Edeline Lee is the Canadian-born, British designer behind her eponymous brand which she launched in 2013. Exuding intelligent, modern femininity, her line is loved by the stylish, from Alicia Vikander, Karen Elson, and Taylor Swift to Livia Firth and Solange Knowles.
Edeline Lee SS20 Presentation
Toby Shaw
And she has just launched her Spring/Summer 2020 collection this month, which was all about performance. For the script, the designer partnered with the award-winning actor, writer, and producer, Sharon Horgan. The performance itself lasted 15 minutes (it was on repeat), featuring both models and actors donning the joyous, playful and vibrant collection.
Fresh from her London Fashion Week catwalk show, Lee discusses her brand and what we can expect next.
Edeline Lee SS20 Presentation
Toby Shaw
Felicity Carter: What was your first fashionable memory?
Edeline Lee: Matching my socks to my t-shirts in elementary school. It was the first time I really discovered the power of fashion.
Edeline Lee collection
Edeline Lee
FC: How, when, why did you get into the industry?
EL: I studied at Central Saint Martins. I grew up reading the pages of Vogue, dreaming about the hallowed grounds that McQueen and Galliano walked. It was a crumbly, old building, but it just felt amazing to be there.
Edeline Lee SS20 Presentation
Toby Shaw
FC: How would you sum up the aesthetic?
EL: Structured, feminine, playful.
FC: What is luxury to you?
EL: Intelligent, craftsmanship, clothes with meaning and depth.
Edeline Lee SS20 Presentation
Toby Shaw
FC: Who is your customer?
EL: She is worldly, highly educated and aesthetically advanced. She maintains a punishing schedule, she is doing it all and she is doing it beautifully. I make clothes that fit seamlessly and practically into her life.
Edeline Lee collection
Edeline Lee
FC: Which was the first-ever piece that you designed and how did it come about?
EL: I designed a pair of shorts in my home economics class at school. Peach and cream windowpane check. They were pretty ugly. FC: Currently which is your favorite piece and how do you wear it/them? EL: I like my pieces to be complete in and of themselves. Forgivingly cut and only just decorative enough that you can wear them without any accessories if need be. I like them to resist wrinkling so that I can literally throw them on and feel polished with no effort. At the moment, I am wearing the Alexandria Dress a lot.
Edeline Lee SS20 Presentation
Toby Shaw
FC: What's the best piece of advice that you've been given when it comes to handling the industry?
EL: My tutor at Central Saint Martins always compared us to racehorses, chomping at the bit. But it is a VERY long-distance race. Fashion is by definition ephemeral, but I prefer to play the long game.
Edeline Lee collection
Edeline Lee
FC: What are your immediate and long term goals for your company?
EL: I would like to spend more time developing our own Ecommerce site. In the long term, I dream about a fully circular, sustainable company that nourishes both my team and clients. I love making and producing from one place here in London, I love being able to touch everything that goes out of the door, and I hope that we can continue doing this in the long term as we grow.
Model Ugbad Abdi backstage getting her makeup done in preparation for a Michael Kors runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Photo:
Andre D. Wagner for The Wall Street Journal
Iowa teenager
Ugbad Abdi
had just graduated from high school in Des Moines last year when she got a message on Instagram that would change her life.
Ms. Abdi, who had been posting shots of herself in different makeup looks, had drawn the attention of a top modeling agency. But it wasn’t just her striking looks or her height that made her compelling. Ms. Abdi also happens to be a Somali-born Muslim who wears a hijab—which made her even more compelling.
“There are women in the world that look like Ugbad and dress like Ugbad and our business of fashion should really be concerned with addressing all people that consume clothes and beauty,” said
Kyle Hagler,
president of the New York division of Next Management, which signed her last year.
Ms. Abdi outside the Michael Kors show, which wrapped up her New York Fashion Week. Soon she would board a flight for London Fashion Week, followed by Milan and Paris.
