-commerce platform. The move was well timed: Their conversation-starting paperclip earrings were perfectly fit for a life on Zoom and continue to be best-sellers.This season Hillier Bartley makes a welcome return with a full offering, one that speaks to the intentional and considered approach to fashion these two longtime friends have been honing for years. Many of their most distinctive New Romantic and Glam Rock–inflected signatures are back, including their high-waisted denim pants, a much chicer riff on the oft maligned mom jean; the coolest in the bunch come printed with painterly zebra stripes or with their HG logo twinkling in rhinestones on the back pocket. Spiffy tailoring is very much part of the Hillier Bartley vocabulary as well, though for the pre-fall those sharp, lines tend towards a slightly more relaxed silhouette—think, a louche midnight-blue velvet robe coat, boxy prep-school-style blazers, and slouchy corduroy pants. With so much collective anxiety around the return of strict waistbands, those forgiving shapes offer the chance to ease back into the idea of suiting.As always, the charming Briticisms in the collection come laced with cheeky and delightfully eccentric details—the school badge embroidered with Bartley’s lovely illustrations of orchids and the female form and the bag charms modeled on her high-heeled leg sculptures are both great examples. Furnished with gold paperclips and encrusted with crystals, their take on the penny loafer marks the brand’s first foray into footwear and are bound to be a hit when parties make their long-awaited comeback.Hillier and Bartley enlisted the talents of young photographer Indigo Lewin to shoot the campaign that drops this winter. Bartley’s adorable teenage son Ned and daughter Stevie are among the cool kids they cast to model the brand’s oversized shirting and fantastic rugby tops, living proof that, thanks in part to a new generation, the divide that once separated a woman’s wardrobe from a man’s is dissolving for good.
17 June 2021
Bourgeois dress codes have been making a comeback lately, mostly of the Parisian, 1970s variety. Hillier Bartley is proposing a decidedly English take on that idea for Spring, partly inspired by Lady Diana. Though it’s been over 20 years since her untimely passing, the number of tribute accounts dedicated to the princess and her style is only growing. Indeed, that distinctive mix of fashion classics (Ferragamo pumps, pie-crust blouses) and athletic basics (cycling shorts, baseball caps) appears to be more relevant than ever. Fast becoming a signature for the label, the Hillier Bartley mom jeans were very much in Diana’s wheelhouse, and this season they came with a cool mock-croc leather waistband. Add to that a number of other chic wardrobe staples, including a merino turtleneck sweater in pale pink, a simple white monogram pocket tee, and a crisp black shirtdress that wouldn’t be wildly out of place in Kate Middleton’s wardrobe.Elsewhere, a more anarchic spirit won out. Hillier Bartley is known for its subversive tailoring, and for Spring it was best exemplified by a double-breasted Prince of Wales–check suit with eye-catching zig-zag fringing across the back. The matching fringed tuxedo pants were a showstopper even sans blazer, and they looked especially good with one of the brand’s asymmetrical long-sleeved white shirts, a punkish silhouette that first emerged for Fall. Accessories designer Katie Hiller has been slowly building out the brand’s handbag business, and the new triple-pocket structured style hit the sweet spot between ladylike and utilitarian. Designed to be worn two-by-two and finished with sparkling gold chains, the label’s new belts are the kind of instantly transformative pieces that will easily carry into the new season.
19 September 2019
New Romantics and Sloane Rangers might seem like strange bedfellows. Then again, chez Hillier Bartley, disparate British references often live happily under the same roof. Designer Luella Bartley knows exactly how to shake up Savile Row tailoring—a quintessentially English look has been rolling through London this season, incidentally—and this time around, she spiked those traditional codes with counter-culture cool. To wit, a double-breasted houndstooth suit was punked up with a transformative zipper across the waist (essentially a two-for-one, to be worn as a cropped jacket or tailcoat) and a clever origami pleat along the trouser.The duo has a taste for glam rock, too, though the fantastic new party pants were an ode to the King of Pop, and that sinewy, MJ-inflected aesthetic was a nice counterpoint to the more exaggerated suiting. Bartley has mastered the art of the going-out top, and for Pre-Fall, her magenta blouse took the prize with its exquisite draping and elegant Adam Ant–style wrapped statement sleeves. The trapeze-shaped “cassette” bags that came in rich purple suede and metallic green were a winner for evening, too, a chic and practical replacement for the classic tricky-to-handle minaudières.Admittedly, dresses aren’t usually Hillier Bartley’s bag, and yet this season the designer nailed the idea both for night and day. The most eye-catching in the bunch came covered in a gorgeous Kansai Yamamoto–inspired print, one Bartley created herself after a series of life-sketching classes taken over the summer holidays last year. Blown up big and abstracted, the sketches of the female body lent an appealing curvilinear line to asymmetric shift dresses, what Bartley is calling a “pillowcase” silhouette, modeled in DIY-punk styling. The cotton T-shirt dresses were cut with the same angular proportions and splashed with hand-painted slogans—women troubleandbedlam, for example—they captured the rebel spirit for a casual mood. And given their affordable price point, those tees will offer the brand’s youngest fashion-mad fans a chance to join the band.
