The Casely-Hayfords have been a fashion force in London for over three decades. Charlie Casely-Hayford explains how, after the loss of his father earlier this year, he is taking the brand forward.
Modern menswear brand Casely-Hayford was founded in 2009 by father and son design duo, Joe and Charlie Casely-Hayford. Over the last decade, the family business has gone from strength to strength, with the launch of the first Casely-Hayford store in Marylebone’s achingly cool Chiltern Street last autumn.
“People thought we were crazy opening a store at a time when a lot of our peers were closing,” says Charlie, “But our brand is about the human touch, it’s about modern craft – elements that can’t really be communicated via digital platforms, so it was important for us to have a physical space to tell this story.”
The Casely-Hayford brand began in 1984 when Joe, a graduate of St Martin’s School of Art and the Tailor & Cutter Academy, established his eponymous fashion house with his wife Maria Stevens, whom he met at art school. The couple raised Charlie in Dalston with his younger sister Alice – now digital editor of British Vogue, and London has always been key to Casely-Hayford creativity.
“I am a born and bred Londoner, and London with its incredible melting pot of culture plays an integral part in the brand’s DNA in terms of the way we design, our influences and our inspiration,” explains Charlie, who also studied at St Martin’s.
“The signature style of Casely-Hayford is understated modern British. I say understated because our clients are people who feel confident in who they are and they can be any age. They don’t feel the need to wear or carry a logo as a status symbol, they are confident in projecting their own self.”
SUITS YOU
Advocates of the Casely-Hayford approach are luminaries from all walks of life, including David Beckham, Lewis Hamilton, Tom Hiddleston, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch and, most recently, the star of Killing Eve, Jodie Comer. Named Entertainer of the Year at the Remarkable Women Awards, which were hosted recently by Stylist Magazine at High Holborn’s Rosewood Hotel, Comer wore a Casely-Hayford ivory silk, double-breasted trouser suit.
“We’d only just started working on womenswear red carpet dressing so that was fantastic for the family,” says Charlie. Tragically, his father was not there to share the moment as, just two months earlier, at the age of 62, Joe passed away, having been battling cancer for three years.
Coming to terms with the loss of his father and partner in design has been hard for Charlie. “It really has been a struggle. He’d been ill for quite a long time but didn’t want anyone to know. He was a proud man and we were essentially pretending he was fine to the industry. He soldiered through and he really did carry on working until the very end. Fashion was his life’s passion.”
FAMILY AFFAIR
Now Charlie relies not only on his mother who, he says, is still “very much in charge” but also his wife, the interior designer Sophie Ashby. The couple married in the Algarve last year and, says Charlie, “She designed the interior of our store and she is my unofficial muse: I run everything by her for womenswear.” The couple, who met on a blind date four years ago, began married life in Sophie’s apartment in the former BBC Television Centre at White City but they have recently moved to Marylebone. Charlie says, “The BBC Centre was wonderful, with its gym, spa and cinema it’s like living in a hotel. My wife made our space look incredible, but it’s a pretty compact flat and I am six foot six and my daughter Rainbow, who just turned five, is growing at a rate of knots, so we moved to a place in Chiltern Street, close to the shop.”
Charlie and Sophie have made the shop much more than a retail space, “We wanted to make it feel like someone’s home, more inviting and friendly than a lot of the austere luxury brand stores that you experience in parts of London. Everything in the store is shoppable – the furniture, the artwork and the books. Last weekend a guy came in, read an Irving Penn book for half an hour and then left. That’s what we want: for us, it’s not just about a transaction.”
WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS
While ready-to-wear fashion and casualwear are situated upstairs, bespoke suiting is on the ground floor. There are 3,000 fabrics to choose from and if nothing appeals, clients can even have their own unique jacquard woven at a mill in Suffolk.
“Downstairs is where the magic happens,” says Charlie, “People associate the words ‘made-to-measure’ and ‘bespoke’ exclusively with suits but we want to do something different and open it up to a whole other market, so we offer a fashion-led personal tailoring experience. We are renowned for exquisite suits but we also offer the service for casual pieces for women, such as jumpsuits, trench coats and jeans; and for men, bomber jackets and shirt jackets.”
LONDON PLAYS AN INTEGRAL PART IN THE BRAND’S DNA
LASTING LEGACY
Charlie himself is always suited and booted, his prized accessory the Breitling Navitimer watch that he bought himself when he was 25 simply because his beloved dad had one. On Instagram, Charlie has posted the eulogy that he wrote for his father, who was made an OBE in 2007 for his services to the fashion industry. He explains, “I am a very private person and the words that I wrote were very personal but there are things that I learnt from my dad that I feel would benefit other people. It has to do with integrity – that was his underlying quality – and staying true to your beliefs.”
As Charlie takes the family business forward in years to come, there is no doubt that the integrity of the Casely-Hayford label is in safe hands.
Charlie’s London
Where do you go to unwind?
My wife and I go to galleries; we go off in different directions and then meet at the end. The last exhibition we saw was Tracey Emin at White Cube. When I want to escape the frantic life I lead, I like the tranquillity of Kew Gardens.
Favourite restaurants?
I spend a vast amount of time at Chiltern Firehouse. It is next door to the shop so we can hear the chefs in the kitchen shouting at each other! Round the corner [in Blandford Street] is a place called Jikoni which is an interesting mix of cultures. They have the best sticky toffee pudding I’ve ever tasted.
Who is on your radar?
Restaurateur Jackson Boxer. One of his first ventures is Brunswick House in Vauxhall which does fantastic modern British food. His second restaurant is St Leonards [in Shoreditch] and he’s just opened a third, Orasay [in Notting Hill].
Artists Phoebe Collings-James and Tomo Campbell. We have some of Tomo’s fantastic artwork in store.
My wife’s business Studio Ashby. I genuinely love Sophie’s work; the environments she creates are wonderfully rich and inspiring and cultured. She is definitely one to watch!
3 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PB
casely-hayford.com
