Queen of Couture
British Designer Suzannah – whose Marylebone boutique, in true pop starlet style, bears only her first name – describes her remarkable world of women’s sartorial manna
Interview by Kate Slotover and Photography by Andy Barnham
You may well be familiar with the charm of London’s Marylebone High Street, with its eclectic mix of shops and restaurants. But the lesser-known surrounding streets are no less appealing. The elegant headquarters of Monocle magazine can be found tucked away on Dorset Street. Celebrity dining haunt the Chiltern Firehouse has put Chiltern Street on the map, while the quietly elegant Wallace Collection in Manchester Square reasserts the prevailing tone of historical atmosphere.
A little further to the west lies an area known as Portman Village, where carefully restored Georgian shop-fronts house a similarly enjoyable mix of independent businesses. At its heart is New Quebec Street, a natural home for dress-designer Suzannah when she was looking for a larger premises in which to expand her dressmaking company. “It’s a really lovely mix in this street,” Suzannah comments, “and the Portman Estate is really keen on developing it, trying to keep it village-y but also having the right stores and the right market. It’s an old-fashioned approach - the idea of an area you visit in order to spend the day shopping”.
A casual passer-by would find it hard not to be drawn in by the eye-catching fabrics and elegant tailoring of the dresses in Suzannah’s shop window. Given our interest in all things made-to-measure, Riddle seized the opportunity to sit down with her and discuss the process of commissioning a dress from her couture line, and her essential style tips for any woman wishing to look fabulous.
Tell us about your background as a designer. What led you to where you are now?
I was always interested in the smarter aspects of clothing and had a love for fabric, print and the process of starting from scratch and developing a garment. I didn’t like working for the high street in the days of ‘fast-fashion’ - everyone cutting their prices to get garments out and simply copying stuff and not offering a difference or a personal perspective. It used to ruin my world because it’s just not what I’m about. I’m interested in proper, good quality, beautiful clothing that is not compromised and I felt the industry was getting worse and worse.
So I set up my own label and started making dresses for friends. A Marylebone boutique began to stock my dresses and I had a lot of publicity quite early on, so other stockists followed but I still hadn’t really figured out my business. I realised people were really going for my higher-end pieces - they would rather indulge in the colour, cloth and the cut and have it exactly right than take a compromise.
So I found a shop-slash-studio to let in Little Venice and began with a mixture of vintage and my own samples and kind of just started selling and making things for people. When we outgrew that, it took me a while to find somewhere else but after two years we ended up here and the business has grown a lot since; the location really helps. Customers can find us easily and it’s a lovely area to come to.
Did you have any particular childhood influences?
My mum was always making and knitting, and still does. That obviously rubs off. But perhaps she was most influential about the idea of appearance - she always wanted things to be ‘just so’.
Was there anyone else in the design world who was a particular influence?
I remember being obsessed with Gianni Versace’s slick look and amazing colours. Then I started travelling around the world for work and going to lots of high-end vintage stores. I found a label called ‘James Galanos’, who was an American ready-to-wear designer from the 1920s to the 1960s – his heyday was probably late 40s and 50s. I loved his style. I also love John Galliano - who I think is a genius too. I look at all the designers anyway, but I’d say those two are my favourite.
Are the catwalk shows helpful in terms of your own creative process?
I don’t think anyone could go, any creative person, and not find that helpful. Everything about it, the whole atmosphere, you find inspiration - the theatre of it, the size and perspective of what a catwalk proportion is compared to what you’d find actually on the rack: it’s all so different. Then there’s the drama, the pace and the kind of energy you need behind each piece to make it stand out and not dissolve when they’re appearing on this massive platform. So I think even if a designer is not 100 per cent of interest to you, you’ll find something mesmerising about it.
Tell us about your women’s tailoring services?
Well we’ve got ready-to-wear, where you just come and buy your size from our collection in that colour and we have a basic alterations service for that, so you can have it nipped and tucked. But because we have the tailoring expertise and a lot of it is in-house, we can manipulate that so that it becomes bespoke. Say, for example, you had an event where your arms needed to be covered - we could modify a dress by adding sleeves. And that would involve having a toile cut, a mock-up of the sleeve just as you would for a tailored jacket.
You can take a dress from our couture collection and say “Actually, I love this dress but I want it floor-length and I want it bright green and I’d actually like a diamante collar in my size, and I’m a size twelve top, size sixteen bottom.” So within the realms of our aesthetic – because we’ll only make things that look right – we have a process. We analyse the customer’s event, what do they need, what level of theatre do they want.
Do people come in with images for inspiration?
Often people come in with a picture of Audrey Hepburn, and we have lots of Hepburn-influenced silhouettes, so we’ll pick out what we have that’s close to that look, and we’ll say “Well… this is our version of this, do you like it?” But we never copy. We don’t want our dresses to look like archive pieces - we want them to look modern and flattering, so we’ll work within those parameters.
How do you help people choose cloth?
We only use cloths that we have tested because they have to perform. People are spending a lot on the garments - they can’t crease. Or sometimes people accept that that this is a more crease-prone fabric but it has an amazing colour that we can only get with that type of silk. So then it’s a compromise but they always know.
What do you think the benefits of couture are? Is it worth investing in?
There’s nothing like it. We know it works because the women who come to us for a one-time event end up coming three or four times a year, because they’ve experienced a dress that has given them confidence. They might have to accept an award, or deliver a speech. They may have come in originally for their 40th birthday dress but then they find they want a go-to dress for events where they know they have to look and feel their best. I’m told it becomes an obsession. It’s a bit addictive once you start.
It sounds lot more fun than having to trawl round shop after shop after shop. Do people appreciate the difference?
There’s a mass of choice in the shops. People often phone us up from Harrods, panicking, saying, “I’m blinded by choice, I don’t know where to start. Somebody told me about you, can you fit me in today?” And they probably would have found something in Harrods if they had loads of time and had signed up for their personal shopping service. But just looking on your own is genuinely difficult.
What sorts of events do people tend to commission dresses for?
We do a lot of ‘alternative’ wedding dresses, for want of a better term, for women who just want something that feels like ‘them’, not a traditional long gown. Perhaps they’re putting their money into house-buying, or a full-length white gown is just not their personality. Or maybe they’ve chosen a venue that’s more of an unusual space, or it’s in somebody’s garden or abroad and they want something non-traditional. We do single-sex marriages so then both women can get a dress each but they’re complementing each other.
Otherwise anything from awards ceremonies to outfits for Ascot, the Derby, we even do the Melbourne Cup. Plus Goodwood, Glyndebourne, Wimbledon, Henley and polo events, and then things like investitures and palace visits. However, it’s always for a special occasion.
There’s a structured, tailored look to your collection. How important is that to you?
I think it’s just evolved that way because of my love for very structured couture clothing: hems lined with horsehair, beautiful stiffened fabrics, everything very strictly cut to make your waist look as tiny as possible, to make you look amazing. I’m very inspired by that. And on the flip-side, the tea-dresses are very, very soft but they’ve had an equal amount of cutting go into them - they’re carefully cut to flatter.
What would be your one style tip for any woman who wants to look her absolute best?
Wear something you feel confident in, because body language is so important. If somebody stands tall and smiles, that’s always a winning thing. Beauty shines from within, so if you hold yourself nicely and you’re confident about how you look, whatever that look is, you’ll carry it off. 
Enquiries: Suzannah, 3 New Quebec Street, London W1H 7RE / +44 20 7258 0782 / www.suzannah.com