As Sienna and Savannah Miller prepare presenting their latest collection, Celia Walden discovers that their love of clothes starts back to childhood When Savannah Miller was 10, she used to dress her younger sister Sienna up for entertainment. "I'd make her wear purple chiffon harem pants through an M&S bra I'd embroidered myself, and turn her in to a little belly dancer. Looking back, I noticed that we've been working together on clothes in certain ability to as long as I will remember."
20 years later, the Millers' fashion label, Twenty8Twelve - named after Sienna's birthday - is a little more sophisticated compared to those early efforts, and worn by everyone from Pixie Geldof to Thandie Newton. Slickly tailored with elements of rockchick cool, the brand is on its sixth season, having launched to immediate success in autumn/winter 2007.
"When Sienna and i also started, it had been about designing clothes we should wear," the 31-year-old explains. "Now, Personally i think the clothes tend to be more by what our clients would want to buy, which can be not at all times a similar thing. I've learned to understand the buyer, while remaining in keeping with who we are."
And who Sienna is, from her boyfriends to her outfits, will always be part of what the customer would like to accumulate with them. Not too the 28-yearold actress will be the label's muse, Savannah highlights. Sienna may feature throughout the Twenty8Twelve lookbooks, but there is no question of her walking down the runway when they present the range at London Fashion Week this Sunday. "We've always attempted to avoid making the label too narcissistic, otherwise everything gets a little cheesy," she winces.
Despite spending most of earlier times year on opposite sides around the globe, the autumn/winter 2011 collection was a dual effort, like all other, Savannah says. "I was required to fly forward and backward a lot, but, thankfully, she's now back in the UK. Sienna does a great deal of shopping in retro pants shops, so we'll find details we like and Sienna will carry that design through along with the rest people. Once it's done, we try everything on her."
In keeping with Twenty8Twelve's "soft using a hard edge" aesthetic, next season's looks are an eclectic mix. "There are three different ranges. The 1st was inspired by the American political activist, Johanna Lawrenson - so pretty dresses together with your boyfriend's army jacket worn extraordinary - and the second is glamrock meets Adam and the Ants, with pop-like colours and many velvets and silks. Then your third is Eighties and sporty."
Being a star pupil at Central Saint Martins, Savannah - now operating out of the Cotswolds along with her husband, Nick Skinner, and their three children, Lyra, one, Moses, four, and Java, 14 - did with Alexander McQueen, Anya Hindmarch and Matthew Williamson. Her former boss and mentor's death yesterday leaves her numb, she says. "He was trying to find himself together, but I do believe anytime his mum died, he just got stuck.
I worked closely with Lee for a long time, i became obsessive about him. That man had a mind unlike anybody I have ever met - he was like 10 people a single person's body." McQueen's creative process was also unique. "He would dream his shows after which it design the gathering by locking himself inside a room, wanting to unpick those dreams until it started to look like something. Lee was a very intense person and I think that, sometimes, he thought about being in a position to switch that off."
The fashion world, Miller admits, will be able to "push one to the edge". "It's bloody effort, particularly when, as i am, you've stupidly high standards, but you'll find areas where I usually compromise. Easily wish to use a beautiful silkvelvet, and it works out too expensive, I'll just be a minidress from it." Nothing inside the collection, the sisters have vowed, will ever be over ?¨º500. "And if it's ?¨º500, then it will be something incredible, like the little shearling waistcoat we've suitable for the autumn/winter collection."
With three shops in the united kingdom, the Miller sisters are onto something. "My dream should be to have stores in Ny and Paris," smiles Savannah, "and incorporate shoes, swimwear and underwear into what we should do - sell a complete look."
There isn't any greater job satisfaction, she tells me, than visiting a woman all the time wearing her designs. "I won't ever forget wondering through Covent Garden one wintry day and seeing this girl wearing our poplin summer dresses with black tights and boots, along with a chunky black cardigan. She looked wonderful in such a way I'd personally never have expected; I enjoy that individuals will take something of ours and make it their unique."
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