Karen Millen

The Karen Millen brand formed a memorable part of the fashion and retail landscape when I was growing up, but it all started with a small shop in Maidstone. When did that first shop open? That would have been 1983 in a street called Pudding Lane and then we opened our second shop two years later in Tunbridge Wells. Whilst we were opening there, the old Star Hotel in Maidstone was being redeveloped into the Royal Star Arcade, so shortly after Tunbridge Wells opened, we moved from Pudding Lane to there, because it was a bit more central. Does the location of your first store mean you were brought up in Maidstone? Yes, that’s right. Whereabouts did you live? I was born in a council house on an estate on the outskirts of Maidstone, called Mangravet and then when I was 8, we were given the opportunity to move to a new housing estate called Senacre Wood, which is where I lived until I left home. My dad was from a working-class background and I can remember it was always a bit of a struggle to make ends meet when I was young. What did your parents do for a living? My father installed flooring, everything from wooden floors to carpets. He was very good with his hands and working on things around the house, although I do remember him sometimes getting a bit angry if he got frustrated with the things he was doing at home! He ended up getting arthritis, so kneeling down all day obviously wasn’t great, so he switched jobs and worked for Roots in Maidstone, the car dealership, where I think he worked on the car interiors, things like the upholstery. He was the more creative one of my parents in the sense that he had more of an eye for detail. My mum isn’t creative at all, although she does knit and sew. She has all of those practical skills and would make our clothes and the curtains for the home – she still knits today. I’m guessing that she introduced you to the sewing machine when you were pretty young. Yes, she taught me how to sew and my mum has still got that machine now. She sometimes asks if she should get rid of it but I tell her to hang onto it.

What school did you go to? Molehill Copse was my Primary School, and following that I went on to a school called Southborough Girls. My older brother and sister went to a different school called Oldborough Manor, which was very big and I just didn’t like the idea of going to a school that size. How many brothers and sisters have you got? I’m one of four. I’ve got one younger brother and then an older sister and brother and I didn’t really want to follow in their footsteps, I wanted to be somewhere smaller. Even at that age I could sense a difference between the schools, it’s weird but the school they went to just didn’t feel right for me. What did your brothers and sister end up doing? After losing her husband to cancer in August, my sister has now retired but she used to work in a care home. One of my brothers is a tool maker and the other is a cabinet maker. So, they all ended up using their hands or working with people. That’s right, none of us went to university, I was the only one that went on to study. And when you were younger, can you remember ever thinking that you would like to work in fashion? No, not really in the sense of it being a possible career. From as early as I can remember, I was always interested in clothes and fashion – dressing up my Cindy dolls and that kind of thing, but I didn’t consider it as something I may go into as a job. I’m sure my wife will kill me for saying this but she tells me that she also played with her brother’s Action Men. Well, my brothers also had Action Men and we did the same! We didn’t need to have Ken because we had Action Men, they would be Cindy’s boyfriend. Action Man are a bit hunkier than Ken as well, aren’t they. I’d also create all of the scenes that I wanted. Money was short, so we couldn’t afford all of the accessories that went with a Cindy, so we had to make our own. I’d make classrooms, shops, whatever I wanted – I’d decorate them all out and have great fun. So, fashion was part of your life as you were growing up but there was no obvious pull in that direction at any early age. No, but if we were going to something like a wedding, mum would make my sister and I something to wear for it, so I guess we were used to watching her sewing and making things, so it felt a very natural part of life. And did you always like what you mum made for you? Oh yeah, because normally I picked the clothes that she made for me. From an early age, we’d look at the patterns together and she would let me get involved. And did you help choose the material as well? I can remember being dragged around fabric shops in Maidstone by my mum when I was young – she would also make her own clothes. There was C & H Fabrics at the top of the town and if I remember correctly, there was also a really interesting one in Bank Street that you must have gone to – what was that called? Loder and Paynes – that was such a beautiful store with its wonderful wooden stairs and counters, it was gorgeous.

And how old do you think you were when you first made something to wear for yourself? I’m not sure but I was making clothes for my dolls at an early age so I guess it just got to a stage when I was able to try making my own. I probably got more interested in fashion when I started secondary school – that typical time in your childhood when you start cutting your hair differently or dyeing it and thinking about how you could wear your school uniform differently. It sounds as though you may have been a bit rebellious as a teen? I wasn’t rebellious in the sense of being naughty, but my character and personality were beginning to come out and there was clearly a streak of fashion there. Luckily my teachers spotted that, so when I told them that I wanted to be a painter and decorator when I left school, they took it upon themselves to ask if that was definitely the right direction for me. I presume before they asked that question, you were simply gravitating towards the kinds of jobs that you had seen family friends and relations doing when you were young? That’s right, and at that time, when you went to see a careers teacher, they would just suggest that you could work in a bank or a shop – it was so limited. Painting and decorating would still have been seen as quite a masculine role then, wouldn’t it? It was definitely still seen as a masculine role at that time. So, were you intentionally looking to challenge those established preconceptions or did you just see it as something that you would enjoy doing? Well, at school we had a class called World of Work, which we did twice a week. Part of that involved going out into the community to do some jobs. We worked in the building used by the Marriage Guidance Bureau and another one, which was a youth centre. We went out in teams to decorate various rooms in those buildings. Do you think the aim of those classes was to teach you life skills, or was it more of an introduction to a potential trade? I don’t really know. I think it was introducing you to being in a workplace. I don’t know if other groups were doing different things but the group that I was in was always decorating, so I grew to really like it and started decorating at home. I did one of our bedrooms as well as a hallway. Looking back, I suppose that’s where my interest for interiors started, but again that was never something that I would have considered pursuing then, because I didn’t know that kind of job even existed.

