The rebooted Warehouse is coming for autumn. It’s gone fashion, which means out with the work blazers and Friday night dresses and in with the prints and tracky pants. Here are five things we learned at the preview.
There have been some personnel changes
Alasdair Willis, who oversees Hunter and is married to Stella McCartney, is brand consultant. Emma Cook, who used to show poppy prints and retro dresses at London fashion week, does the designing. An odd couple of quirk and commerce, it shouldn’t work but it does.
It’s now the destination on the high street for blouses
There are tons of them, from daisy-printed ones to puffed-sleeve and satin-and-tie-dye silk T-shirts. The stand-out is a Hold Up yellow wide-neck blouse with sailor’s bib at the back. Subtly referencing the Prada AW16 nautical collection is very clever.
The prices are pretty good
Most pieces come in at less than £250 which, considering we’re getting into four figures at some high street stores, is pretty good. A bonded coat is £89, while T-shirts are less than £30. Cook said it was important to her that you could still “buy something nice even if you only have £40”. Quite right.
The focus is the U.K.
Cook said she wanted to bring the “British unselfconsciousness” into the collection, which basically means there are loads of things that shouldn’t go but do, such as clashing prints on a slip dress or a slightly weird peplum on a blouse.
They’re going big on the branding.
Anyone used to the justified font that has been above the door of Warehouses for the past 40 years will be surprised. The new logo is quite first generation emoji, with square brackets and a very grammatically correct full stop. There’s also ‘Warehouse’ printed on ribbons down a pair of skater shorts and on a bag, something that pleases Cook greatly. “I like the cheekiness of it,” she says. “It’s unexpected.” Just like the rest of Warehouse for autumn then.