Photo:
Andre D. Wagner for The Wall Street Journal
Increasingly, the fashion business is showcasing models with a wider range of ethnicities, races, sizes and ages, finding it makes business sense to better reflect a customer base that has long been more diverse than the models featured on runways. Ms. Abdi’s rapid ascent is a prime example: In less than a year, she went from Iowa high schooler to fashion It girl.
In January, she made an attention-getting runway debut at Valentino’s couture show in Paris. Since then, she has walked the runway for brands including
Burberry,
Chanel, Fendi and
Marc Jacobs.
She was in Vogue in April, August and its all-important September issue.
During New York Fashion Week earlier this month, Michael Kors booked her exclusively for his show, where she modeled the opening look. She went on to walk the runways of Burberry, London Fashion Week’s biggest show, for a second time, and then in Milan at Max Mara and Fendi. The 19-year-old is currently at Paris Fashion Week, which ends Oct. 1, and has appeared in big shows including Lanvin and Dries Van Noten.
Ms. Abdi and her agency embrace her Muslim faith, explaining to casting directors, stylists, and photographers that her religious observance means she won’t wear skin-baring clothing or reveal her hair.
Ms. Abdi wearing the opening look to Michael Kors’s Spring 2020 runway show.
Photo:
Peter White/Getty Images
“Ugbad’s grace on the runway or in front of the camera is evident, but that is only part of what makes her an exceptional model,” said
Anna Wintour,
editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine and artistic director and global content adviser of Condé Nast. “From the beginning, she has used her platform to challenge stereotypes about Muslim women and open doors for others.”
Few people are more surprised by her sudden rise than Ms. Abdi herself, who has retained a teenage awe while navigating her ascent. “I’m in American Vogue Couture Story while wearing my hijab?!!?!,” she posted to Instagram in March. She had never been to New York until last year, when she met with agency executives to talk about signing on. “From there, everything happened,” she said, describing the entire experience as “amazing.”
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She recalls the giddy moment while riding through New York’s Union Square in a car with her agent when she saw herself in an ad for Fendi plastered on a giant billboard. “I almost freaked out,” she said. She later went back to take photos, including one of her looking at herself in the ad, which she posted to Instagram. “That was a big moment for me,” she said. “I had to post that.”
“Everything that has happened so far to this moment, it’s like, all a dream come true,” Ms. Abdi said in an interview after the Michael Kors show. “I always get emotional,” she said while tearing up. “It’s good to see that people want to see change. It’s an honor to have a voice and maybe educate some people who didn’t know anything about the hijab before. I feel like this is a journey for everyone. ”
Few people are more surprised by her sudden rise than Ms. Abdi herself, who has retained a teenage awe while navigating her ascent.
Photo:
Andre D. Wagner for The Wall Street Journal
The fashion industry’s efforts to diversify have been slow to evolve. In the 1970s, several black models became popular, alongside civil-rights activism and the “Black is Beautiful” movement. In 1974,
Beverly Johnson
became the first black model to appear on the cover of American Vogue. Iman achieved stardom starting in the mid-’70s, followed by
Naomi Campbell,
Veronica Webb
and Tyra Banks in the ’80s and ’90s. But the dominant look in modeling remained white, as well as young and thin.
More East Asian models began to appear on runways beginning in 2011, as China’s economy opened up. In 2017, plus-sized model
Ashley Graham
appeared in a Michael Kors show, paving the way for other curvier models.
At the same time, a growing number of mainstream clothing brands, from lingerie brand Aerie to department store
Macy’s,
have been featuring more diverse women in their advertising, positioning diversity as a selling point. And beauty brands’ advertising and social-media campaigns now feature more celebrities, models and influencers of color, fueled in part by the launch of Rihanna’s inclusive Fenty Beauty by Rihanna line in 2017.
