Make no mistake about it, business for Preen by Thornton Bregazzi is rocking, and that's not only because they've just had a surprise gift from Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Kate Middleton packed their red Finella dress to wear in Canada last month, and since then shoppers' demand for said ballerina-length ’50s-styled item has exploded. "Honestly, we had no idea. She bought it herself," Justin Thornton said. "The first thing we knew about it was an email alert from a newspaper. It was already in the shops, so it sold out immediately. Stores wanted more, and luckily we had the fabric because it's the power-satin we always use. They've all sold too, so now we're on our third re-order." This dress is the one that Vogue.com readers voted the best of the week, and had commenters appraising it as Kate Middleton’s most spot-on fashionable choice since her McQueen wedding dress. On Net-a-Porter today, it is nearly sold out.
Anyway, the gift of royal publicity has certainly worked both ways in this case: The Preen dress may be a red-hot seller, but it also succeeded in giving the Duchess an arguably overdue fashion-credibility boost. Yet the rise in the designers' fortunes is not just caused by the Kate Middleton fairy dust. In September, buyer reaction to the couple's Spring collection with its witchy dresses and liberal drenching of silver sequins, was also “incredible," Thornton recounts. "Thea and I were laughing, what did we do right? We've been here 20 years, and suddenly it feels like we've been working up to this point. We worked out it's because we just thought, what the hell, let's just do everything we love and believe in."
It's not a turnabout in style, but more a steady ramping-up of accumulated skills and confidence in manufacturing a range that's a bit wild and free and British on the one hand, yet polished, practiced, and woman-of-the-world on the other. The clothes we see here, the Resort collection, were actually designed as a precursor to the Spring show—and are just about to arrive now in stores and online. Behind them, Thornton and Bregazzi say, is the work of Mick Rock, “who photographed Bowie and the Stones in the glam-rock early ’70s, and then, pictures people of the Blitz club in the ’80s.” You can picture the pink daffodil–printed tea dress on Angie Bowie or Amanda Lear. Doesn't matter really, though. There's no need to retro-fit any of it to a theme. The way Thornton and Bregazzi manipulate hemlines so they go up and down, and cut their pants superwide looks like today.
Question, though: What would Kate Middleton buy if she wanted to follow up on her recent hit from the designers? Likely nothing they're showing here, though she could wear the long print dress easily. There's more, though. Thornton and Bregazzi don't publish the pictures of their classic, molded-satin cocktail dress that Kate Middleton lucked out on finding. They assure us, however, that more of the kind are always available and out there.
