Eye: Joseph's CD Louise Trotter Joins Romy Schonberger In Showing Off Practical Elegance For The Edit September 21, 2017

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Models Romy Schonberger & Joseph's Creative Director Louise Trotter are styled by Anina Hee in Joseph's tailored, practical elegance.  Trotter reflected on her pov with AnOther, following these images, as well as her meaty Edit interview. Benjamin Werner flashes the duo for The Edit September 21, 2017. / Hair by Misha Oshima; makeup by Emilie Plume; art direction by Matt Duncan

Trotter tells The Edit:

“Fashion changes and things change but, for me, the Joseph woman is the thing that I always try to keep consistent,” she says. With this in mind, she comes back to the same two themes again and again: uniform and a masculine/feminine mix. The first is inspired in part by the memory of hacking her school uniform to pieces and putting it back together (“That sense of rebellion is something I always remember when I think of uniform”), and by the uniform that Ettedgui created for women; his pragmatic, masculine approach to giving them the perfect, reliable pant or shirt. As for the second: “Androgynous is a word that always comes up, because Joseph is a masculine-feminine brand,” says Trotter. “It’s not necessarily about a kind of typical beauty. It’s often a beauty that is slightly flawed, or has its own sense of intellect. The Joseph woman isn’t buying Joseph because it has an obvious logo or obvious recognition. It commands somebody who has a greater sense of their own style. Wearing Joseph isn’t about joining a club, it’s about wearing it your way.”

For our shoot in and around her beautiful London home (Trotter lives between homes in Paris and London – cue the necessity for seamless wardrobe staples), Trotter wears her Pre-Winter 2017 collection, a layered ensemble mixing army-wear with femininity in that trademark ‘undone’ mix. “I moved house last year and I found all these photographs of my parents from the 70s, and what kind of amazed me was how feminine my mom was, which I’d never seen or can’t really remember. And then, also how feminine my dad was. It sort of caught my imagination, how femininely men dressed at that time. Pre-Winter 2017 is probably one of the most feminine collections I have done in a while, where I looked at stereotypes of very feminine pieces and then contrasted that with a kind of classic menswear. It’s also slightly flamboyant in a way, but with a lot of traditional English fabrics: the dress is a Liberty floral tea dress but with a blue jacket, which I almost wanted to look like a 70s Pan Am jacket. And then these jeans because I am a bit of a boy and I always like to kind of masculinise everything.” And in one beautiful swoop we have a uniform of the most unlikely kind: soft, nonchalant, both pretty and boyish, timeless and easy. But by all accounts utterly compelling.