Molly Goddard

Words by Grace Banks. Photography Arianna Lago

With their sex-positive appeal and eccentric frills, Molly Goddard’s clothes are for women who love the theatricality of fashion, delivering collection after collection of clothes that toe the line between fantasy, ultra-femme and baroque. We spoke about her far from the gilded trajectory, how failing her MA course gave her a better idea of what art she wanted to make, and why she’ll always make her dresses at home. 

Molly Goddard is tired. We’re meeting two days after she showed her AW17 collection at the new Tate Modern Switch House at London Fashion Week, and just a few hours ago she was yelling down a microphone doing karaoke. She caveats a series of coughs: “My voice is really hoarse. We were up until 2 am singing.” But this was no standard night of partying, Molly and her team were celebrating one of the most acclaimed shows of London Fashion Week. 

It was a show that like a lot of Molly’s art, doesn’t have the trappings of the usual contemporary fashion hits. On her runway, there were no androgynous lines or conceptual nods: “I’m the least conceptual person ever,” she says. Instead, Molly turned the catwalk into a dinner party between a group of friends, all wearing her trademark voluminous dresses—which despite being made from frothy tulle in Ladurée pastel colours, remain miles away from anything girly or saccharine. 

There’s been tons of hype around Molly since she debuted her first collection in September 2014. “People said that my first show was on a shoestring budget of £50,” she laughs, “but it wasn’t that bad, we did have £500!” The show was just as much of an awakening for Molly as it was for the fashion industry who were captivated by her Marie Antoinette meets city-girl aesthetic. “I had failed my MA at Central Saint Martins and I was miserable. My boyfriend suggested doing a fashion show and having a party, and that was the first show. Before it I just sat at the kitchen table and made dresses for two weeks solid.” They hired a church hall in Hackney, Wray & Nephew gave them rum, and that was it. The next day the party was covered in most of the UK’s major papers. 

Since then, Molly’s gone on to collaborate with Dover Street Market, Topshop, British shoe designer Penelope Chilvers and was recently nominated for the LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, proving that there isn’t always one definite road to success. 

GB: At first glance, your designs seem very feminine. But I actually find them pretty subversive: oppressively high collars, ironic femininity. How do you view your work? And how did your style develop? 

MG: This is what I do and what I love, but any time someone says something like it’s girly and frilly I’m so turned off I really don’t know what to say. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just what I’m like. I appreciate everything that’s pink and girly in many senses, but then I’m not very girly. It’s a funny thing. I really appreciate and value the aesthetics of femininity, but I think the girl I design for is someone really strong. I think femininity is so interesting and I’m trying to make it less of a defined thing. There’s something odd about the dresses for sure. I love it when it gets really ugly and a bit obscene, I like that contrast. 

GB: What is it you like about the contrast? 

MG: It’s just more interesting, isn’t it? When you look around at everyone you see that, generally, people are very boring and dull with clothes. That goes for me too. So when I see someone wearing something that’s different it’s really exciting. 

GB: A lot of women will dress your clothes down with Converse, or wear them to a low-key event. They’re dresses for women who like to play around with dress codes and traditional expectations of what you should wear. 

MG: Yeah, exactly. I wear the dresses with Converse all the time and the place I see them fitting in really well is the pub. A lot of the dresses are sheer and don’t have any lining; they’re see-through so you can wear them with whatever T-shirt and jeans you like the most underneath. 

GB: Your shows are so different from the usual runway affair. You always have some kind of narrative. What was the idea behind your AW17 collection? 

MG: I like the idea of going into a world you don’t know, but I also wanted to put the models in a setting where they felt more comfortable and natural. Before I’ve had lots of women making sandwiches. It’s more about getting a natural movement from them so they don’t just look like mannequins. I think it’s nice if the models actually have something to do. 

This time it was mainly a collection for women of all ages. I was looking at babies, school kids and teens, thinking about how every one of different ages wears different things and how clothes fit with your life—even when you’re an 80-year-old lady. How do we wear stuff? 

GB: You must be one of the only fashion designers catering to the 80-plus market. 

MG: The collection is meant to be timeless and classless. It was loosely based on those times when your friend’s mum invites you over for their Christmas drinks and you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know if everyone’s going to be really dressed up, whether people are going to be dancing or if it’s going to be really boring. 

GB: I noticed you had some more casual pieces in the collection. 

