Fashion designer Jeff Banks with a model wearing one of his creations, 1979.
Photograph: Pa/PA Archive/Press Association Ima
If high street fashion rises above the tawdry meanness and dismal blandness purveyed by the average dress shop in this country, it is likely to emanate these days from a growing chain of shops called Warehouse. Created four years ago by Jeff Banks, the imagination and panache of his concept was rewarded last Wednesday evening on television when he was voted Designer of the Year in The Woman British Fashion Awards.
Jeff Banks has in fact been in the business for 18 years. Having trained as a textile and interior designer at Camberwell and St Martin's Schools of Art, he first made a name for himself in 1964, with a small shop rented for £ll.00 a week in Blackheath, stocked by designer-friends like Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin, Janice Wainwright and Moya Bowler. With the help of a partner in public relations, 'Clobber,' as it was named, sold out on the first day. Mounted policemen prevented it from being mobbed by thousands of eager customers. The crocheted dresses and puff-sleeved blouses so beloved by the 'dollybirds' of the day were his creation.
But the momentum of the Sixties was dissipated and, somewhere along the way, the fashion industry ceased to utilise the best of British design capabilities. The abuse of creative talent by multiple retailing outlets, who stunt original growth by reducing design to the common denominator, is a subject about which Banks feels strongly: 'It always annoys me when it is said that chain stores are doing a great job 'supplying knickers to every woman in the country. I don't think she has the selection of quality or design she should have.'
Jeff Banks manages to supply these requirements by keeping in touch with the needs of ordinary women. 'I have never made a lot of money and so I haven't grown away from my roots.' He believes he employs a string of the best designers in the country and offers their designs very economically. About half the stock is of British manufacture: T-shirts are made in Leicester; skirts at a company run by ladies in a disused chapel at Reading; the justly famed designs in leather and suede, the tweeds, flannels and denims are all British, as opposed to the silks, which are imported. All evidence that the potential is available in this country if approached in the right way. His turnover was around £3 million last year and looks like increasing substantially.
Jeff Banks strongly believes in the capacity of art and design to improve people's lives, a faith reflected in his patronage of art school talents: 'In 20 years' time, I think they will have a much larger role to play.' He has just initiated his own experimental course at the College of Distributive Trades for high-calibre trainees, in an effort to cement the gap between further education and industry. Seven students have been enrolled from 700 applicants for the intensive programme which covers 22 subjects and combines work in the company with study sessions. Of course, it is a gamble he admits, and it is only beginning to pay off.
He has given up the wholesale side of his business and is opting for slightly larger and fewer outlets, to cut overheads. The first Warehouse catalogue has been produced, part mail order and part a statement about the latest clothes. He receives a constant feedback of criticisms through the staff and is wary of tackling the export market because, 'we are still trying to get it right here.'
For the moment, he says, 'I'm pleased to be on the threshold of something yet again. A lot of my contemporaries have given up - but it is great to be around for a new wave.'
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