In keeping with Edeline Lee’s penchant for subverting the typical presentation format, the designer skipped a models-in-looks wingding for fall in favor of an intimate breakfast in Mayfair. This season, she wanted to give a personal introduction to the project that showcases her latest collection: 33 portraits of mothers and daughters wearing her inclusive designs, from childrenswear for four-year-olds to ladieswear in a UK size 22.
“The idea was basically to celebrate family, the relationship between mothers and daughters, and how clothes bind them together,” said Lee, tucked into a velvet banquette in the plush environs of Mount Street Restaurant. “We know that fashion isn’t just clothes, often it’s the space where mothers and daughters meet. When I see a mother sharing a dress with her daughter, it’s wonderful.”
Having focused on eveningwear and red carpet gowns for spring, Lee looked to reality for fall. She gathered an eclectic group of bold-faced names from the worlds of art, culture, fashion and academia to step into her east London HQ, where all her clothes are made, and play dress up. The roster included everyone’s favorite classics professor Mary Beard, the actor Olivia Williams, and Vogue’s own Global Director of Talent and Casting Rosie Vogel-Eades, along with their daughters. The women showed off Lee’s versatile designs; detachable caped sleeves, adjustable necklines and flared shapes which are easily flattering on different bodies.
Many of the women featured in the lookbook were present to toast the project over eggs Florentine and flat whites on Monday morning. This reporter’s table mate was Helena Morrissey, the Conservative peer, financier, founder of the 30 Percent Club (which aims to up the female quota on executive committee levels), and, famously, a mother of nine. “When I started working in the City,” she divulged, “the outfits were pretty boring—lots of strong shoulders. Now, there’s more color and variety.” A long-term client of Lee who frequently wears her sleek bubble-jacquard dresses for days in the House of Lords, Morrissey was photographed for Lee’s portrait series with Bea, the youngest of her children.
As an unofficial ambassador, you couldn’t get more high-powered than Morrissey—and in an era when adolescent K-Pop stars are commanding the spotlight in numerous campaigns for luxury brands, Lee’s commitment to highlighting working women in all their multifaceted sparkle offered a refreshing dose of relatability.
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