Designer Diary: Melt London

 

Speaking as one of the five girls in my school class, named Susan I feel well qualified to say, “a great deal can depend on your name”.

In fact a fast talking fashion consultant recently told me that, it’s the clothing brands who use peoples names, either real or fictional, who enjoy the greatest success.

 

 

I have considered this statement carefully, in particular during a sleepless night, when rather than count sheep, I added up the time and cost of registering a name worldwide.

 

 

It can be very hard to sleep when even the worry of putting a collection together pales beside the newer worry over an already chosen name.

 

 

I am the creative director of a label called Melt London, which as you can see………is not a real name (oh, the worry).

 

 

Unless cities count, because then it becomes half a real name, and half the success of say, Coco Chanel can’t be a bad thing! Or I could be persuaded to settle for success to match that of Topshop or Primark. We are not in the same market, but neither of them have real names, and both are unlikely to appear on Tatler’s list of 50 popular names to call your baby. In P.R terms, and to achieve real twenty first century success, I think what the label really needs, is an A list celebrity mother to name her baby Melt. This must happen in a London hospital, preferably at the stroke of midnight, on New Years Eve.

 

 

I can see it now, the smiling mother and baby, (preferably Kate Moss wearing one of our dresses) making front-page news across the world. 

 

 

So naming a label is not dissimilar to naming a child. Both will grow into their name, the big question for the parents is – who do we want this child to become?  In my parent’s case it seems I was destined to be one of a crowd. But here at Melt we planned on our label baby reaching adulthood as a woman of independent mind, strong yet feminine, soft but stylish, sexy yet discrete, and always well dressed, and popular. Not for us the screaming tantrums, (so very fashion) or hissy fits followed by the long silent sulk.

 

 

 

 

Can we achieve our aim? Will this be the perfect child? Does the gabby fashion consultant end up in the sale bin? To find out, and follow the unfolding fashion drama that is Melt London, tune in same time same place, in the very near future, and read our continuing story…………..

 

 

 

 

 

By Susan Royston

 

 

Creative Director of Melt London