Ladbroke Grove local Molly Goddard threw her first ill-fated, off-kilter London Fashion Week installation/party in September 2014. “It was in a church hall in Mayfair,” she recalled today. “I paid €300. I got some rum and went to Brick Lane for bagels. Oh, and I had a wedding singer. Her guests were given Goddard’s T-shirt bodices with tulle and party dresses to swoosh in. As she added afterwards win the BFC 2018/Fashion Fashion Fund: “I did the party presentation because I thought I would get a job. But then we got orders. I didn’t have any setup, so I just sewed. Then it’s like ‘Molly Goddard’, the brand!’
What goes around goes around. Today it was once again just Goddard, showing up in her studio in Bethnal Green. She stripped her structure and returned to the source. Like that debut collection, this first ‘resort’ collection of the new Goddard era is being picked up by Dover Street Market. It can be seen (and purchased) there from January. As her interludes reveal, which explain some of the intricacies of the fabric cutting techniques and smocking proportions that made possible the creation of these 10 giant tulle dresses, for Goddard it’s all about the making.
But why this break? “This structure and system are crazy. And it’s so risky.” Goddard said the collapse of MatchesFashion highlighted the Jenga fragility of the make-now, get-pay-later (maybe) wholesale system, and prompted her to get off the hamster wheel of speculative SKU churning to become more recent. The main consideration, she emphasized, was creative rather than financial: “It wasn’t about money, even though it was a more difficult year.”
Change is hard, and there was palpable regret as we discussed her absence from the September shows, but there was also excitement about exploring the road ahead. Goddard doesn’t stray into fashion designers’ blind alley of rejecting fashion for art; she simply plans to prioritize her fashion artistry over commercial scale-up. “I want to make pieces that I’m proud of and enjoy, and then be able to sell them, rather than just putting out a bunch of random cotton dresses.” She will continue to create made-to-order and bridal commissions, and is already making plans for collaborations with other free spirits she admires. “This is completely a choice I made,” she added. The second decade starts here.