Mulberry’s New Order
How Johnny Coca, the Seville-born, French-trained designer, is revitalising a very British brand
Here's an interesting horticultural fact: the mulberry tree, noted for its gnarly bough and cold-hardiness, can continue to bear fruit for hundreds of years. The one planted in the Suffolk garden of 18th-century artist Thomas Gainsborough is more than 300 years old and still produces a fine crop of berries every summer.
Mulberry trees have thrived in Britain since Roman times - the Tudors made them a fixture in their royal gardens and our Queen has no fewer than 34 varieties in her various stately grounds. In terms of branding, then, you couldn't imagine a more British name for a fashion house, especially one that consistently champions the values of homegrown craft.
Mulberry, founded by Roger Saul in 1971, enjoys an enduring presence in our landscape. This wasn't always so assured, however: an attempt to reposition the brand three years ago proved disastrous when its former chief executive officer, Bruno Guillon, hiked up prices in line with luxury labels such as Hermes and Dior. Profit figures floundered as shoppers previously attracted by the not-so-eye-watering prices of its bags, accessories and ready-to-wear were alienated.
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Mulberry needed to regain its roots as a brand synonymous with affordable, high-quality luxury. It had to rekindle its reputation as a maker of bags that you could save up for; lovingly crafted in Somerset and still ostensibly swung about by the likes of Alexa Chung and Lana del Rey, as they were when Emma Hill was creative director, between 2008 to 2013. Mulberry also had to claw back some of the quiet sophistication of the pre-Hill years, to counter the more bombastic branding of well-positioned US brands such as Coach and Michael Kors, which spearheaded the trend for mid-range designer bags; a market that has grown incrementally year-on-year since 2010. A balance had to be struck – and fast – but, bereft of a creative director for more than 18 months following Hill's departure, the future for Mulberry looked thorny.
In July 2015, a seemingly unlikely successor was assigned the job of revitalising the very British brand: Johnny Coca, a Seville-born, French-trained designer who had previously studied art, design and architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Ecole Boulle in Paris. Unknown outside fashion circles, Coca was Mulberry's ace card, responsible for two of the most coveted Celine handbags of recent years: the cross-body Trio and the winged-shaped Trapeze, created during his second tenure at the Parisian fashion house, under Phoebe Philo. Coca had previously worked there under Michael Kors in 2000, before moving to Bally in 2005.
Much column space has been afforded to these Céline handbag hits since his appointment at Mulberry, but what is less well documented is the breadth of the Spanish designer's output, which includes jewellery, shoes, small leather goods and sunglasses. Halfway through our interview, he produces a pair of Mulberry's SS17 yellow-lensed shades and proceeds to describe them in the manner of an engineer unveiling a prototype. "For me, it is a very special object and a question of proportion," he says in soft Spanish tones, encouraging me to examine the subtle ridges along the top of the gold frames.
Coca is a gently spoken man with extroverted dress sense. Today, instead of his customary kilt, he is wearing a humbug-striped suit with cropped trousers and chunky white sneakers. With his signature quiff and silver hoop earrings, he's channelling a rockabilly/steampunk pirate. It takes confidence to pull off such a look, especially in conservative High Street Kensington, where Mulberry's London HQ is based; but this swashbuckling outfit seems fitting given Coca's entry into the fashion world, which sounds like the stuff of legend.
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As a 21-year-old student, he boldly captured the attention of Louis Vuitton's late chairman, Yves Carcelle, while window dressing for one of the Paris stores. "When I finished my windows, I decided to draw some bags based on what I had done. I searched for Yves Carcelle's number and decided to call him," says Coca, recounting his career-changing move. "I really did just pick up the phone and say, 'Hello, I indirectly work for you, but I have a portfolio of designs I'd love to show you.' He was such a gentleman and told me he'd ring me back in 30 minutes, which he did. I got to present my work to him, and I was offered a job on the leather goods team soon after that."
When it's suggested this was an audacious move for someone so young, which may have backfired had Carcelle been less accommodating, the designer politely shakes his head. "From a young age, I realised that things don't just happen by themselves. You have to really provoke [things], you know? If you really want something, you must see it through to the end. And if people see you are doing something valid, they will take you."
Coca's self-assuredness stems from his love of objects, or rather, it points to his passion for the right kind of object, perfected to suit its purpose, be it a military button or Mulberry's paper store bag. Just like a product designer or an architect, he is fascinated by shape and structure. Even negative space – the folds between fabric and leather, for example – must be considered and justified. "I look at a product as if I'm designing a little immeuble [building], always with straight lines," he says, namechecking some of his creative heroes: Mies van der Rohe, Shiro Kuramata, Marc Newson and Ron Arad – masters of architectural and industrial design rather than fashion luminaries.
Given his linear approach, it's no wonder one of Coca's first missions was to reconfigure Mulberry's iconic Bayswater handbag, which first launched in 2003 and is instantly identifiable by its front flap secured by a postman's lock. The resulting bag is testament to his deftness with ergonomics; it's lighter, more functional and much more chic. For SS17, Coca has supersized its cousin, the Piccadilly – also debuted in 2003 – and upgraded it with a collegiate stripe down its middle. "I thought, 'How to work this bag to be more modern?' I wanted to give it another life, to question the proportion and construction. I think it would be a great unisex bag, actually. All the boys love it!" He invites me to pick up a yellow-striped oxblood version of the bag, which is deceptively light, despite being big enough to double as an overnighter.
