Designer Clare Waight Keller moves easily from royal gowns to Uniqlo

NEW YORK – In September, standing in a sunny Manhattan studio among racks of clothes, Clare Waight Keller was back in her element.

The British fashion designer, perhaps best known as the designer of British royal Meghan Markle’s wedding gown, had arrived from London to reveal her latest Uniqlo: C capsule collection and to announce her role as the Japanese clothing brand’s new creative director.

At a moment when luxury fashion is trending towards an economic downturn, Waight Keller is betting on a brand known for affordable, high-quality layers that are wardrobe staples.

She wore an all-grey ensemble of straight-leg trousers and a wool knit blazer from Uniqlo. As she walked the news media through her capsule collection – a concise line-up of US$25 (S$33) cashmere-blend knits in soft shades of loden and moss, and US$60 pants in suiting fabric – bolstered this time with Uniqlo: C’s first menswear capsule, her ease reflected her long career in the industry.

Till 2020, she had been the creative director at French luxury fashion house Givenchy. She was the first woman to hold the job there.

Her collections, favoured by the likes of Hollywood actresses Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore and Gal Gadot, mixed a streamlined and modern aesthetic with precise and purposeful tailoring.

In 2018, Waight Keller’s first couture collection for Givenchy was critically acclaimed. Then came the double-bonded silk cady gown with a bateau neckline, worn by Markle for her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.

Now, Waight Keller’s role is to design trend-proof and democratically priced basics for a mostly ageless demographic.

As Uniqlo’s creative director, she oversees mainline collections for men and women, working primarily with teams in London and New York, where Uniqlo’s SoHo flagship plunked down in 2006.

Despite its reputation for working with outside designers and labels on capsule collections – Jonathan Anderson, Jil Sander, Marni – Uniqlo is not known as a designer-driven brand, which added to the surprise of Waight Keller’s appointment.

Waight Keller, who has said in interviews that she enjoys being outside her comfort zone, expected the mixed reactions. “Every time I make a career move, I feel my choices take people by surprise,” she said.

At Uniqlo, which is owned by the Fast Retailing fashion conglomerate, there is no resuscitation order. Things are selling, notably denim.

According to Uniqlo, sales in the past three months have more than doubled compared with the same period in 2023, owing largely to a style of wide-leg trousers designed by Waight Keller, which discreetly appeared in stores this summer.

“No press, no nothing,” she said of the new denim style. “They were just really resonating.”

Waight Keller, 54, grew up in Birmingham, England, an industrial, mostly working-class city. On weekends, her mother would shop at the sprawling, open-air rag market for patterns, fabrics and trims to make clothes.

“She wasn’t a seamstress, but it was from necessity, from not having a lot of money,” said Waight Keller over a recent breakfast in London, where she lives with her husband and teenage son. She also has twin daughters in their mid-20s. “It was my first exposure, in a way, to fashion and how you put it together.”

At the Royal College of Art in London, she plotted her future.

The technical components of fashion had always fascinated her, but she knew she needed a niche to stand out. “By being a specialist in knitwear, I gained that skill of understanding yarns, the knitting process, understanding how to construct a garment,” she said.

She was the only one of her peers to graduate that year with a job offer – working in knitwear for Ralph Lauren.

It set her on a career that took her to all four major fashion capitals, including New York at Ralph Lauren and then Calvin Klein, and Milan in the early 2000s to work under Tom Ford at Gucci alongside a team of designers that included Christopher Bailey and Francisco Costa.

It was an electrifying time for Gucci, which Ford had jolted back to life in just a few short seasons.

From Gucci, she moved back to London to work at Pringle of Scotland and then to Paris for Chloe, where she was the creative director for six years, before moving to Givenchy in 2017.

Pausing between roles was not an option – not as a woman, she said. Seeing how few of her peers made it back after taking family leave – whether for childbirth or caregiving – reinforced an unfortunate reality.

“I was at Gucci when I was pregnant with my twins,” she said. “There was no maternity policy in place. Tom said, ‘Okay, we need to deal with that. We need to put one in place.’ But it’s kind of amazing that it was never there before.”

Likening the fashion industry to a fast-moving competition of musical chairs, she added: “I realised you can never step off the train.”

After three years at Givenchy, Waight Keller stepped down in April 2020.

“I thought, you know, maybe it can just be a short chapter at Givenchy,” she said. “Maybe short is actually kind of gorgeous.”

It was early in the Covid-19 pandemic and her first legitimate break in more than two decades. She went to Cornwall, where she stayed for several months, spending time with family. She took on the occasional creative project for local heritage brands, including the cashmere house Johnstons of Elgin. It was a liberating time and ultimately a “blessing”, she said.

In 2021, Uniqlo called. Mr Yuki Katsuta, Uniqlo’s global head of research and development, reached out through a mutual friend, with an eye at improving women’s design.

Talks originally focused on a capsule collection, a succinct wardrobe that could be built upon with coordinating pieces and colours should it extend to multiple seasons. The first Uniqlo: C collection was introduced in September 2023, followed by a second in March.

One thing led to the next, Waight Keller said. “They said, ‘Do you mind having a look at this from the main line? Can you give us your opinion on that?’”

She found it fascinating, especially the careful calibration of innovation and product development across a surprisingly limited number of styles.

Uniqlo produces only two seasons a year, with 250 styles each for womenswear and menswear, half of which is carried over from the previous season. “So, in terms of newness, you’re playing with only 125 styles a season,” she said. At Givenchy and other luxury houses, the seasonal quantity is typically double that number.

Waight Keller described the company’s ethos as one focused on making the perfect piece, citing a lightweight down jacket as an example. “It launched 20 years ago, but it still sells in the millions because it’s a timeless piece,” she said. “Each season they make these little tweaks to improve it. Yuki has this saying: ‘Even if it’s 99 per cent perfect, it’s still not perfect enough.’”

Uniqlo has about 60 stores scattered across metropolitan areas in the United States. But there is an aggressive growth strategy afoot, with a target of 200 stores in North America by 2027.

Uniqlo has five stores opening in Texas alone in the next few months. There are roughly 800 in Japan and 2,400 globally.

Waight Keller has not written off the idea of someday going back to her former world of rarefied fashion. But in the meantime, she has recruited several former colleagues from Chloe and Givenchy – all female, she noted – to work alongside her at Uniqlo, where luxury means something different but no less valuable.

“Working with Uniqlo offers me the luxury of time,” she said. NYTIMES