Monday Muse

Interview Womenswear designer Anna Mason

Interview

Anna Mason

Photography

Jonathan Glynn Smith

27 February 2022

Interview

Anna Mason

Photography

Jonathan Glynn Smith

27 February 2022

For her Spring Summer 2022 collection, which was unveiled at London Fashion Week last September, womenswear designer Anna Mason took inspiration from Claude Monet’s 1900 painting of his garden at Giverny. The Royal College of Art graduate also called on another former RCA student, painter Jonathan Schofield, to create a portrait that could be used as a print across the collection. It was an impressive debut for the queen of romantic dresses who fulfilled her ambition of starting her own label in 2012 after creating designs in her own kitchen and getting compliments when wearing them. Prior to going it alone, Mason held prestigious design roles at Karl Lagerfeld in Paris, MaxMara and Valentino in Italy, and Amanda Wakeley in London.

In addition to successfully showing at London Fashion Week, the British luxury designer has had her collections picked up by Net-A-Porter and Saks Fifth Avenue, and has a devoted following of private clients eager to wear her feminine, romantic styles that are designed to match the needs of the modern woman and real-life situations. This Monday, she shares her typical schedule at her new Belgravia premises and biggest inspirations.

THE WICK: Talk us through a typical Monday.

Anna Mason: Monday starts at 6:15am when I get my daughter up and ready for school. Luckily, my gym is right next to the train station where I drop her off, so I’ll immediately go there. Then I’ll head home, have a bit of breakfast and get through some emails before heading into the office. I’ve just relocated to Belgravia, where we’ve got an entire mews building that houses everything — my seamstresses, design office, shop. Once I’m there, I’ll catch up with the seamstresses and anyone else I need to talk to. We have a weekly meeting at 2pm with the entire team. This is our opportunity to talk about everything — last week’s sales figures, sales targets for the week ahead, our digital reach, any pending concerns. It’s the time that every department gets a look-in.

TW: How did you find your creative voice in the fashion world?

AM: I really do what I believe in. I think about my life and those of other women, what we feel like in our clothes and the occasions in our lives, and what we might want to wear to them. I don’t only do occasionwear. Our collection is growing and I want to make sure there’s something for every moment, even if it’s just getting up and throwing something on. I do everything from the lens of a woman, and want to make sure it’s something that a woman would actually want to wear. My aesthetic is romantic but quite classic, direct and easy to wear, with a hint of drama and has, I hope, some newness. I want people to feel inspired to wear my clothes, and to think that they’re useful but really beautiful.

TW: Are there particular arts and cultural references that you’re inspired by?

AM: I don’t keep going back to the same thing in arts and culture, but I do tend to go back to designers in history and different eras of fashion that I’m inspired by. I’m a clothes-focused designer, but have been really inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, particularly William Morris, whose prints I regularly look at. I also look at Josef Frank’s prints — he came to be very attached to Sweden, and I’m half-Swedish, so I feel a shared affinity for Swedish design, which does sometimes appear in my work.

I often look at the national dress of various countries, which tend to be influenced by the time they were created. In 1920s and 1930s fashion, for instance, you’ll see some Art Deco influence, which I also reference in my designs. I dip in and out of different references, but I do really admire designers, like Roksanda Ilinčić, who will build entire collections inspired by a particular artist. Personally, I need to weave in different ideas, but this summer I did work with artist Jonathan Schofield. He drew a picture of my muse and her face became part of the print. We transposed his painting on to the fabric and used it to make dresses, and we launched that collection during London Fashion Week.

TW: How do you feel a sense of place has shaped your designs and the way you work, given that your career has taken you from Paris, to Italy and back to London?

AM: I certainly think it has. In London, because of the weather, your clothes have to be quite practical. It’s different in Italy, where come spring you’re not having to layer up in the same way. The influence of Paris on my designs is the heritage of elevated dressing up, and the high fashion element of it. It’s also a smaller city, which I think makes it a bit easier to dress up and be more extravagant in your outfits as you change them throughout the day, unlike in London, which is so much more sprawling. I think that informs why I always try to make my clothes a bit more elevated, so that the wearer can feel dressed up.

