Amanda Pratt's designs have a touch of nostalgia that her customers love, writes Deirdre McQuillan
There couldn't be a better season for Amanda Pratt and her Anthology collection for Avoca: those haberdashery skills are stitched into fashion's contemporary mood. A sense of decoration and colour are what one has come to expect from her, such as unusual prints and images, braids and buttons, girlish details. It's evident in a summer wrap with delicate Indian beading, in the frilled edge of a T-shirt, the bold black and white "Goya" silks or the artfully patched denims.
There are pieces that typify her hand, such as the "road map" prints or later this year a pink coat with a pink ruff and a dozen different buttons running down from the collar. "What's New Pussycat", images from a whimsical 1950s book she picked up in a children's shop in New York, embellish a series of T-shirts. A Chinese postcard she found somewhere else formed the motif for a pocket pattern; nothing escapes that ever-curious eye.
Though she has just shown her fourth season of Anthology at the huge London trade show Pure (hers, she says, was the busiest stand), Pratt seems taken aback by its success in the UK, where 150 stores now stock the collection. Maybe it's to do with a certain nostalgia in the clothes; she says she was thinking of war brides, for example, when she designed a faded pink and green print skirt and jacket, the jacket tied to one side with ribbon. A grey wrap over an embroidered apron skirt also from the winter collection has a certain 1940s look to it. Whatever the reason, customers clearly love the clothes, and in a recent issue of Drapers Record, Avoca came seventh in a list of 10 best-selling labels in the UK headed by Max Mara, Paul Smith and Nicole Farhi, outselling other high-profile brands such as Burberry and Dolce & Gabbana. The survey was conducted among 100 independent retailers around the country.
Pratt says she's drawn to things that have a history. "I love modern design but in terms of fabric I love things that have a sense of time such as damask linens, prints and silks. If you're from Ireland you have to offer something different, and I love looking at clothing from the 1700s and l800s, redefined and modernised. I do dislike slashed neckline tops, the sort of thing that's worn on Saturday nights and then discarded. I don't feel like that about clothes. We are getting an amazing response at the moment. We have as much on order for Anthology as we thought we would do for the whole of last year."
Those orders in Ireland and the UK amount to €1.5 million; as a result she is becoming more ambitious and is hoping to show in Copenhagen later this year. She has also been invited to present the collection in Tokyo.
Being buyer and designer, shop-owner and wholesaler gives her other perspectives. The Pratts's expansion continues apace. Currently on the lookout for suitable premises, the family is planning to open further Avoca shops in London and Belfast in the coming year. In the meantime, she is thinking about summer 2005, which is still under wraps. Sequinned, of course.
The Anthology collection is available from Avoca's branches in Suffolk Street, Dublin; Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow; and Letterfrack, Co Galway