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or someone who has spent the past 10 years rubbing shoulders with A-list celebrities and dealing with the “maelstrom of egos” that comes with it, Jenny Packham is surprisingly reserved. She has a clipped accent and a countenance that doesn’t give much away. And then she’ll talk about nipple pasties, or confess her love for Harry Styles, and you feel silly for ever thinking her austere. I meet the fashion designer in her North London studio, a white-washed warehouse where puffs of gauze and clouds of lace emanate from boxes and clothes rails everywhere. Her sprocker, Byron, darts between them. It took “over a decade of sartorial social climbing” to get here, Packham has said. She started her business with her now-husband, Mathew Anderson, after graduating from Central Saint Martins in 1987. “We were dressing UK pop stars and TV personalities, and I got to the point where I was very frustrated because I wanted to be dressing A-stars,” she recalls. “So we had to recalibrate. For two years we stopped dressing people that we didn’t think we should dress – it’s so awkward
MOODBOARD FOR JENNY PACKHAM’S SS19 COLLECTION, INSPIRED BY JEAN HARLOW
saying that! – but you have to.” The gamble paid off. In 2011, Sandra Bullock wore a powder-pink Jenny Packham dress to the Golden Globe Awards, and the course was set. Now, if you follow celebrity culture in any way, you will have seen Packham’s designs, even if you didn’t know it. Perhaps on the Duchess of Cambridge, who is a long-time fan. That gilded number she wore to the premiere of No Time to Die? Packham. The emerald gown at 2021’s Royal Variety Show? Packham. The red and yellow midis she wore to leave hospital after babies two and three? Both Jenny Packham. She’s also dressed Adele, Angelina Jolie, Miley Cyrus, Keira Knightley, Taylor Swift, Kate Hudson, Blake Lively, Emily Blunt, Dakota Fanning… You get the picture. Packham also created one of Elizabeth Hurley’s 13 wedding dresses (because Lord knows one isn’t enough) for her nuptials to businessman Arun Nayar in India – bridalwear makes up about 30 per cent of the brand’s revenue. “We have a nice spectrum,” says Packham. “We like dressing people when they’re on the way up, like Millie
Jenny
PACKHAM Words:
Anna Solomon
S H E ’ S O U T F I T T E D , A M O N G O T H E R S , T H E D U C H E S S O F C A M B R I D G E , A N G E L I N A J O L I E A N D T AY L O R S W I F T . A S J E N N Y PA C K H A M P U B L I S H E S H E R N E W B O O K , H O W T O M A K E A D R E S S , B R I TA I N ’ S M O S T I N - D E M A N D C O U T U R I E R T A L K S D E S I G N I N G F O R 2 1 S T- C E N T U R Y B O N D G I R L S , D R E S S I N G F O R Y O U R S E L F A N D H E R F I X AT I O N W I T H H A R R Y S T Y L E S
