Strictly speaking, we’ve met Lydia already – around two years ago when she was speaking with the press about her debut into authorship and the publication of her book, Evergreen. She’s currently just released its companion, The Evergreen Journal but that isn’t what we’re talking about today. I’m meeting up with Lydia again to discuss another facet of her working life; her impeccable style and recent collaboration with Jade Holland to create a capsule collection for the hugely popular Holland Cooper fashion label.
I’m going to confess that prior to our first conversation, Lydia Millen wasn’t a name on my radar, despite the fact that globally there are over four million fans avidly following her every move through social media. The content she creates reflects not just her love of fashion, but a carefully curated idyllic life in the Buckinghamshire countryside which she shares with her husband, Ali Gordon, and their menagerie of dogs, chickens, a cat and several thousand bees. The Millen Gordon world – populated by swanky brands, canny bargains, a dedication to rural life – is consistently infused with gentle, restorative beauty. Everything is beautiful: Lydia, her house, her garden, her life. After our initial meeting I added her to my Instagram feed and have followed her ever since. Her posts depict a halcyon existence and act as a palette cleanse for the often-over-stimulating content which populates my online world. She may be firmly situated the elite category but that doesn’t stop her being relatable. She’s self-deprecating, even humble, and unfailingly positive – what’s not to love?
Although her lifestyle is aspirational, I don’t think she comes from a privileged background – indeed, when I ask her how she pairs high street with high end so effectively she enthusiastically exclaims, “I love a rummage – I used to love rummaging in the charity shops. I used to love rummaging in TK Maxx, and I love rummaging in Amazon. That's like the digital age of having a good rummage. I find incredible things on there.”
She goes on to explain further: “If I go back to the very beginning of [my] blogging, I was going into charity shops, and I'd find Kurt Geiger shoes that I couldn't afford on my student budget, so I'd get suede paint and I paint them to the colour that I wanted. I was very resourceful with these things, and that's really where it started. I was someone who loved fashion and I was on a student budget. I didn't want that to compromise me. I think actually a lot of the practices I had at the beginning, I had right. There was a period of my time online where I always had to have the new trending item but probably around five years ago I started feeling a little bit tired by it all. I want to cultivate a timeless wardrobe.”
All of which makes her an obvious candidate to collaborate with Holland Cooper whose heritage-worthy pieces have been worn by – amongst others – Catherine, Princess of Wales, Zara Tindall, David Beckham and Mary Berry. Before we get into the finer details of how such a partnership works in practical terms, though, I was eager to learn what attracted her to Holland Cooper as a brand. “They’re championing heritage and British craft – fabric, procress and style. That’s at the centre of what they are: the yarns, mills, processes, colours, tweeds, tartans – all of those kinds of things– are all rooted in the DNA”.
She adds: “I think what Holland Cooper does so well is that you can wear their tailoring, their pieces, just as effectively in the countryside as you can if you’re heading into London. I think that is a unique thing – and they’re taking those heritage pieces in a whole new direction which is really cool.”
I was curious to know which elements of her personal style she wanted to instil in the brand. “We worked really closely in bringing together the details that are my style – which is very Holland Cooper anyway – but bringing in an added femininity: I wanted those full skirts in traditional tweeds. It was a lovely process where the team embraced me fully, which I think is always the dream.” She goes on to reveal, “it’s not always the case in those situations, to be working with a team so closely: going to the mill, selecting every tone that goes into the tweed –you don’t get the opportunity to do every day. I really took it very seriously. Now it's out in the world and I can see people wearing it and styling it and loving it, which is really special”.
The passion Lydia feels for her role in the partnership is apparent, and I was fascinated to find out how that played out in the actual design process. “I'm not a designer but what I've learned through15 years in the industry that I'm in is that I have an eye for certain things. I may not sketch something perfectly, but I was able to sit with the team and work closely on specific silhouettes and the general construction of the pieces: what attributes do I want? Do I want the buttons to be leather or fabric covered, or do I want the horn buttons?”
The tweed used in the blazer and skirt has been custom made for the collection. It is inspired by Lydia’s garden, which features in so much of her online content as the place where she finds true peace and joy. Earlier in our conversation she confides in me that it is her garden that she retreats to when she needs time out, and she tells me excitedly about the painter who visited her in the summer. “She's been to some of the most beautiful gardens you've ever seen, and it was such a compliment when she told me there's something special about my garden”. She goes on to confide “this fabric [the tweed] is intrinsically me. I hope decades and decades down the line, people will be able to come and visit this garden and see it and see the tones that are in the Millen Gordon tweed. I'm quite a romantic but I take building my family tree quite seriously; I wasn't born with a family tweed and now I have one that I've been able to craft myself”.
And will there be more collections to come? “Oh, my goodness. That would be an absolute dream come true. I definitely can see more areas that I would love to step into with Holland Cooper, and there are more silhouettes and styles that I would love to see in the Millen Gordon tweed, so fingers crossed.”
Our time is running out. What was supposed to be a quick catch up has turned into a proper chinwag but there’s still one question I haven’t yet felt able to ask: since first meeting Lydia, I’ve come to respect her for her determination and resilience. Sure, any ‘influencer’ attracts the naysayers and trolls, but she simply carries on being Lydia Millen and living in Lydia Millen world. I wonder what that is like. It’s easy to assume what she gets out of it, but I’m really keen to know what it is that she finds most rewarding. My personal motto is ‘you don’t ask, you don’t get’, so (worrying slightly that I risk causing offence) I carefully lead into my final question: “I would imagine that a lot of people that look at you and they see beauty, they see fame, they see loads of stuff; all the trappings, but what is the best thing about being Lydia Millen?” Luckily, she gets it, and she laughs: “What do I like about being Lydia Millen? These are some of the best questions I’ve been asked! What do I like most? Do you know what, for a long time I thought it was a negative but I like that when people actually meet me and they actually talk to me, they realise that none of [those things] matter. I like that unexpectedness.”
Lydia Millen X Holland Cooper
The Holland Cooper limited-edition capsule collection with Lydia is a celebration of timeless design and British craftsmanship. It includes a blazer and skirt in the specially created Millen Gordon tweed, which references the palette of Lydia’s country garden, plus a belt and a scarf – the perfect accessories to recreate her signature, feminine style.
Each piece has been carefully crafted in the UK. The tweed has been woven in the traditional British mill that Jade Holland Cooper has partnered with since founding the brand.
