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Bdaily at London Fashion Week: Palmer//Harding

Bdaily visited London Fashion Week at Somerset House to find out how emerging designers juggle creativity with a business agenda. We spoke to designers receiving the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN sponsorship, which allows new designers to show at fashion week. Bdaily caught up with fashion-duo Levi Palmer and Matthew Harding of Palmer//Harding.

The Palmer//Harding collection takes inspiration from engineering a single garment; the shirt. Their clothes have the impression of simplicity after a great deal of time and engineering of techniques. All made with cotton from the U.S, the clean, sharp designs are mostly white with flashes of orange and aquamarine.

Tell Bdaily about how it feels to show at London Fashion Week.

“It’s great to be given the opportunity to have an exhibition space here, which the NEWGEN sponsorship allowed us to have. It’s an amazing platform and gives you a notoriety, and it’s kind of a stamp of approval.”

How does funding from the British Fashion Council help you as an emerging designer?

“The British Fashion Council support has given us this exhibition space, and it means you have contact with buyers and studios. It puts us alongside some great designers showing today, and people who have received the grant in the past.”

Past recipients of the NEWGEN fund, sponsored by Topshop, include fashion heavyweights such as Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane and Giles Deacon.

Do you find it difficult to manage the business side of being a designer?

“We are both quite business minded, and we wouldn’t be doing this if we weren’t. We aren’t in a rush to get really big quickly because we don’t want to rush key decisions. We aren’t going to launch anything really big and make any mistakes.

“I think we’re going to focus on design and making excellent products before we get ahead of ourselves, and just make sure we’ve perfected our expertise.”

Palmer//Harding launched their brand just under two years ago, and focus on shirts to create a refined collection of “understated beauty”.

The pair have also received funding from Cotton US, which Matthew told Bdaily was very important to them as that is the material the use the majority of the time.

What successes have you already enjoyed?

“We’ve already been featured in British and French Vogue, which is fantastic. We don’t feel the need though to compete with big brands like Prada and Chanel because we don’t want to create a big hype. “

Where do you see you collection being in the next few years?

“Stockists in the U.S, Asia and Europe have our clothes already, but I can see us expanding in the U.S. When it comes to growing the businesses we’re going to learn from experiences and go slowly.”

Palmer//Harding were nominated for the prestigious ANDAM award in Paris, and showed at London Fashion Week with support from NEWGEN, Cotton USA and SUPIMA.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .