‘I designed Kate Moss’s 50th birthday dress – it could be any woman’s forever frock’
Last Tuesday, Hansine Johnston was having her first ‘coffee ‘n’ scroll’ of the day, when her index finger paused, hovering over an arresting Instagram image of Kate Moss wearing a crown of wild flowers… and one of her dresses. For any designer, this would be a spitting-out-the-coffee moment. “And I did almost do that,” admits the 52-year-old with a laugh. Because for a small, ethical British brand like Hansine that is only seven years-old, “surely it doesn’t get better than this?”
It did. This wasn’t just any image, it turned out, but Moss celebrating her 50th birthday in Mustique, flanked by best friends Sadie Frost and Rosemary Ferguson – all three wearing Hansine’s Rhodes dress, in black, pink and red – and it went around the world.
Given the brand’s “luxury boho” aesthetic – inspired by Johnston’s Greek mother “who wafted around in brocade dresses with her long hair swinging”, her extensive travels to Greece, Mexico and Milan (where she worked for Valentino and Armani) and her love of Seventies designers such as Ossie Clarke and Missoni – it’s perhaps no surprise that Moss should have gravitated towards her designs.
Add to that the body-skimming silk fabrics and prints Johnston handpicks from a manufacturer in Como and the low neckline Moss always favours, and you can see why the British supermodel chose a Hansine dress to mark her half century.
“It’s totally in keeping with her style, as is the brand,” Johnston tells me on a Zoom call from Switzerland, where she’s based. “I’ve always said, ‘you can imagine Kate Moss wearing this’ – and now I don’t have to.” But what makes the designer happiest is that “this happened organically. I couldn’t have orchestrated this kind of publicity even if I tried. Certainly, it would have been beyond the power of any small brand like ours, with limited finances”.
The ‘Kate effect’ hasn’t lessened over the years. Within the past ten days, Hansine has been tagged and re-tagged online, with people clamouring to know more about the brand. The phone has been ringing off the hook, and sales have soared. As someone who bought her first Hansine dress when the brand was just two years old, I’m thrilled it has been given such exposure.
Full disclosure: I’ve got far too many dresses. Dresses so specific they can only be worn one night a year; dresses so unforgiving they can only be worn after a particularly violent bout of gastric flu; dresses I’ve gone off after just a few outings.
I’d never found a dress that could be worn repeatedly over years, however – to meetings, business lunches, date nights and weddings; on ‘fat days’ and ‘thin days’ and everything in between – until I invested in ‘the Iris’: a silk midi number with angel sleeves in a ‘bitter chocolate’ vintage-style petal print. I say ‘invested in’ because, with prices ranging from ￡295-￡480, you have to be thinking in ‘cost per wear’ terms.
As happy as Johnston is to ride the wave of attention that a single Instagram post has prompted, she’s also keen to use this moment to get a message across. It’s one that has always been at the root of her brand and is the reason I now own ‘the Iris’ in every colour.
“A lot of people might say: ‘Well, obviously Kate Moss and her friends are going to look great in that dress’, but if you find the right dress with the right cut, you should be able to wear it at any age. It could be your ‘forever dress’ – one you keep on wearing and feeling just as good in, year after year. Because aren’t we all done with disposable fashion?”
It’s true that whereas the ‘body positivity’ movement has transformed the way younger generations feel about their bodies and themselves, many older British women still seem to be stuck in a ‘I can’t get away with that’ rut. “Get away with what?” Johnston asks, fired up. “I definitely think it’s a cultural thing with us,” she agrees, when I point out that French women don’t seem to have barricaded themselves by the same outdated set of rules. “But it also goes back to old-fashioned female self-doubt, and I see that everywhere I go, even with my client base here in Switzerland.”
That this downbeat psychology should still be as widespread saddens her. “Why shouldn’t we wear what we want at any age? Why shouldn’t we be as seductive and feminine in our 50s as we were in our 20s?” Yet she sees so many clients in their 40s, 50s and above who are hung up on sleeves – “Oh, I can’t bare my arms” – on chest size – “Oh, I can’t get away with not wearing a bra” or “I can’t get my chest out” – and, her favourite: “Oh, but I can’t wear that: I’ve had a couple of kids!”
These myths need to be dispelled, she insists, “because with a well-cut dress and the right layering, those things shouldn’t be a problem”. As a woman in her 50s herself “without a perfect figure” she understands the concerns. “But we need to do away with this refusal to even look at options and step beyond our comfort zones. We need to de-condition ourselves from years of being told that as we age, we have fewer and fewer options in terms of dressing. And with the menopause now being talked about in the way that it is, let’s open up our thinking accordingly.”
She has tips – ones she’s gleaned from “growing with the brand and adapting things accordingly”. “Silk should not be a deal-breaker. Yes, you may need to find the right bra or bikini top to wear beneath, but think about layering silk fabrics with knitwear, think about wearing slinky summer dresses and ‘resort wear’ even in winter, with long cardigans. And if you’re really worried about your arms?” She pulls two new pieces off a rack in her showroom – a silk thigh-length kimono and an angel-sleeved bolero. “Invest in something sumptuous that gives you a bit more cover and will work with any dress.”
The reason that image of Kate Moss at 50 is so appealing is simple, Johnston says: “She looks comfortable. She doesn’t look straightjacketed by something overly structured, something prohibitive that compels you to move in a certain way; she looks at ease, happy in her own skin. And in the end, isn’t that what every woman wants?”