28 February 2019
For such a small and intimate label, Hillier Bartley packs some serious sartorial punch. Katie Hillier and Luella Bartley, who launched the brand in 2015, rather masterfully navigate the fine line between grown-up elegance and eccentricity. This concise collection, one of two they produce each year, only served to reinforce this nuanced quality, picking up on last season’s themes of deconstruction and distortion and taking it to further extremes. “I really wanted to cement this idea of us playing with tailoring,” said Bartley, who took a Savile Row stalwart—the classic double-breasted men’s suit—and instilled it with a sensuous and womanly appeal.A slouchy silk suit in emerald green or almond had the sumptuous feel of an evening gown. Long lines of inlaid buttons on sleeves, trouser legs, and the seams of a very “secretary” checked pencil skirt allowed looks to be hitched up, unbuttoned, and creatively customized. Knits were taken to the outer limits of oversize then instilled with a quartet of drawstrings to adjust the fit both on the sleeve and on the body. “I’ve always tucked my shirt or my socks into my trousers and played with the way things fall in a styling way,” said Bartley. “Now I’ve transferred those styling tricks into the design. It was a really fun exercise.”It wouldn’t be Hillier Bartley, of course, without the occasional tongue-in-cheek touch. Though the designers’ divine crepe satin dresses with fringed belt details were revisited in a more relaxed silhouette here, they also added a strapless cocktail frock fashioned from a men’s tuxedo to the evening mix. Embellished with an enormous taffeta bow, it was the kind of thing, said Bartley, that Nigella Lawson might have worn to a 1980s Hunt Ball. That decade also gave rise to a latex pussy-bow blouse pulled straight from the dance floor of the Blitz nightclub. Alongside a fresh iteration of the lantern bag and the new boxy, structural Cassette bag were dart earrings that nodded to English pub culture—none of which could be outshone by the loud-and-proud presence of a Union Jack suit. “We call it the Brexit—or the anti-Brexit—suit,” said Bartley with a laugh. “I don’t know where it came from, but it felt right.”
29 June 2018
Can you be too sexy for your shirt—or vice versa? In the age of #MeToo, the very nature of feminine allure and seduction is being questioned. Just this afternoon, Jennifer Lawrence felt compelled to defend herself over her decision to wear a revealing dress at a photo-call in London while her male costars were all wrapped up in coats. What women choose to wear to feel empowered is wide-ranging, and that’s something Luella Bartley and her design partner, Katie Hillier, are acutely aware of. A child of the ’90s, Bartley has raised her teenage daughter on a diet of deeply feminist values, though she understands that their notions of what sexy looks and feels like fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. “When I was growing up, it was about a slouchy look, not a skintight idea of femininity,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to look sexy as I grow older.” Bartley and Hillier’s latest collection explored those extremes, toying with the idea of relaxed versus more trussed up, slightly perverse shapes. You could feel that tension at play in a figure-hugging faux python pencil skirt that was coupled with a pretty pink piecrust blouse. On top, it was all buttoned-up restraint—the kind of thing that would have been right at home in Princess Diana’s wardrobe. Down below, it was kinky in a way that might have made Her Royal Highness blush.Hillier and Bartley know their way around an expertly tailored suit better than most, though this season the pinstriped blazer in the collection had a particularly ingenious, choose-your-own-adventure aspect to it. In addition to the traditional double-breasted closure, there was an extra button off to the side that cinched the middle like a very chic version of a waist trainer. Their signature scarf blouses and dresses were sleeveless on one side for Fall. “It’s a different way of revealing the body and exploring new zones,” explained Bartley. In the age of hip bone cut-outs and side-boob slits, this sensual insinuation of skin was a refreshing antidote, one that would flatter a variety of different body types and have cross-generational appeal.Still, just because Hillier Bartley is unabashedly sophisticated doesn’t mean it’s lost any of its cool. Irreverent elegance has always been the label’s calling card, and there were several cheeky pick-me-ups to choose from here, including a fringed flamingo pink evening bag and a striking turtleneck sweater with furry goat hair sleeves that would give Big Bird a run for his money.
The designers have expanded their denim offering considerably, and their take on the flare—cut with python side panels—was a standout in the collection. The brand’s popular mom jeans came with unexpected touches of faux pink python as well, and are bound to attract all the right attention on the shop floor.
