Grey quilted bag, £595 by Julie Verhoeven at Mulberry
If you're still thinking that Mulberry is a brand for stuffy, horsey types, you need to chop-chop and catch up because Mulberry = modern. The trusty luxury label has been quietly creeping towards its cool status by making friends and collaborating with some major fashion bigwigs. London fashion week dahhhhling Giles Deacon's studded clutches were seriously hot to trot, and now a new project with illustrator Julie Verhoeven fortifies the Mulberry magic.
Verhoeven, who lent her quirky handbag knowhow to Louis Vuitton back in 2002, is the latest face brought in by creative director Stuart Vevers (the mastermind behind Mulberry's revival). After seeing the bag at Saturday's Julie Verhoeven pop-up shop in Westbourne Grove, we're positive the Verhoeven-Vevers collab will be a hit to rival the Verhoeven-Vuitton one.
On an un-British sunny Saturday afternoon attendees enjoyed their cupcakes - courtesy of the hummingbird bakery - outside the store, along with the Gossip's Beth Ditto, model of the moment Natasha Poly and Queens of Noize on the decks (looking gorgeous in their Verhoeven-designed smock dresses). All in all, it was a quintessentially British tea party, but with a quirky twist, and it seems like this mix of the traditional with a dash of eccentricity could be the Mulberry magic ingredient.
