Princess of fashion sets up shop in Capital
EVERYONE has a defining moment in their career. For international fashion designer Ronit Zilkha it was when Princess Diana walked into her Marylebone High Street shop unannounced 15 years ago and snapped up a selection of her signature suits.
“There were several customers browsing and everyone’s jaw - including mine - dropped to the floor,” recalls Ronit. “When the Princess left, there was a queue for the changing room she had used. I guess everyone wanted to say they’d tried something on after Diana.”
Diana became a regular customer of the Tel Aviv-born designer, famed for her feminine, romantic designs that are both classic and contemporary, and her patronage turned Ronit into one of the country’s biggest names in fashion, with celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Rachel Hunter, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and even Cherie Blair wearing her feminine and almost boho-like clothes.
Since then, 40-year-old Ronit has been a leading player in the British fashion world and her collections are regularly the opening shows at London Fashion Week.
Now, as well as five shops in the UK, she has just launched her first Scottish flagship store right here in the Capital. It opens on June 7, on George Street.
“We always had plans to come to Edinburgh,” explains Ronit. “I remember years ago we used to wholesale here and there were always really good accounts - it did well and people loved it here, so it felt natural to open our own shop in the Capital so people could have a wide selection of my designs, not just one or two items in a boutique.
“Edinburgh is a major capital city - it’s cosmopolitan, it’s modern, but it’s also a traditional city. And it’s well known as having a high demand for fashion. This city is changing so rapidly, it’s amazing. So the shop will offer the whole style, the whole look - the whole Ronit Zilkha philosophy.”
And Ronit is so confident that Edinburgh is a top shopping destination that she has chosen to unveil her “new look” concept store in the Capital.
“It will be something completely different to anywhere else,” she explains. “It is a prestige thing, there’s just something about the city so I wanted the new-look store, which will then be rolled out nationwide, to launch here.”
The concept store will have had an image overhaul, and the physical layout of the store will fuse the modern with the traditional. Because the shopping experience for Ronit is just as important as the actual purchase.
When the store opens a week today, Edinburgh shoppers will be able to snap up the spring-summer collection, including those items which will be included in the summer sale. But occasion wear will also be available en masse, as will business wear, casual wear, day wear and evening wear, in addition to the high fashion collections. “The shop will have it all,” laughs Ronit.
“The collection is romantic, with romantic frills and colours. Antique cream features heavily with little flowers and lace. There is a lot of detailing in it. There’s liberty prints which are fun with denim too. It is a feminine woman who wears Ronit. She is confident with herself, happy with herself.”
Ronit has always focused on feminine, sophisticated clothing with intricate detailing and that all-important bit of flair, which has since become her trademark.
She says: “When I started I was very conscious of shape - everything back then was so boxy. Everyone is so conscious of their body so to go along with that I wanted clothes to make a woman feel better, to give her shape and make her feminine. Clothes should be a celebration of womanhood.”
And even as a young girl, she had an overwhelming desire to design feminine clothes.
“My mother had an industrial sewing machine at home and made samples,” she says. “I loved pushing down the huge pedal of the machine and the noise it made. I didn’t see a domestic machine until I went to college - I thought all sewing machines were as big as ours.
“Once I told Mum I wanted to buy a halter-neck top. She found two pieces of fabric, yellow and red, and ran up a fabulous top for me. No wonder I wanted so desperately to be a designer.”
Even during her compulsory national service in Israel, Ronit’s love of fashion shone through, with her putting her own stamp on her uniform. She recalls: “I hated the female uniform: it was too fitted. I used my Dad’s instead because it had lots of buttons and I would wear different belts with it. I wasn’t in the field, I worked in the College for High Officers and was always in trouble for it, but I wouldn’t conform.”
As soon as she finished National Service in 1986, Ronit came to London, met her now husband Ofer, and married him that year. Ronit went to study at the American College in Marylebone for a BA in fashion design which she was able to cram into two years instead of four. In 1991, she opened her first shop - and the rest is history.
So what’s Ronit’s style tip for the season? “Dresses. It can be anything, from a beautiful dress with lots of detail to something fun and basic. It’s all about pretty dresses this season. Even evening wear is extremely feminine and soft and precious.”
Which is what she will have in her Edinburgh store in abundance.
“Ronit is like a destination - women will always find what they’re looking for at the shop,” she laughs. “I’m actually trying to come up to the opening as this store is so important to me. It’s all good. In fact, it’s great.”