Of 221 major fashion shows held in February and March in New York, London, Milan and Paris, nearly 40% of the models cast were nonwhite, a record, according to theFashionSpot, a fashion blog that has tracked model diversity since late 2014. More plus-size, older and transgender and nonbinary models have appeared on catwalks in recent seasons.
“Inclusion is happening right now and may it continue,” said
Bethann Hardison,
one of the pioneering black runway models of the 1970s.
Business reasons underlie the changes. Modest fashion, for instance, represents a big opportunity, especially in the Middle East. Muslim spending on clothing is expected to reach $361 billion by 2023, according to Thomson Reuters.
Ms. Abdi’s family fled from war-torn Somalia to a Kenyan refugee camp when she was small. A U.N. refugee agency relocated her family to Des Moines when she was 9. In high school, people encouraged the tall, thin teen to look into modeling. She admired Iman, also from Somalia, and
Halima Aden,
a hijab-wearing Muslim model IMG signed in 2017.
After she signed with Next, the agency was upfront with industry professionals about Ms. Abdi’s wish to keep her head covered and not wear revealing clothing.
Ms. Abdi awaiting her first time walking for Michael Kors. The show’s casting director, Piergiorgio Del Moro, who also cast her for Fendi, said he immediately thought of Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring,’ when he met her for the first time.
Photo:
Andre D. Wagner for The Wall Street Journal
Casting director
Patrizia Pilotti
tapped Ms. Abdi for her debut at the Valentino couture show. “We didn’t book her because she was Muslim. We booked her because she was beautiful,” she said.
Soon after, major industry pros clamored to book her. Piergiorgio Del Moro, who cast her in Fendi, Max Mara, Michael Kors and other shows, called her “so elegant and special” and said “she was confirmed right away” for a Fendi ad campaign. “Whether it’s size or age or background, gender, religion, I don’t think it should be a stumbling block for a designer to make people look remarkable,” said Mr. Kors.
“People have been getting really creative with things, designing certain scarves for me, which is really nice,” said Ms. Abdi. “They sometimes put a lot of hats on me. So it’s really like we can do anything.”
Ms. Abdi at Paris Fashion Week.
Photo:
Benoit Tessier/REUTERS
As Fashion Seeks More Diversity, New Models Stand Out
Photo:
Getty Images
Adwoa Aboah Freckled faced, with a buzzcut and a jeweled tooth, Ms. Aboah has walked the runway for labels including Chanel and Dior and appeared in campaigns for brands including Burberry, Chanel, Giorgio Armani and Revlon. She is also a contributing editor at British Vogue, and founded an online platform for young women called Gurls Talk.
Photo:
Getty Images
Valentina Sampaio
The 22-year-old transgender model from Brazil made a splash over the summer when she was hired as Victoria’s Secret first trans model. She joins a growing number of transgender models being tapped by fashion and cosmetics brands. She appeared on the cover of Vogue Paris in 2017 and signed deals with brands including L’Oréal and Dior beauty.
Photo:
Getty Images
JoAni Johnson
The 67-year-old model has appeared in shows for brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Deveaux New York and starred in campaigns for brands including Sephora and Rihanna’s Fenty. A casting agent saw a 2016 photo of her by a street style photographer and cast her in an Allure video on aging gracefully that went viral. A new modeling agency signed her soon after.
Photo:
Getty Images
Anok Yai The 21-year-old, Egyptian-born and of Sudanese descent, has become a rising star and part of a wave of darker-skinned models of African descent expanding the range of brown skin shades on runways. In a Vogue YouTube interview, Anna Wintour singled out Ms. Yai and Ms. Abdi as having “had very very strong seasons” for the Fall 2019 shows.
Photo:
Getty Images
Paloma Elsesser
Influential fashion makeup artist
Pat McGrath
selected Ms. Elsesser, while studying at the New School, to star as a muse for her new makeup line in 2016. The 27-year-old has since appeared in fashion magazines, on runways and in campaigns.
