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It's no exaggeration to say that Charlotte Simone has become *the* most fashionable destination for chic winter coats, with nearly every A-lister from Emily Ratajkowski to Taylor Swift flaunting the brand's Penny Lane coats this season. Founder Charlotte Beecham, a self-professed Swiftie, was particularly excited when Tay Tay wore her shaggy cherry-red Lulu coat to the Chiefs vs. Texans game last December, which promptly went viral.
The singer didn't let New Orleans temps keep her from wearing a statement coat the night before the Super Bowl.
The British designer credits her studies at New York University and time spent in Manhattan hustling amongst aspiring fashion designers for her drive and creativity. Having started first by designing scarves after graduating over 10 years ago, Charlotte swiftly pivoted to creating coats when she couldn't find the perfect statement number to throw over her T-shirt-and-jeans uniform. “I was really set on trying to design and produce a coat that felt like a statement, something that you could throw on every day and it would instantly elevate your everyday basics,” she tells GLAMOUR.
Her '70s inspired coats, with their shaggy cuffs and vintage appeal quickly found a following, but during the pandemic, Charlotte's wholesale partners on which she was heavily reliant began to struggle, which led her to pivot to a drop model, whereby only a limited number of pieces per design is released twice a year. While the shift was scary at first, the gamble soon paid off. Not only did the coats' short supply skyrocket Charlotte Simone's popularity, but it also offered the designer more control both with her design process and timeline.
Her pieces will next be available on March 26, but it's no ordinary drop—for one week only, Charlotte will be opening up her archive for sale with 150 styles, including one-off, never-seen-before pieces with sizes ranging from XS – XXL, and prices from £50-£500. From tiger print to a sherbert-yellow shearling coat, to signature styles like the Birdie worn by Charlie XCX, lucky customers will be able to take home these one-of-a-kind coats during this rare opportunity to access Charlotte's treasure trove.
What's one piece in the sale that has Charlotte's heart? “We did a few of the Frankie jackets, which Gigi Hadid recently wore a version of, but we never actually released it with a pastel pink shearling, fuzzy detachable collar—the pink is perfect in my opinion. I'm excited to put it out there. I'm proud of how it came out.”
We'll be setting our alarms for March 26 but before then, GLAMOUR sits down with Charlotte to chat everything from her most unlikely sources of inspiration to channelling Main Character Energy.
The very first celebrity who wore my coat was Millie Mackintosh, and then it was quickly followed by Olivia Palermo at London Fashion Week. At the time I only had one intern and my dog and was working in a shared office space, sewing everything myself, so that was a pretty amazing standout moment for me. More recently, Taylor Swift was spotted in one of our coats, which had tremendous traction to the site. We just saw a wave of people from the States engaging with the brand in a way that we never had before. She's actually worn the brand three times this winter, so that's been really amazing. I'm a Swiftie myself, so that's a nice bonus.
We only sell two collections a year, so I try and make sure that the product that people are waiting 9 or 10 months for feels worth it. It's also serving me much better than how I worked previously, which was to more of a traditional model. Even though it was my own business in lots of ways, I didn't feel like I was my own boss because I was answering to all of the retailers the whole time and meeting their demands and their schedules. Now the drop is determined by me and my team and when we can have the product delivered or when it looks how we want it to look. We are not rushing to anyone's deadlines other than ourselves. We can take the necessary time to research fabrications, design, and develop prints. I can purchase fabric that, for example, can only make 80 coats, that maybe would not have made commercial sense. Now, if I want to make 80 coats because I believe the fabric's beautiful and there's only enough fabric for 80, that's at my discretion, which feels really exciting. As a creative, it's rare to not have constraints in that respect. Looking back, I would never have been so bold as to make this business pivot had lockdown not happened. Seventy percent of my business at the time was reliant on wholesale; my website was not a big part of my business at all. I would never have believed that I could have moved to 100 percent online, but I was just pushed into a corner; I lost all of my clients pretty much in a seven to 10-day period. They were all just falling like dominoes. In that sink or swim moment, I did the only thing I could do. It was obviously a very unusual time in the world, but in lots of ways it was a silver lining for me because it allowed me to reframe my narrative and think about what it is that I was doing and how I could move forward. I'm incredibly grateful for it because I'm much happier and am creating something in a much more enjoyable, sustainable, and considered way.
