Ah, the Scottish highlands: the land of bleak gray skies, seaside cliffs and strong whisky. Not exactly where you’d expect Simon Miller’s Chelsea Hansford to find holiday inspiration, but nonetheless this collection was full of tartan checks, gold accents, vibrant greenery and, as she calls them, ‘happy sheep’. Hansford looked not at the stereotype of Scotland, but at what she sees as the ‘quirkiness’ of the landscape. She mentions places in the country where palm trees grow (yes, really). “I really got into it,” she says.
Convenience has been a priority for Simon Miller in recent seasons, and that’s certainly true here with the turtlenecks, knitted slip-on dresses and matching separates in cobalt and kelly green. The holidays call for one of the label’s popular Beep Beep dresses, a series of circular discs stitched together and growing into a sort of oversized pony. This season it is available in black, gold, metallic lavender and of course green. Another classic Simon Miller item, the Bubble clog, has been reimagined in a few shades of plaid. Aside from the Scottish palm trees, there’s certainly a lot of Hansford’s Los Angeles DNA in there – more Bel Air than Balmoral.