Autumn Winter 19 is a stellar season for fashion at The Hambledon. It is also, coincidentally, our 20th Birthday. What better way to celebrate the occasion than to commission a very proper fashion shoot with some bona fide professionals.
We are nothing if not wilful. 2019 seemed like the perfect opportunity to indulge ourselves (and give ourselves an awful lot more work), throw caution and financial considerations to the wind and produce a publication to present the parts of the shop (product, staff, customers and building) of which we are most proud. The stories include Unsung Heroes (a photographic shout out to freelancers and trades who have helped over the years), 20th Birthday Exclusives (featuring products specially commissioned for the occasion), Things and People (20 customers with 20 Hambledon purchases over 20 years) and No. 10 at Twenty (our Fashion story).
We are nothing if not proud. We are extremely pleased with the line up of brands both on the Womenswear First Floor and the Basement Menswear and we wanted to find a way to demonstrate both our seriousness and their beauty. We also wanted to find a way of showcasing the building itself. We worked with Sandy Suffield to commission a photographer and, through the photographer commissioned a stylist. We were delighted to welcome Phil Dunlop and Lune Kuipers to the project. Phil brought his very happy band of assistants, hair and make up artists. Together we chose models who managed to represent an editorial coolness without seeming unapproachable.
We are nothing without our glorious building. No 10 The Square is a largely Georgian beauty overlooking the Cathedral in the centre of Winchester. The Basement is predominantly Norman. The rear elevation is partly Tudor. It is a wonderful historic mash up and has been our very happy home for our 20 years. The brief for the shoot was to use the building as the location but to strip away the layers of merchandise and commerce and allow the architecture to speak. The brief was also to show fashion at The Hambledon as, well, fashion. Stylist Lune Kuipers came to us straight from her role as Fashion Editor at Wallpaper magazine. We were determined to be taken seriously.
We called in a lot of loans from a lot of suppliers. The initial working title for the shoot was ‘Rupert the Bear’ (we had a lot of fake fur and checks and plaids). We put together a Pinterest board of images to show our thought process and guide the professionals. But Lune and Phil pulled together a very particular aesthetic, both sympathetic to The Hambledon and entirely fresh, featuring striking, simple looks. Scandinavian brands featured particularly strongly (Ganni, Baum und Pferdgarten, Stine Goya and By TiMo) on Womenswear. Universal Works, Bellerose, YMC and Saturdays NYC had a strong showing on Menswear.
Here’s to 20 Years of Shopkeeping is a small book which honours both customers and suppliers, staff and freelancers; which, I hope, shows what is really important and fun about shop work: selling great things, being firmly rooted in a place and making friends. Have a read online or pop instore to get a hard copy.