My head teacher was also an important inspiration for me – she was always turned out immaculately and spoke really well. She kept a pile of Vogue magazines on her desk and she knew that I had an interest in fashion, so when she’d finished with them, she would hand them on to me. I’ve still got those now, dating back to the 70s. My teachers obviously sensed something about me, even though I had no idea that fashion could become a career for me at that stage. I think I was more interested in just earning some money then, so that I could have a little bit of independence. I was planning to start on an apprenticeship but a group of my teachers, the ones that were more ‘arty’, asked if I had ever considered doing fashion and they arranged to take me to a local college, Medway College of Design, to watch the end of year show and see what it was all about. That was the other wonderful thing about choosing to go to a smaller school, the teachers knew us all really well and obviously cared about the choices that we were making. I was really taken with the whole thing and just thought, well if they think I can do this, then it’s worth giving it a go. They helped me to put a portfolio together and off I went to the interview. I soon found out that I had got in and have never looked back. I actually went to the same college and have really good memories of my time there. It was such a positive environment and seemed to offer so many opportunities if you were creative. You would only have been 16 at that time. That’s right, they did 2 fashion courses then, but you couldn’t start on the degree until you were 18, so the plan for me was to begin on the other course, which was called Clothing Craft, and then switch across to a degree when I was old enough. However, by the time I’d finished my first year, I decided I was learning everything I needed to on the course that I was on and didn’t really see the need to swap, so I stayed at Rochester for the full three years and completed my diploma there. I decided I deserved a break at the end of the course and took myself off to Morocco for a holiday and it was on that trip that I met Kevin, who I would go on to start my business with. He was working for a company at the time but was just about to start a degree course in Mechanical Engineering, so he was doing that whilst I started making some clothes for friends in order to try and earn some money.

…my mum said that if she had the girls over from the office, what did I think about hosting a clothes party together.

Then one day, my mum said that if she had the girls over from the office, what did I think about hosting a clothes party together. Hang on, what’s a clothes party? Have you heard of Tupperware? As in Tupperware parties? Yes, that’s right, it’s the same idea. Somebody would host a party in their home, and you take your clothes along to show, and hopefully sell. Emma, who was the daughter of one of my mum’s friends, and I would model everything and mum did all the talking. They were quite successful and I carried on with them for a couple of years, building up to two or three a week. And just stepping back a moment, when you were at school and your teachers were suggesting that you may want to consider going into fashion, did they speak to your parents about that? I don’t really know. I don’t think they did actually. As you were breaking the mould a bit in your family, I was just wondering what their reaction was to that idea. They really embraced it because I was the first person in the family to go on to further education. It was difficult for them, because they knew that they couldn’t afford to support me but I got a grant, so it was achievable. I also worked part time at British Home Stores and became quite good at managing my money. I spent a lot of time there on the lighting department – I was actually going to leave at one point, and even had a leaving party, but I loved the job so much that I changed my mind and ended up staying for another year. It sounds as though you just enjoyed parties! Jumping back to where we were – you were holding your regular clothes parties and were obviously still with Kevin then. Yes, things happened pretty quickly between us and we were engaged within three months. That was at a time when I was unsure about what direction I would take next. I was pretty introverted then and found the fashion industry quite daunting. I hadn’t really ventured out of Kent so felt a bit scared by the whole prospect of getting a job in the industry, which would inevitably mean commuting into London. I can remember my mum trying to encourage me but I think I simply opted for the easy option of just making clothes to try and sell, rather than looking for a job. At the same time, Kevin was also questioning the direction he was going in. He was really keen on fashion as well and as he hated what he was doing then, was spending more time helping me and it became a bit of a side hustle for him whenever time allowed.