I've got two big canvas boards that I sit and look at. I'm a very visual person, I like to look and touch and feel things, so I keep them very close to me by my desk. The design process spans over nine months and I will be collecting anything from charms to fabrications. I take lots of inspiration from street style, from how real people put things together. I've got some random girls on my board; I take pictures of people crossing the road sometimes of the way that they're carrying themselves or their bag. I've got these random girls photos on my board—they look like my friends, but they're not, I just love how they're wearing their coat. Right now, I've got quotes, a note from my dad, scraps of different fabrications—it's really anything and everything in that timeframe that I'm seeing that is making me feel something and then I'll start sketching different silhouettes or shapes. I'm always drawn to classic or vintage movies, anything with Audrey Hepburn, like Funny Face, or Breakfast at Tiffany's and in terms of music, we play the Cranberries a lot in the office. That was a big mood the last two drops. There will be a bit of Eric Clapton and Celine Dion, too. But I feel like on all my mood boards, the woman is always the heroine. She's always the hero. She doesn't need saving. She's got that main character energy.
We found this fabric at a Paris fabric fair, and the factory was actually selling fabric for plush toys. That was the bulk of their business, and I saw the fabric and I was like, this would make an amazing coat. It was like this kind of like a faux pony skin, caramel tiger print—really amazing, super standout, really expensive, and didn't really make commercial sense, but I was like, that's fine. It'll be expensive, but I know that 80 people will buy this expensive coat. Sometimes things like that happen when we're in the exploratory stage where we'll just see something and I'll just know that it's really special and we have to include it. And I guess that's part of the exciting process of our new drop model and how it allows for that.
I've been looking into more bomber jackets, aviator style jackets, leather jackets and developments in the world of pleather, how we can get a texture that feels maybe more distressed, that has more of a likeness to real leather. We try to work with faux fabrications for sustainability reason but also because they also sometimes allow for a more flattering fit. It also allows for a better price point for our customer. I think the industry has taken leaps and bounds in technical advancements in the last few years in terms which has improved the quality and it's only getting better and better in terms of the faux offering. I'm probably most excited at the minute to deep dive into puffer jackets. I feel like that's a category that would be really exciting for the Charlotte Simone customer and something we could definitely put our spin on, especially for drop two when you're kind of in the depths of winter around November, December, and looking for coats that you can wrap up in more.
I'm always trying to make sure that our prices feel fair, but also accessible. It's something that's really important to us. I am also my own customer. I think to myself, would I spend that? Would I be happy to buy that? Does that feel fair? My team is small, but I value everyone's opinion here. And I'll always ask the same question, what do you think? Would you buy this? Is it too expensive? This is where we'll try to use faux leather because it's going to give the same effect and allow our customers to be able to consider the purchase it in an easier way which I think is important.
Yes I respond to everyone myself. I feel like it's a full-time job on top of my full-time job, but I think it really allows me to keep my finger on the pulse. People are pretty brutal on Instagram, so I will hear the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I like that. If something's not working or if someone's not happy, I want to be the first one to know but conversely if someone's really excited about their purchase I'm also the first to know. A girl would send me a screenshot saying “My mom saved up and bought me a coat for my birthday as a surprise and I just unwrapped it—here's a picture of me wearing it.” Those kind of messages, they go a long way. Before I design, I ask my community everything. Do you want this print? Do you want zebra? Do you like leopard? Are you guys interested in velvet? I do tons of polls on our socials to kind of gauge interest. I also ask about price point a lot. Do you think this is too expensive? Would you purchase this? What's also so great about my drop model is I'm not designing necessarily for a department store's customer, which I don't know as well. I'm designing for my Charlotte Simone customer and my Charlotte Simone community. And by being engaged with them in this way, it allows me to feel more educated in what it is that they want.
I think a brand collaboration would definitely be something that could be exciting down the line, especially with in space that's entirely different from what I do. Something out of my wheelhouse would be a nice change of pace and could be exciting. But I think being such a lean team, it would take so much time and energy, so whatever we do next, it would need to be the perfect fit.
