LONDON — Fashion can be a stressful business, but Julien Macdonald is embracing the angst. The designer, who has rethought his business model with a new investor on board, can’t keep up with demand — and can’t quite believe it.
“We ordered 2,500 boxes for our orders, and we’ve already run out. I’ve had to order 1,000 more from the factory in Wales,” said the Welsh designer, who launched his e-commerce site Monday. It stocks fall 2026, which he conceived as a see-now, buy-now luxury resort collection and showed at London Fashion Week in February.
The prices are lower than in the past, 800 pounds to 4,500 pounds for a red carpet look, for two reasons. He wants to appeal to a younger customer, and he wants the long-term, faithful ones to buy more. He even likes the idea of mothers and daughters buying together.
Orders have been so brisk that he’s even rented a minivan to ferry the boxes from his London studio to the post office.
As planned, Macdonald has taken his show on the road, to the island resorts on the Athens riviera in Greece for a presentation party and trunk show. The designer had an inkling he’d be popular in Greece, “because the women there are so glamorous. I knew there would be an appetite for my dresses.”
