Edeline Lee’s studio is situated two floors above a chaotic main road not far from Shoreditch. Home to umpteen fast-food joints and one of the last remaining pubs with burlesque poles, this is, even despite the gentrification that has torn through East London in the past 30 years, as off-map as it gets. And through an unassuming door on a side street is an almost utopian vision. Double-height ceilings, spiral staircases, and—this week—a drawing room boasting Lee’s spring 2025 collection in a palette that would rival a high-end patisserie: pale corals, banana yellows, champagne creams, and powder blues.
Everything Lee sells is cut, stitched, and packaged within those four walls, and sure enough there was a clutch of seamstresses in the adjacent room slicing through reams of aqueous fabrics. The designer is proud to run an efficient production line, and her brand is animated with all kinds of smart solutions. Most of Lee’s pieces—made from a signature flou bubble jacquard—can be shoved into the bottom of a suitcase at a moment’s notice and spring back to life without so much as a crease. “My women have nonstop schedules,” the designer said. “Traveling, leading board meetings, dropping off their kids. They need a functional wardrobe that takes them day to night.” This season offered no shortage of practical options—high-waisted boot-legs, crepe de chine blouses, cinched-waist jackets, and swing dresses with adjustable sleeves—but even She-E-Os are prone to fantasy.
And so Lee sent a score of showpieces around the base of the Millbank Tower in Pimlico—the former glass-and-steel headquarters of the Labour and Conservative parties and the United Nations—for her debut catwalk presentation since joining the London Fashion Week schedule in 2018. There were sequined high-neck gowns with elaborately ruffled shoulders and empire-line dresses with gathered trains. Bouffant dresses, bar jackets, and sleeveless minis were constructed with removable pannier undergarments. “I’m always thinking about comfort and fit,” the designer said. “That means giving room to the hips.” A season of firsts also included the brand’s inaugural shoe—a block-heeled court—and a children’s range worn by a cast of young models toting balloons through a happy mise-en-scène featuring Yorkshire terriers and old-fashioned bicycles.
A dot print developed with artist Carolina Mazzolari evoked a child’s happy experiments in watercolors. You got the impression that Lee—a designer who refers to Donna Karan as her “spirit animal” for having established her own wardrobe of grab-and-run workwear in the ’90s—was providing her high-powered clients with a little room to dream. “I’m just hoping as many of my women as possible show up wearing the clothes,” she said. “I want the press to feel the spirit of what they’re about and why they shop with us. It’s not just about the clothes. It’s the people sitting among you.” The prime minister’s wife, Victoria Starmer, was beaming from this morning’s audience in a dress of Lee’s making.
