Step into the joyous world of family run luxury label Eponine and discover tailored vintage silhouettes, bold colors and eclectic textiles.
Eponine and Lulu Guinness is a sartorial match made in heaven. Both female-run businesses with a fondness for vintage that celebrate individuality, craftsmanship and having fun with fashion.
Since we have so much in common and a passionate mutual appreciation, we decided to join forces and style our products together. For its Autumn/Winter lookbook, Eponine has styled all the looks with a specially chosen Lulu bag. Meanwhile, we have created a fabulous Winter Style Guide with a little help from our talented friends at Eponine.
Eponine London was founded in 2011 by Creative Director Jet Shenkman; a celebrated tastemaker known for her colorful, distinctive and elegant style. Jet was named as one of the 20 best-dressed women over 50 in the world by The Times in ‘21.
Today, Eponine remains a family-run, British luxury label specializing in unique and joyful womenswear, offering ready to wear, couture and bridal. Jet’s daughter Nina also works with her at their Kensington atelier and the mother-daughter pair are known for their vibrant use of color and textiles and sharply tailored, sleek silhouettes.
We caught up with Jet to find out more about her label, life and loves.
We love how you've described your AW22 collection as 'Eclectic, expressive and ever-so-joyous', is that a good way to sum up the spirit of the brand, would you say?
Absolutely. At Eponine our focus is on making joyful collection pieces that turn heads, start conversations and really say something about the wearer.
What inspires you when you're designing a collection?
The textiles are almost always the starting point. The quest to find beautiful fabric is never-ending and when we find one, it always inspires lots of ideas.
Who are your style heroes, past or present?
Never was elegance so perfectly personified than by Audrey Hepburn!
Who's the Eponine woman, and how do you want her to feel?
The Eponine woman loves color, is daring and appreciates the joy of being seen. We’d like her to feel beautifully and unapologetically herself when she steps into one of our designs.
When you set up the label, what were you trying to do, eg, what's your niche?
We take classic silhouettes and then re-imagine them with novel use of color, textile and embellishment.
How is it working together as a mother and daughter team? Pros and cons?!
We love it! Most of the time…
Pros – we laugh every single day and also have very similar taste. It makes creative decision making much easier.
Cons – when we disagree about something, we don’t hold back! No subtlety or diplomacy to be found…
How important is it that your clothes are made in London?
Very important. It means we can keep a close eye on production and make sure every garment is crafted to the highest standard. It also means we can ensure the working conditions of the factories that produce our ready-to-wear collections can be carefully monitored.
What's next for the brand? What are you getting excited about?
We’re going to be broadening our couture collection for SS23 both in fabric and product range. We’re very excited. Watch this space!
DOWNLOAD THE EPONINE STYLE GUIDE
DOWNLOAD THE EPONINE STYLE GUIDE