“I want people to feel inspired to wear my clothes, and to think that they’re useful but really beautiful.”

The Wick - Anna Mason in her Belgravia headquarters by Jonathan Glynn Smith

Above Anna Mason in her Belgravia headquarters by Jonathan Glynn Smith

The Wick - Anna Mason by Jonathan Glynn Smith

Above Anna Mason by Jonathan Glynn Smith

Above Anna Mason in her Belgravia headquarters by Jonathan Glynn Smith

Above Anna Mason by Jonathan Glynn Smith

TW: How has your brand evolved over the past decade, from a business and design perspective?

AM: It was very, very small when I started it — literally in my kitchen. I’d worked in Paris and in London with Amanda Wakeley as a designer, and I hadn’t felt that I’d reached the point I wanted to in my career. I hadn’t fulfilled my ambitions. I started looking for other jobs and kept getting to the final two but not making it. During that time, I was also working as a stylist and personal shopper. I made a few pieces for myself that I wore out, and a few times had women stop me and ask where I’d found it. That led me to start making clothes for some other people. Suddenly, it just felt like an in. I knew I could expand on those few items, and did just that. I hosted a party for some contacts at my house and got some more orders, and then I kept growing it organically. I showed my first full collection at a very small-scale party in 2013, and in 2017 I sold the winter collection to Net-A-Porter — that was the big shift moment.

I was still working from my house though. It wasn’t until four years ago that I moved into a totally work-orientated premises, with seamstresses in a studio upstairs and a showroom for clients down below. We’d already grown out of it when the pandemic hit. Once we made it through that time, we were finally able to move to where we are now at the end of November. The physical element of being in that space changes the business as well. Before it was all word of mouth, now it’s shifted to seeing us selling through different platforms and retailers, doing wholesale, direct to customer, made-to-order, ready to wear. It’s just growing all the time. That’s also true from a design perspective — I’ve added all sorts of products in a very organic fashion. In a way, that’s what evolves most naturally, and the business side has to keep up.

TW: If you could add any artwork to your personal collection, what would it be?

AM: Any John Singer Sargent painting. I love his use of light and the romance. For me, that’s the art I would want to be able to look at every day.

TW: You were recently named as one of the most influential people in British luxury and as a tastemaker on the 2022 Walpole Power List. Who are the tastemakers on your radar?

AM: I highly revere Pierpaolo Piccioli, the creative director at Valentino. The clothes he creates are amazing. I love his vision. I wait every season to see what he is going to do next. He is a master of colour and his particular blend of drama, simplicity, romance that is still fundamentally wearable is unique and without second today, I think. I am also mildly obsessed with Hedi Slimane at Celine. I think what he does is so sublime yet commercial.

TW: What are some of your favourite culturally curious spots in London?

AM: I think the V&A is a bit of a gem, especially the more you go. Every time you go with different people you see something different. I used to take my children when they were younger to this interactive bit where you could stand on a light patch that opens up the paintings. I wouldn’t know how to tell you to get there now, but what a find. It’s the sort of place you can meander around and find something you completely missed the last time. Fortnum and Mason has a collection of art, many of which are still dotted around the store, and from there go to Maison Assouline to look at more picture books and have a coffee or a drink.

TW: Desert island quarantine. Which album, book and artwork do you take with you and why?

AM: It’s extremely difficult for me to choose an album, but after much deliberation it’ll be Hunky Dory by David Bowie. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was 15. The stories in the songs conjure up visions. For a book, I know that it’s a book full of pictures. One that I love already and have looked at many times is Edward Steichen: In High Fashion. The Conde Nast years. 1923-1937. Steichen was an established painter and photographer who became chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair from 1923 and whose style went on to influence George Hoyingen-Huene, Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber. His images are endlessly inspiring to me. For artwork, I’d steal ‘Carnation, Lily Lily, Rose’ by John Singer Sargent from the Tate. I love the sense of the cultivated English garden with its dense green foliage. Looking at it would surely transport me to an English country garden whilst stuck on my arid desert island! The English summer evening light is so perfectly captured in this painting, and the romance of the title is reinforced but the subject matter itself. I love the lilies and other flowers in the painting. The rendering of the dresses that the little girls are wearing is so good.