"A Mulberry bag is not expensive – not when you compare it with other luxury bags," says Coca, as I inspect the soft burgundy suede interior. "I won't mention other brands, but for €2,500 you have a very small bag. Here, for £1,350 [the price of the new plus-size Piccadilly], everything is stitch and return [a technique used in luxury leather]; all the stripes are stitched, too. The leather and the craft are very high quality."
The 40-year-old isn't interested in headline-grabbing changes, he tells me; he's working from the ground up to evolve the brand. When asked how he's rekindling Mulberry's relationship with middle- to high-earners craving luxury that's both aspirational and attainable, he explains it's a job that can't be hurried: "I am still working a lot on that – it's step by step!"
As well as reconfiguring the Bayswater bag, one of Coca's first exercises in rebooting and modernising Mulberry's image was to change the brand's logo back to its original 1970s font. "It was too modern before. This way, you lose where you come from," he says, running an index finger along the silver letters embossed on a racing-green shopping bag (it was light grey prior to his arrival at the company). "Now, if you look at it, [the Mulberry name] looks 3D. It is modern, but it evokes the engravings done in the past. It also made me think of that very British side, a little like Harry Potter."
Old-school traditions and craft – though perhaps not in the Hogwarts sense – are part of Mulberry's DNA. The label is the largest manufacturer of leather goods in the UK, with two factories in Somerset employing more than 600 people between them. Apprentices and young leather-makers – "with loads of tattoos and pink hair," enthuses Johnny Coca – sit alongside a more mature and skilled workforce that has remained loyal to the brand for years. Historically speaking, Mulberry has played on the deep-rooted idiosyncrasies of British culture.
Fashion collections under Emma Hill, who first launched Mulberry's ready-to-wear in 2008, were invariably angled towards tongue-in-cheek English eccentricity. For her SS12 catwalk, staged at Claridge's hotel in London's Mayfair, Hill was inspired by the great British summer: models entered the catwalk through a giant clown-like mouth fashioned to look like the entrance to a fairground ride. Dressed in pretty pastel and sherbet shades, many of the girls were accompanied by dogs on leads, kitted out in tiny yellow macs. The onus was on fun and irreverence: a tricky concept to tap in to, but one that was very much of its time.
So, how has an Andalusian/honorary Frenchman with a passion for straight lines managed to harness this sense of British nostalgia, which is the beating heart of the Mulberry brand? From a European perspective, especially in these post-Brexit times, British sartorial traditions are perhaps perceived as more austere and less fun than they used to be. Coca is quick to correct this assumption: "It is just a question of bringing craft and modernity to something very classic; to mix something old-school with something very now."
There is also the point that sometimes it takes an outsider to highlight the subtleties of our culture we still hold dear, whether consciously or not. "If you look at the UK as someone not born here, you see that there is still much uniform here. If you go from St Pancras station to this office in a cab, you see lots of children and students in uniform. For someone from the outside, these are the things we like."
British uniforms are indeed a thing of fascination for Coca. His SS17 collection played with school stripes (with matching satchel-like studded bags), military styles and 1940s Mitford-inspired floral tea dresses; together they created a fluid and feminine interpretation of classically rigid dress codes, without losing the commanding attitude that comes with this style of dressing. With oversize ruffles on dresses; asymmetrical kilt-inspired skirts (pleated on one side and left to drape elegantly on the other), and clashing Oxbridge stripes on blazers, cropped trousers and skirts with rumpled waistbands, the British uniform was, as is his wont, repurposed and given renewed relevance.
"I think the collection is very flexible and easy for everyone," Coca says of the looks. "You can be younger or older, you can be slim or larger: we are wide in our customer. You know there are some brands that only make for people like this [he holds up a finger to denote a stick-thin figure] and so there is no possibility to wear it."
This is the design pragmatist in him again, but I wonder what element, if any, of Coca's own Spanish heritage he has introduced to Mulberry. "The mentality of the Spanish people is that they love to be dressed up, and they change all the time. When you look at the films of Almodovar, the women dress very differently. Each actress is as strong as her outfit. So what really attracts me is to represent an attitude that is strong but also sensitive and delicate."
Although he is still only on his second women's ready-to-wear collection for Mulberry – he previously exclusively designed accessories – Coca remains as confident as that young graduate who so impressed the Louis Vuitton chairman with his talent and audacity all those years ago. He has good reason to be upbeat: Mulberry's profits are on the rise again.
"I think it helps that I have worked in stages, learning all aspects of design. I began with women's bags, moving on to men's accessories, then shoes, jewellery and sunglasses... I had the opportunity to learn everything slowly and carefully. So when I develop a product and look at the structure, the costs, all those things, I know what I am talking about."
Interestingly, the designer has chosen to dispense with the picture of the little Mulberry tree that previously sat above the brand's logo. I'd like to think this is because Mulberry trees, with their heart-shaped leaves and blood-red berries that magically stain your fingers purple when you pick them, deserve a little mystery. The designer is far too pragmatic for such romantic notions.
"The symbol is interesting, but you don't have to put it everywhere," he tells me with a smile that once again says, 'I know what I am talking about.' Given Coca's backstory and his unerring aptitude for creating commercial hits, only a fool would argue.
