The Making of Underground

If I had to sum up Underground in one image, it would be London street style in 1969.

Big coats, flared trousers, knee-high boots and enormous sunglasses. Rich browns and reds against the colour and graphics of the city. People dressed brilliantly, but still dressed for an actual day of getting around London.

That was really where Underground began.

I kept looking at photographs of London from the late 60s and early 70s while I was working on the collection. There was something about the everyday dressing from that time that I loved. Statement coats over denim, fitted shirts tucked into flares, boots worn with everything. Clothes with loads of personality, but pieces you could still pull out of the wardrobe and wear all day.

At the same time, I became slightly obsessed with the Underground itself.

The old tiled stations, patterned seats, flashes of red, curved windows and all those strong geometric shapes felt like such a good starting point for an autumn collection. Once those two worlds started coming together, everything seemed to fall into place.

A new season uniform

One of the ideas I kept coming back to while designing Underground was 70s uniform dressing.

Not uniform in the sense of everything looking the same, but having a wardrobe of pieces that naturally work together. The sort of clothes you can pull on in the morning and keep wearing wherever the day takes you.

A fitted shirt with cropped flares and boots. A jumpsuit with a huge coat thrown over it. Patchwork leather with denim. Pieces you can swap around, layer and accessorise in completely different ways.

I wanted someone to be able to take the whole capsule and almost have a fresh wardrobe for the season ahead.

The colour palette became a huge part of making that work. Deep red, tobacco and chocolate brown, cream, mustard and blue all developed as we sampled the collection. Once we had the colours of the patchwork coat right, the rest began to slot into place.

The deep denim wash worked with everything, and suddenly all the different textures could sit together too. Leather, velvet, printed lace, denim and shaggy faux fur. Rich, tactile fabrics that felt perfect heading into autumn.

From station windows to the Archway dress

Some of the references made their way into the clothes much more literally.

The Archway Red Embroidered Mini Dress started with the half-flower shaped windows I kept spotting above old London stations.

It was a shape I’d seen somewhere else too. A few years ago I found a vintage embroidery design in a library book with a very similar motif used on the back of a jacket, and I’d saved it ever since. Seeing the same shape appearing in old Underground architecture suddenly brought the two references together.

I knew it could look incredible translated around the neckline of a mini dress.

Getting it right took longer than almost anything else in the collection. We spent a lot of time adjusting the position of the appliqué, the scale and the stitch lines until everything sat exactly where I wanted it.

Against that deep red base, I think the final result is really striking and I’m so happy with where we got to.

The arrows on the Pimlico Denim Cropped Flared Jeans came from somewhere completely different.

We’d picked up a vintage pair of jeans in America with arrow detailing and had been holding onto them, waiting for the right collection. Once Underground started developing, suddenly they made complete sense. The arrows became a little nod to all the directional signage running through the London transport imagery I’d been looking at.

That happens quite a lot when I’m designing. Something can sit in our archive for years before suddenly finding the right home.

Into the archive

Quite a few of the pieces in Underground began with garments from our own vintage collection.

The Goldhawk Patchwork Leather Jacket was inspired by a vintage leather jacket from my archive, with geometric panels worked through different shades of brown.

I knew straight away that I wanted to take the idea further and turn it into a full leather set.

The jacket and matching Goldhawk Patchwork Leather Skirt were actually some of the easiest pieces in the collection to develop. We worked with a new supplier who is brilliant at leather and leather construction, and everything came together surprisingly quickly.

Leather is a newer category for us, but it’s one I’m really excited about. These are pieces you can keep for years, and I love the idea that they’ll soften, change and get better the more they’re worn.

And because I know you dreamers love a two-piece, I couldn’t resist making the matching skirt.

The jumpsuits have their own bit of The Hippie Shake history too. Their starting point was our old Ramble On Jumpsuit, a shape we used to sell and always loved. For Underground, we brought that idea back through fitted shapes, flared legs and geometric panelling.

It all ties back into that uniform dressing idea. A jumpsuit is almost the ultimate version of it. One piece, boots on, coat over the top and you’re out the door.

The little details

One of my favourite things in Underground is actually something you might not notice properly until you see it up close.

The Queensway Geometric Print Lace Shirt is made from printed lace.

We used to find lots of fitted lace disco shirts while vintage sourcing in America, often with these incredible floral designs printed straight onto sheer lace. I always loved the combination of something quite delicate and sheer with a really strong print.

For Queensway, we turned that idea into a slim shirt with a geometric floral design that works brilliantly tucked into denim.

My favourite way to wear it, though, is clashed against the Goldhawk leather set.

There are two strong geometric designs sitting together, loads of texture and plenty going on, but all those browns, reds and creams somehow pull everything together.

That’s probably one of the best examples of what I wanted Underground to be.

The women behind the moodboard

I was looking at so many incredible women from the late 60s and 70s while designing this collection.

Anita Pallenberg was a big reference, particularly for the patchwork leather, minis and some of the more rock ’n’ roll pieces.

There are touches of Pattie Boyd and Marianne Faithfull in the prints, suede, shearling and boots too. Then as the references move further into the 70s, you start to see hints of Jane Birkin, Cher and Suzi Quatro in the denim, flares and fitted jumpsuits.

I never want to recreate one person’s wardrobe exactly.

What I love is pulling together all these different references from women who actually lived through the era, then letting them meet somewhere new.

If I were wearing Underground for a full day in London, I’d go for the Goldhawk Patchwork Leather Jacket, Pimlico Denim Cropped Flared Jeans and Highgate Brown Contrast Lace Up Boots, with a roll neck underneath and a vintage belt.

It sums up the whole collection for me. Statement pieces, but grounded enough to actually live in.

And the Goldhawk jacket is probably the piece I’ll end up wearing most.

I love a statement jacket, and I can already see myself throwing it over so many of my favourite looks this season.

Taking Underground underground

Once the clothes were finished, there was really only one place I wanted to shoot them. 

Shooting on a vintage Underground carriage had been a dream of mine for a long time. I’d also been seeing so many people doing fit checks on the Underground recently and it felt like the right moment, so I did a bit of digging online and found out you could hire a vintage carriage at Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum.

Everything just fell into place.

Suddenly the collection was sitting inside the world that had inspired so much of it.

For the shoot, I wanted to capture some fun, engaging content in the Underground setting while referencing some of the old photographs and videos we’d been looking at during the design process.

But my favourite part is always styling the studio shoot.

That’s when the clothes stop being individual samples and become full looks. The hats come out, the sunglasses get bigger, the boots go on and we start layering things in ways I might not have originally planned.

It’s the point where the picture I’ve had in my head for months becomes something real, and hopefully something you dreamers can start imagining yourselves wearing too.

The Underground soundtrack

Obviously, every collection needs a soundtrack.

The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, Cream and David Bowie were all playing somewhere around Underground while we were working on it.

We’ve put together a full Underground playlist too, so you can listen along and get into the mood for the collection.

Ready for the day ahead

More than anything, I wanted Underground to feel like clothes you’re ready to go out and live in.

Something you can wear to work in the morning, keep on for an afternoon wandering around town, then take straight to dinner or a gig that night.

Grounded and easy to wear, but still full of pieces that make getting dressed fun.

Things you can accessorise, dress up, dress down and keep combining differently as the season goes on.

A new season uniform, built for wherever the day takes you.

Naomi x

Underground launches 1.10.26