Get To Know | Kate Ford
Get to know our latest label, Kate Ford. We discuss her favourite pieces, activities and coffee spots. Designed for the wild and free feminine spirit.
Kate, we are SO excited to be launching your beautiful brand at Sisters&Co, can you give us an insight into how the brand came to be?
A compilation of love, adventure and an intense design career all join forces in Kate Ford’s own signature fashion label, KATE FORD.
A creative reflection of her, it’s refined but a little rebellious; insatiably curious, and inherently warm.
Growing up in an artistic household, surrounded by painting and sewing, Kate and her sister were constantly playing dress-ups in their mother’s clothes and a vocation in fashion seemed to be in the stars from an early age.
Kate completed high school in the small town of Camden, South West of Sydney, and shortly after enrolled in a Bachelor of Design in Fashion Design at Whitehouse Institute of Design in Surry Hills. Her first brand began as a university project, hand making delicate lingerie using off cuts of vintage French lace, but quite quickly became an international success and launched Kate into the industry at age 20.
Since then, she has risen through the ranks of numerous prominent Australian design houses, gaining rigorous training, invaluable experiences and countless passport stamps, all of which have shaped the essence of KATE FORD.
From the cobbled streets of Paris to the sparkling coastline of LA, these travels are woven into the very fabric of Kate’s brand, along with her love of poetry and innate desire to live differently.
Our first drop is beautifully uplifting - full of mood boosting colour and print - was this a focus for this range and is it a notion you always carry through your collections?
Divine Domain is Kate Ford’s Spring Summer 23 collection, inspired by Greek goddesses and Persian myths. The collection draws upon images from the voyages and expeditions through ancient Greece, and of the fauna and flora associated with both the natural world and of the mythical phantasmagoria. Earthy terracotta, lush aquatic and kaleidoscopic gardens hues are augmented by hand-made shell belts, hand-designed lace cotton trims and toggles, and gold, each in their own ways reminiscent of the accoutrements that the ancient world afforded their goddesses, nymphs and mortal women.
Kate’s collaboration with Melbourne-based artist, Laura Thomas on the exclusive Pallas print has given rise to rich canvases that journal and depict travels through Greece, alluding to the ancient rituals of pottery and weaving through hand drawn motifs. These beautiful depictions are the backdrop for feminine silhouettes throughout the collection paying tribute to the ethereal goddesses: Daphne, Elektra, Nyx, Rhode and many others and are a devotion to the divine feminine of the earthly. Simultaneously, these silhouettes are designed to address the yearnings of the modern woman through cut outs, corsetry and asymmetry. Ornamental florals and soft contours enhanced by rope and eyelet trims remind the wearer of simpler times and provide the threads that weave the connection between the contemporary woman and her ancient divine counterpart in the Divine Domain.
The fabrications are gorgeous - how important are these to your aesthetic and the way a collection comes together?
Our overarching philosophy at KATE FORD is to create bravely and tread lightly.
To us at KATE FORD, ‘sustainability’ is much more than a green label. It’s an attitude, a practice, and a commitment to keep learning and improving everything we do for people, place and planet.
The fashion industry accounts for a staggering percentage of the world’s landfill, and we’re passionate about combating that by minimising waste at every touch point of our process.
From conception, all Kate Ford womenswear has been made with natural fabrics sourced sustainably from the earth, such as cotton, silk, ramie, and linen, with synthetic fibres only taking up 2% of our fabrications and are only used on pleated styles for functional reasons.
Ramie is a natural fabric which is regularly used throughout the Kate Ford seasons and is a sustainable alternative for silk due to its soft to touch, delicate hand feel and shine factors. Ramie has a cellulose fibre which is obtained from natural fibres through a complex extraction process, causing it to become a luxury fabrication. Its fibres are obtained from Boehmeria Nivea and Utilis plants whilst during harvesting there is no raw material which goes to waste which explains how environmentally sustainable this fabrication is.
Kate has personally visited every fair trade factory we work with at KATE FORD. Meeting the makers and seeing first hand how the whole manufacturing process operates from end-to-end on the ground is incredibly important to her and the ethical credentials of the brand.
KATE FORD and Kate herself are big believers in hand-made items and providing work to those who are less fortunate than others. This is why Kate works directly with artisans who are extremely talented in many fields and KATE FORD is dedicated to sharing their wonderful work with the world, most especially with you, the consumer.
What are your favourite pieces from the styles we just received? How will you be styling them and where will you be wearing the
The Elis Set is my go to. It is super easy to wear together or separately with basics, by dressing it up with heels to a long lunch or down with sneakers for a shopping day, it's perfect for the hot weather we are currently having in Aus!
Quickfire: Tell us about your favourite....
- Mid-week cocktail spot - Next Door in Cronulla! Only a short stroll from my house
- Coffee spot - Six Smith Cafe, my daily coffee walk with my twins and dog! as it's down the road
- Sunday morning ritual - walk with the family, sit on our favourite seat down at the beach down the road and chat about our week and whats to come
- Weekend destination - We've been heading down to Jervis Bay to visit my family's home with the kids, its great to getaway
- Friday night playlist - old school hits in Kate's personal playlist!
- Dream holiday destination - I have travelled a lot, but never been to Hawaii and now we have the twins we are really looking forward to heading there. Hopefully at the end of the year!