He had more of a business head than me and although he didn’t give up what he was doing until later, he was helping me as much as possible and together we managed to get a small loan. This story has been told a few times before because it was that loan that enabled me to buy the 100 meters of cotton that I used to produce the small collection of pieces that I sold at our clothes parties. It kind of marks the start of my career, I guess, because the parties enabled me to save enough money to buy more fabric in order to make new clothes. We would buy end-of-line fabrics, first of all from markets but we then started exploring the various clearance houses in the East End of London. That must have been an exciting time – venturing into London at last. It was, I loved it and it was in an area of London that was full of authentic people. Rummaging through those warehouses, climbing over fabrics and pulling things out that I liked – it was great. Having to really search for fabrics that I liked seemed to make it far more exciting than just getting them from a shop. Did you have certain garments in mind that you were intending to make when you were searching through those fabrics? No, quite often I was just inspired by the fabric itself. There wasn’t any kind of range planning at that stage, it was literally hand to mouth, you got hold of the fabric, took it home and then made something with it. That approach is fine when you’re just making for clothes parties because you don’t really have to have things that go together. Having said that, they kind of did in a way, even though there was no real intention for that to happen.

We then started selling from a few markets as well, in places like Folkestone. It was a case of trying to find any outlet for the clothes that I was producing and Kevin was helping me with that as much as he could. His parents were publicans and they put us in touch with another publican that had previously been in the rag trade. He was selling off a cutting knife, some machinery and loads of trims, so we went to see him and bought the lot. I can’t remember how much we paid for it all but it wasn’t a lot and that kit really helped us to step up our production in terms of volume. And was this all still happening at your mum’s house? No, I’d moved from my mum’s house by then and was now in my aunt’s basement, which was on the London Road. She lived in an old Victorian house which had a large basement and she let me use that as a working space, so I was down there every day creating more pieces. At that point we had also taken on three outworkers, because I just couldn’t keep up with everything on my own. I would make samples and patterns to show them what pieces should look like and then they would reproduce them. We ended up opening the Maidstone shop a couple of years later.

That was pretty rapid progression. I guess it was, although it didn’t seem like it at the time. The intention had always been to open a shop and then we spotted an opportunity. I think Kevin must have been doing a lot of digging around and research at that time and he managed to find a potential space in Pudding Lane. We didn’t know if we could afford it but took it anyway, which is amazing because I was still only 21 at the time. Was it you that had the confidence to just go for it, or did that come from Kevin? I had that kind of confidence when I was with him. I really believed in what we were doing and that’s why whenever we were faced with a hurdle, I was confident that our combined determination would get us through. One of the biggest obstacles we faced at that time was trying to get finance, finding a bank that was prepared to back us. Together we explored every avenue until we found somebody that was willing to help us with a small loan and an overdraft facility. By this time Kevin had also left his university course, so we would go back to my aunt’s basement together in the evenings and do all of the cutting there before handing it over to our outworkers, who were making the clothes for the shop.

So, jumping ahead a bit, I can clearly remember your store in Bluewater and at that time, you would have had outlets across the UK as well as internationally. How was the step up from having just a few local stores to being a global player possible? Was that the result of finally getting some serious financial backing? No, we continued struggling to get finance. Fashion wasn’t really an industry that the banks liked then but reflecting back on it now, that was definitely a good thing for us because it meant that we didn’t end up having huge borrowings. We managed to grow the brand organically and although that meant that the first 10 years of growth was relatively slow, that extra time actually helped because it enabled us to understand the industry better, to build our infrastructure and learn a lot more about manufacturing.

We moved on from using our outworkers to finding factories in London, which were still in existence then, and came across a wonderful tailoring factory in Peckham, which was owned by a lovely Polish man called Mr Stone. He taught me a lot because I love tailoring and wanted to incorporate it within our collections, so we used that factory a lot before they eventually also moved overseas, as they all did. Am I right in saying that tailoring is something that you have a particular passion for? Yes, it was what we were known for, particularly when we started and it wasn’t until we took on different designers, people like Sophie Clinch, that that began to change. Sophie started to incorporate softer pieces and dresses, which became really big for us as well, and between those and the tailoring, the brand evolved until it encompassed everything from work wear through to occasion wear. Sophie bought the best out of me – you’re only as good as the people you employ and we built up a really great team over the years. We were like one big family. And that extended family took the brand across the globe with you. Yeah, I’m not sure exactly what the final number was but we had around 130 shops worldwide by the time I left the business. Canada, Hong Kong and Dubai were our first overseas stores, and then we moved on to Australia and Russia, so I travelled quite a bit at that time. And at what stage did you first step back and appreciate what you had achieved – to acknowledge that you had managed to do this. I remember being on a motorway one morning, on the way to one of the stores, when I spotted one of our trucks driving towards me on the other side of the road, one of the turquoise ones with the big orange dot on it that had become quite iconic. That was the moment when I thought, wow – we’ve done that. People have often asked me what it was like to see my name above our shops, but that didn’t really mean much to me, it was just part of the brand. But that one moment, when I saw our truck when I wasn’t expecting it, that was special – it felt pretty amazing.

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