MG: We didn’t do jeans this season, but we did T-shirts and trousers and all the stuff we would like to wear. I work with my sister and she wears jeans and T-shirts the whole time. We’re both quite practical with our clothes and when we make stuff we’re thinking about who would actually wear it. 

GB: You make all your own clothes, which is rare for a major label. 

MG: We make all the show samples. We had maybe ten things made outside the studio this season—some leather jackets—but everything else was made here at the studio. I guess that is rare. I can’t imagine what it’s like to make a drawing and send it off. I need to make constant, immediate fixes to the dresses. A lot of what we do is manipulate the fabrics when they’re on a mannequin or a body and it’s hard to design without having that. Also, a lot of techniques we can only do in a studio, like the smocking and embroidery. 

GB: Your team must have a really strong grasp of classical pattern cutting and design; the dresses are so theatrical. 

MG: I have two pattern cutters who studied costume— they know more about making clothes than most people I've met who studied fashion. Everyone on my team comes from a costume background. There are nine of us in the studio altogether. I also work closely with Phoebe, who is my design assistant and helps me figure stuff out. 

GB: What’s your design process? Can you tell me more about it? 

MG: I’m drawing all the time and then I review. I'm constantly surrounded by things, I pin up all of my drawings on the wall, then I take them down and review and edit, and then I focus on a few ideas and work out how they fit together. I spend a lot of time on the designs, we all try on everything we make and spend a really long time fitting each piece.

GB: I loved the blue dress with the high neck collar in your AW17 show. Where did the idea for that dress come from? 

MG: That was inspired by a Thierry Mugler show in the late 1980s. I always wanted to make a dress like his blue one. It was also inspired by baby dresses, Victorian nightgowns and crinoline. I love to see how much fabric you can get on a dress. Tina Barney’s photography was a big influence too. 

GB: Your first show was a great critical success, did commercial success follow? 

MG: The next day the Hong Kong fashion store I.T approached us and said they wanted to stock us. They placed an order for 60 pieces and gave us a deposit. After that, we could afford a studio. I had always done things on a budget and called in favours, but that deposit helped. Since then I’ve been lucky because I’ve had financial support from The British Fashion Council’s NewGen. This support changed so much. The financial support is great and so is the exposure you get. It elevates what you do. 

GB: What happened with your MA? 

MG: It was a confusing time. If Louise Wilson [the course director] hadn’t died I don't know if I’d have failed. The reason I studied at Central Saint Martins is that I wanted to work under Louise and learn from her. Sadly, she died and I failed in the same week. 

I think I failed because I was trying to do something that wasn’t me. When you’re on the MA everything has to be groundbreaking and really conceptual. I just don’t have that conceptual fashion thing. Which is fine! So I did all this conceptual shit that was really ugly and Louise was like, “Just do what you want to do.” 

GB: You also trained with John Galliano at the time, working as an intern. What was that like? 

MG: Really good. I graduated in 2012, but trained in 2011, just before he got kicked out of Dior. He was amazing to work with, so talented. He really noticed all the details of the design. 

GB: You grew up in Ladbroke Grove and still work nearby. Do you feel an attachment to the area? 

MG: It’s an interesting place to live. My studio is still here and there are lots of communities like the Portuguese community and the Spanish school. It’s lacking youth culture now, but I’m still best friends with my primary school friends and I still love it although it’s very gentrified. The gentrification of the area is so relentless. All these beautiful buildings are being knocked down and horrible new-builds go up. 

GB: Your sister works alongside you on the collections. What’s that like? 

MG: It’s really nice, we live together too. We know each other really well so there’s no sussing each other out. She’s so different from me. She has these brilliant ideas and she always surprises me, which is really good. 

GB: Would you say you’re ambitious? Where would you like to see the collection go next? 

MG: Well we’ve been shortlisted for the LVHM Prize, which is £300,000 if we win. Previous winners have included Marques’Almeida. A board of people like Kanye West and Karl Lagerfeld judge you, and you have to talk to them and give a presentation. It’s in June this year. So yeah, to win that would be really good. We could get a bigger studio so everyone could have more space to work. And I’d like to employ more people. 

GB: Do you see the financial side of the business as an important aspect of ambition? 

MG: I didn’t use to think the business side was important, but now I really do. I'm much more scared of things now I have the business and I know people are relying on me. But that’s a nice thing. If you can make money from your business it means you can carry on doing it and be more creative as time passes. 

This interview first appeared in Riposte Issue #8.