Edeline Lee was starting to get a little bored with the standard interview question: “Who is your muse?” That’s why she came up with a versatile heroine herself, called ‘Future Lady’. As evidenced by Lee’s spring collection, Future Lady is brightly colourful, wrinkle-free, practical, occasionally sparkling and always in motion: Lee’s models walked around a raw concrete art gallery in Mayfair, some driving ahead with the focus of a commuter catching the train from want to reach 11.17, some multitask with a phone in their hand. This wasn’t just for effect. One model was catching up on her Korean practice via the Duolingo app when she debuted a draped gold lamé jacquard dress.
On that note, Lee plowed a more eveningwear-oriented furrow for spring, working with sequins for the first time. If that sounds a little strange for a designer who has built her business largely on workwear-appropriate clothing, she still had a function in mind. “The core of the brand has always been serving women,” she says. “My dresses match well, are easy to carry and suit every circumstance. The evening wear is the same and fits many different sizes.” She pointed to a cinnamon-colored mini dress with a fitted waist and draped skirt, noting, “The draping of this dress almost looks like pleats, but it’s super controlled — it’s so flattering yet aesthetically sophisticated.”
Function-meets-form has served Lee well from a business perspective, so it stands to reason that her clients will turn to her for both after-dark looks and C-suite dresses. The A-listers already are: actors Olivia Colman, Naomi Harris and America Ferrera have recently worn her clothes for red carpet appearances. Lee’s success is all the more remarkable when you consider its production facility in East London, with fabrics cut and dyed in Yorkshire. “It’s always hard to be independent,” she says. “We produce everything here in the UK, which I think is quite rare. We pay import duties to bring the fabric in and then import duties to bring it out. But I’m thankful we have enough buoyancy to sail through.”
