Emilia Wickstead: from sewing in her sitting room to dressing the Duchess of Cambridge

Emilia Wickstead is sitting on a floral sofa in nothing but her underwear, a leopard-print coat and a smile.Right there, the 32-year-old New Zealand-born designer is the perfect embodiment of her womenswear label ??? elegant with a side helping of fun.Or, as she likes to describe it, ???Classic with a twist.Like Martini with a twist.???The designer, who has two children under three, started out eight years ago in the sitting room of her flat in west London.

Now her clothes are worn by the Duchess of Cambridge, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brie Larson, Diane Kruger and Kate Bosworth; she shows one of the most popular collections at London Fashion Week; and she has just moved into ??? and entirely refurbished ??? the store we???re sitting in, on London???s prestigious Sloane Street, a couple of doors down from Chlo??.

Emilia Wickstead collection

While upstairs is an exercise in minimal chic, an ode to the mid-century minimalist designer Richard Meier, with terrazzo floors and baby-pink walls, downstairs the cosy dressing area we???re sitting in, where private clients come for fittings, is a homage to the exuberant American interior decorator Dorothy Draper ??? a woman who is to interiors what Coco Chanel was to fashion.It???s a haven of pink carpet and fabric-covered walls that open out into giant closets with brass fittings, upon which hang Wickstead???s collections.With the dinky floral sofa, you have the dream boudoir scenario.

The contrasting tones of upstairs and downstairs consciously echo Wickstead???s different tastes and temperaments: minimalism vs extravagance, or, as she puts it, ???My strict, controlling personality mixed with my always being the happy, most lively person at a party.???As a professional observer of Emilia for several years, I???ve never seen the strict, controlling side, but I can vouch that she is always the girl with the biggest grin in the room.With her sleeves-rolled-up, the-show-must-go-on disposition, she would, I always think, have made a good land girl ??? one of the glamorous ones in scarlet lipstick, roaring up to London at weekends in a sports car driven by a wildly handsome gent.She has certainly thrown herself wholeheartedly into the fashion business.

From left: balloon sleeve dress, ??1,290, dress, ??1,390 and dress, ??850 all Emilia Wickstead available at Matchesfashion.com

If you don???t know the story, this is it: aftera BA at Central Saint Martins, inspired by the haute couture designers of times past and her widowed mother???s dressmaking business back in New Zealand, with a few thousand pounds lent to her by her now- husband, Daniel Gargiulo, the 24-year-old Wickstead set up her own label in London, making elegant made-to-measure clothing for personal clients.???I saw a niche in the market where made-to-measure wasn???t being done in a modern, fresh way or in a short period of time,??? she says.???Traditionally, bespoke orders take a very long time, but I thought, ???Here we are with all these fashion-forward ideas ??? why not????I did it backwards.

It was my dream to have a ready-to-wear collection, but in orderto make some money I had to start with something that ended up becoming the heart and soul of our business.???It wasn???t easy.???A lot of people ask, ???How did you start the business, and how did you do it money-wise????And the truth is that I had three jobs.A day job, an evening job and then designing my collection as well.That???s just how we did it.???When she eventually opened her first store (at different premises) she worked there every day ??? as well as running the business.Daniel, who has a day job in finance, ran the accounts, stopping only recently when they appointed a new CEO.???If I???d really known how hard I was going to have to work behind the scenes to have any kind of business, I think I would have stopped,??? she says.

She???s a good lesson in how to make ???it??? happen, although she visibly cringes at what she did to get herself into Vogue (she telephoned the office pretending tobe her own assistant and forced one of the writers to look at her website there and then).But it got her a half-page and some Vogue-reading clients who remain with her today.???One thing my mother always taught me was to just pick up the phone and ask for it.Don???t think, how am I going to meet that person?Just do it.I think that???s very much part of my New Zealand heritage.We don???t just give up ??? where there???s a will there???s a way.My mother instilled that in me from an early age.???And when Samantha Cameron (who wore an Emilia Wickstead dress on the day her husband was elected PM) was sent herway, it became clear that she was doing something right.Stylish women wanted to wear Wickstead.

From left: jumpsuit, ??990, dress, ??1,390 and dress, ??850 all Emilia Wickstead available at Matchesfashion.com

Creating a look that plays on the romance of fashion and that old world of French dressing in which, we like to imagine, people had time and money and nothing to worry about but what to wear for dinner, Wickstead has made a kind of nostalgic fantasy work for modern-day life.(You still need the money, by the way ??? a current-season Wickstead maxi skirt costs ??1,290.)

???I put myself into another world and another identity, and I design not for how my life is but for how my imaginary life is.I want those clothes to be noticed and stand out, and they do.???Combine this with the knowledge she and her mother attained of how to flatter a woman???s body, and you have a designer who turns a dreamy notion into something that works not merely on a model, but on a real life, paying customer.???We can???t be designing just for the catwalk in a certain size and making that look fabulous,??? says Wickstead vehemently.???It equally needs to look fabulous on a ???real??? woman.That???s what we do and what we do best.I???m always thinking about what is going to look good on a woman???s body.I can???t not.I???m a curvaceous woman myself.???

Wickstead always looks beautifully put together even though, careful business owner that she is, it???s only recently that she has let herself order from her own collection.???Before, I would literally sell what I was wearing if we didn???t have anything left,??? she laughs.At the weekends she dresses in jeans and T-shirts with one of her coats or trenches.???But what I???m really designing for is when I go out,??? she says with relish.???Or even at home.I love to have dinner parties and I???ll dress up for that.

I always say to clients, ???Don???t ever think that anything is too dressy.Look at the way we style it on the catwalk: she???s pulled back her hair in a very relaxed way, she has hardly any make-up, she???s got flat shoes and just a tiny gold hoop in her ear, and it???s flawless.???As modern women that???s how we should be dressing.That???s how my mother dresses, how I should be dressing, and how if I had a teenage daughter she should be dressing.That???s our signature style.???