21 February 2018
The pantsuit has been back on fashion’s agenda for the past few seasons with an executive realness that’s largely cut along boxy, angular lines. Tailoring has always played a major role at Hillier Bartley—both Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier, who creates the accessories for the brand, have a long-standing affection for Savile Row. This season, those traditionally masculine proportions took on a much more fluid, curvilinear look. “There has always been this harmonious feminine-masculine clash in our clothes, and that comes from grappling with this idea of womanhood and growing up,” said Bartley. “There’s a bit of that slightly scruffy ’90s thing that we always do, but there’s also a more sophisticated side.”Those existential musings led to some pretty alluring new suits, starting with a stunning gold lamé two-piece with pants draped to the floor in soft pleats like a ball skirt that screamed sophisticated red carpet rebel. (Note to handbag fanatics: The matching gold-fringe evening bag is a soft, chic alternative to the minaudière for evening.) The parameters of a classic camel suit were shifted in fresh, unexpected ways, as well, with gently ballooning pants that fell somewhere between jodhpurs and Klaus Nomi trousers, a polished addition to the popular Hillier Bartley peg-leg jeans. Bartley has a knack for filtering British subcultures through her own lens—be it Northern soul or New Romanticism. Glam rock has been a recurring theme on her mood board, and this time it showed up in quirky-cool doses throughout the collection—zebra stripes on the lapel of a blazer, for example. “I wasn’t going to talk about Bowie this season, but these pants are just so glam rock!” said Bartley, pulling a pair of metallic purple pants from the rack. Finished with tiny covered leather buttons up to the waist and at the ankle, the trousers were a standout conversation starter that are likely to get a lot of play when the collection hits stores during party season in November.Hillier and Bartley have experimented with the see-now-buy-now model in the past, though they’re switching gears again this season. In a sense, their approach to fashion—one in which even the most staple pieces are treated with a rare and special hand, like a camel turtleneck darned with trailing gold thread—has a keepsake quality. Smart, stylish women who have grown weary of the trendy fashion clickbait coming through their Instagram feed would be wise to take a peek.
26 September 2017
Luella Bartley said a photo of Manolo Blahnik had started her chasing the lost spirit of ’70s West London bohemia, which is threaded though the Hillier Bartley Spring 2017 collection. "He was in a suit, but wearing different-colored shoes, one blue, one pink," she explained. "It made me think of those times when things were so flamboyant and eccentric, and there was that crowd around West London, people like Ossie Clark, Celia Birtwell, David Hockney, Patrick Proctor, and Zandra Rhodes." Bartley called Blahnik personally, and he was delighted to make the flat suede pumps to accompany the designers's lookbook.Bartley has spoken before about the masculine/feminine orientation of the lineup she’s evolving with her partner Katie Hillier, who designs the bags. “We’ve always wanted to give women a kind of swagger—women in wolves's clothing,” she said. “This is still that, but we've kind of gone softer, more delicate.” Thus, there are full-length kimonos and short jackets in pinky-blue prints, inspired by what David Bowie and Brian Eno wore; a bloused Pierrot look; a smattering of ostrich feather; and eventually, a tendril-y, printed chiffon top, which Bartley said, laughing, “is my love letter to Zandra.” One of Hillier's bags, painted with a drawing of an eye, chimes with the mood.Still, the theme is arguably less important here than the continuity—the Hillier Bartley brand identifiers that will help women focus on what they offer. After a few seasons, it’s becoming easier to pick those attributes out: the shape of the long-sleeved silk dresses and tops; the fringed scarves, sometimes tied as belts; the shape of the high-waisted mom trouser; and the Savile Row–inspired tailoring. A standout was a white linen suit with a pink windowpane check—just the sort of thing that might have stepped out of the wardrobe of that impeccably dressed dandy Manolo Blahnik himself.
2 October 2016
Whoever thought Luella Bartley and Katie Hillier would be on the same page as Tom Ford? Chalk and cheese as they may be, London’s Hillier Bartley and Mr. Ford are aligned in at least one matter: They’re revealing Fall clothes available in stores today, whilst practically everyone else is showcasing their collections for Spring 2017. So here we are: Scroll though the Hillier Bartley lookbook and you’ll at first see pinstripe suiting and overcoats rather than the wafty dresses which are occupying most runways—so far—at New York Fashion Week. Conundrums abound at this transitional point in the fashion system. It is hot today in New York and in London, as it always is in early September, so is this really the ideal time to ask women to invest in clothes that will become practical only when it gets cold? Would later make more sense? Or are intelligent women actually miraculously capable of holding a thought longer than the few seconds in which an image pops up on a screen?Questions, questions. Sensible, definitive answers there can be none, except that one enduring and immutable psychological law can’t be altered: An urgent compulsion to buy fashion is only ever fueled by desire, rather than imminent need. Seen through that lens, Hillier Bartley—Katie Hillier on accessories, Luella Bartley on clothes—stands out as a collection of characterful attractions not to be found elsewhere. In a time when tailoring has mostly gone by the board, they’re working on reappropriating pantsuits with a “rakish” swagger inspired by British heroes and antiheroes from David Bowie to Oscar Wilde to the gangster Kray twins, who dominated London’s East End and Soho in the ’60s.Apart from their distinctive ankle-strapped, banana-shaped trousers, it’s their new silk pieces which hit the mark: a high-waisted icy blue velvet pantsuit; a peach chinoiserie embroidered dressing gown, a full-sleeved, high-collared salmon pink tunic. Hillier’s bags, stabbed with conceptual safety pins for fastenings, and her hooped earrings, each hung with a single pearl, ensure that nothing appears retro or costumey. See-now-buy-now this collection may be, but it takes time to build a reputation.
10 September 2016