Ruth Walker: ‘We need professional people who really take care of their appearance but also like to party’

Multitasking must come naturally to Colin Gilchrist. The man behind Scotland’s newest fashion label launch – already being feted by everyone from Edith Bowman and Jane Bruton, editor in chief at Grazia magazine, to InStyle and Vogue – is juggling meeting buyers, choosing fabrics and overseeing designs with his ongoing work as a style blogger and strategy and crisis planner in social media (no, I don’t know what that is either). So being interviewed by me on the phone while driving along the M8 (hands-free, of course), should be a dawdle. I hope.

Just back from the Pure trade show in London, where Spencer Clothing’s first collection was rapturously received, he’s busy reflecting on his target customer. Turns out the vision is pretty specific.

“In my head, she’s about 33,” he muses. “She is single but in a relationship. She lives in a city and has eclectic groups of friends: people she works with but also friends from college. Typically, though, they’ve moved out of town and had children, so she parties quite a lot with people she works with. She probably has a gay best friend and he is quite a big influence on her so she has quite a wild time with him. She works hard but she also plays hard.”

We’re both silent for a moment as I sigh in realisation that, much as I want to be this girl – she sounds like a blast – that particular ship might have sailed. Then again, I can picture myself in the crisply tailored MacPhee blouse with bow-tie, the black Quinn jacket with scarlet lining, the signature McMeekin jacket, with gently puffed shoulders and tailcoat style. Yes, dammit, I am Spencer Girl. Now, where can I get myself a GBF?

Born and educated in Edinburgh – at Fettes “which I didn’t enjoy very much” – Gilchrist studied art in Manchester then moved on to London, to what is now the University of Westminster, “where the Emanuels studied”. His final collection was based on 1920s lingerie, “so lace and bones is were where I cut my teeth”.

From there he had a stint sharing a stall in Camden, selling dresses made from vintage men’s tweed jackets (there is a wonderful photograph of him at the time, all Kajagoogoo hair and single giant hoop earring), before becoming a wage slave – albeit a creative one – taking care of the merchandising and display at Topshop’s flagship store in Oxford Circus.

A job as buyer at Jenners, in Edinburgh, tempted him back north, after which he was appointed Burberry’s man in Scotland in 1997, buying stock for the heritage brand’s Scottish stores.

“I would spend time in London going through the collections, identifying pieces I thought would work in the market. It was at the time the label was really popular with the Thomas Burberry jeans, the check and so forth – it wasn’t exactly the highlight of Burberry.”

But changes were coming: US businesswoman Rose Marie Bravo had been brought on board as CEO to “shake things up a bit” and, she was responsible for recruiting Christopher Bailey as designer, bringing in Kate Moss as a campaign model and redefining a brand that had, until then, been best known for its chavvy check and badly made fakes.

As part of the process, Bravo took no prisoners. “I was part of the decision to close down the Scottish stores,” says Gilchrist, “because they just did not fit in with the label’s future.”

I wonder if it was a difficult decision. Patriotically? Personally? “No,” he says matter-of-factly. “Because the majority of staff were close to retirement and the shops were really dilapidated, it was not going to be a great showcase for this fantastic new collection, Burberry Prorsum. So it was actually a pretty easy decision to make it more exclusive.”

He was encouraged by the brand to go back down to London and continue presiding over its style revival, but he chose to leave in 2001, preferring to stay in Scotland instead. “I’d done my time. And my wife is up here. It made sense for me to stay,” he says.

After a decade working in digital marketing – while writing style blog The Social Tailor on the side “as a way of keeping my interest up” – he admits he was itching to get back to the front line of the fashion game. Still, the speed at which this collection has gone from concept to completion is warp-like, even for this constantly changing industry.

“I met the investors at the end of November,” he says. “They are manufacturers who make for Hobbs, All Saints, Monsoon, Karen Millen, based out of Carnoustie, and they were looking for a design team for the label.”

He convinced them they also needed an effective marketing strategy, and was duly brought on board as creative director, while he in turn recruited Judy R Clark, a Scottish couturier who trained with Alexander McQueen and who works with vintage lace, sumptuous Indian silks and Scottish tweeds. “I saw in Judy something I thought would be really good for a top-line high street collection,” says Gilchrist. “She’s very couture and not high street but my influence is ultimately making sure her designs are more commercial and less couture-oriented. I’m responsible for sourcing the fabrics and, ultimately, the clothes that go on the hanger.”

Six weeks after making the pitch, they were flying out to meet the investors, signing contracts, creating a sample collection and putting together a fashion shoot – modelled by Anna Fremantle.

The debut collection features three key areas, he explains. “The suiting and the coat have the biggest Judy influence. The fabrics are a wool mix, really good quality. The lining and attention to detail are fab – but then I would say that. There are covered buttons and the linings often match the skirts, which are checked. It’s a good mix-and-match suiting range. Then there’s the leisure dresses – cashmere soft, jersey dresses – they’re pretty unforgiving to be honest.”

So it’s just as well they have Fremantle on board. “She is our target market,” says Gilchrist. “We need professional people who really take care of their appearance but also like to party. And that’s why we have party frocks too.”

He says they’re playing things safe at this early stage. “Spencer autumn/winter is quite classic. It is a new relationship with our investors and we’re not going to start unleashing trend-sensitive garments when the relationship is so new. For the general public, too, it’s a label they’ve never heard of. We’ve been pretty successful in getting the message across by generating a groundswell of consumers loving the product through social media. That way, retailers taking it on will see there’s already a waiting market for it.

“And we’re working at these relationships so people will understand this is a long-term project. It’s not going to just disappear.”

The Pure show, he says, was a great success. “The buyers we met were predominantly boutiques. There were a couple of big suppliers I probably shouldn’t mention.” So coy. “There’s one that has stores in Australia and New Zealand. There’s a big London one as well. We’re going to be fairly small to start with, and build up credibility and trust. Then when we’ve built up that trust then we can start moving into Saks and Bloomingdales.”

The collection should be available to buy from August, with prices ranging from £80 for a skirt to £190 for a jacket and £250 for a coat. “It’s top-end high street,” he says.

“We’re speaking to a Scottish retailer – she’s still deciding on quantities. Funnily enough, though, she’s not Edinburgh and she’s not Glasgow.”

Ah, where then? Perth?

This time he’s not telling. Negotiations are still too sensitive. “I would like an Edinburgh or Glasgow retailer, I have to say. It’s great that we’re in New Zealand and Australia – I’m not knocking it – but I’d love if people could buy it on our doorstep.”

With that in mind, from here, the plan is to expand the range to include knitwear so that, in two or three seasons, they will have a much bigger presence. And can he see a runway show at London Fashion Week on the horizon? “Definitely. That’s inevitable.”

Confidence and a multitasker. That man will go far.

click here to visit www.spencerclothing.com