Whistles in the fast lane
She means Kate Middleton: The duchess is arguably the most significant among Whistles’ profile-boosting celebrity clientele (see also: Samantha Cameron, Alexa Chung, Keira Knightley, Florence Welch).
“No, but all my staff have. She’s always in the store. Jo [the manager of Whistles Kings Road] will go, ‘Oh yeah, Kate was in the other day...’” While Kate Cambridge is undoubtedly helping to make Whistles a success — Shepherdson says they see an upsweep in sales every time Kate is photographed wearing the brand, and that, “Now I talk to people about us in America or in Canada and they know it. They absolutely know it.
“And they’d never have known it. We’re tiny!”
None of it would have happened without Shepherdson. She took control of the label three and a half years ago, just as the credit crunch was beginning in earnest, and saw it into profit for the first time this year. “We made £1 million, which I felt was good. Really good!”
Clearly, Shepherdson, 48, has got it right with Whistles. When she took it on it was a mediocre little British label that had once been adored but wasn’t any more.
Shepherdson’s policy was to, “Just sell clothes that we love. Sell clothes that make you go, ‘Oh my God! That’s stunning!’”
So now, it’s filled with necessary, useful, pretty, luxe-feeling pieces that are underpinned by glamour, hipness and a gentle awareness of what’s fashionable.
It’s all well made, well considered: the prints on the silk dresses are unusual without being odd; the knitwear manages to be a little bit cool; the blazers are sharp without feeling corporate; and it is all rather grown-up, but in no way frumpy.
It also has the occasional fashion hit: last spring, Whistles began selling a pleated maxi called Carrie. Shepherdson didn’t expect great things of it, mainly because it was neon pink.
“We’d only bought 200 units, and it sells for more than £100,” she says. But the fashion press adored it, and so did the public. Carrie sold out in a matter of days, and Whistles was required to restock and restock, until, “We sold more than 5,000 units, which is huge for us.
We’re still selling it now, a leopard-print midi version.”
From the outside, Shepherdson’s work on Whistles seems extremely deft and assured. No one within the fashion industry thought she wouldn’t pull it off. She’d already performed miracles at Topshop where, as brand director, she’d transformed the chain from a gaudy, cheap mecca for tarty teens in search of a Friday-night frock into the hottest shop on the high street, a heady mix of edge and commercial assuredness and a darling of the fashion editors.
Has she made any mistakes with Whistles? “Oh God, yes. It’s never as straightforward as you think it’s going to be. You produce a collection, put it into the stores, and customers don’t like it. We live in a fashion bubble and you forget quite often what real people want to wear. A lot of things of which we thought, ‘People will love this,’ they just... haven’t.
“At the start, the clothes were too pared down. Women don’t really like things that are too simple. They like it to be a little bit designed, a little bit fancy. We’ve had to put more work into things.
“I guess we started out making things quite minimal and sort of boyish, and actually we’ve had to make them much more feminine.
“People want to look pretty. And sexy. We’ve never been very good at doing sexy.”
September 2008 was not a great time to start selling clothes.
Whistles relaunched under Shepherdson days after Lehman Brothers collapsed. Did she understand the full implications of that at the time? “Well, yes, I did, because we were financed by an Icelandic bank, and they went under straight away. Immediately, we had to find new finance. And that is not my world at all.”
So you endured a crash course in emergency financing? “Yes. It was horrific. Something I would not want to repeat. At one point, we didn’t know how we were going to pay staff the following month.
“What we didn’t realise then, of course, was how much of an effect it would have on the general economy, how much it would squeeze everyone’s spending.”
Did that scare you?
“If I were an anxious type, I probably wouldn’t sleep at all. I don’t think you could be in fashion, with the risks that are involved, if you were a real worrier.”
Shepherdson says that, predictably, the way people shop is changing; that we’re less inclined to indulge trends now than we were three years ago (give or take the odd maxi).
Has she changed the way she dresses? “No. Oh God, I’m probably in a rut. I always wear trousers. Different-shaped trousers... But... always trousers.
“I’m going through a structured moment. I’ve got massive shoulders. So a jacket’s good for me. And they do say that one should get smarter as one gets older. I don’t know if that’s true. But I wouldn’t like to see myself in a fleece at the age of 80.”
Shepherdson’s left Topshop after a 20-year tenure abruptly in October 2006; her fraught relationship with its owner, Sir Philip Green, had imploded. (Shepherdson refuses to talk about it; the most she has ever told me is, “My bosses always found me quite difficult. And I am.”)
She no longer has Sir Philip to deal with, but she does have the pressure of being an employer in a recession. “That is a huge responsibility, constantly thinking: ‘We have to make this successful because all these people depend on it.’”
She has plans to develop the website, to sell in earnest internationally: specifically, “to get a presence in New York”. She is contemplating expanding into menswear: “It makes sense.”
Shepherdson is married to a criminal defence lawyer with whom she lives in north London; they have no children (“We couldn’t. You know. One of those things,” she told me in an earlier interview) and are contemplating getting a puppy. She is guarded about her personal life, but she does make casual reference to being at a literary salon in a private members’ club recently. The thing that thrilled her most about the event was, “There was a woman right next to me wearing Whistles. And I had to say something. I had to. I had to! I said, ‘Oh, I like your top.’
She said, ‘It’s Whistles.’ And I said, ‘I know it is’.”
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