Cara Delevingne has co-designed a 16-piece capsule collection with Topshop, deepening a partnership that has been building for a while. She was the face of the brand when it relaunched its standalone website, Topshop.com, last year, and this collection is the next step in that relationship.
The range draws on Delevingne’s own off-duty style and her long history with the label. “This new iteration of Topshop feels like it has grown up with me,” she said before the launch, adding that the brand shaped her early relationship with clothes. “Topshop had a huge part to play in my education of fashion. I learnt a lot about what I liked and didn’t like through it.”
The 16 pieces are built to be mixed and layered. There is denim, along with skirts, dresses, jackets, tailoring and co-ords, rounded out by ribbed vests, open-back tops and long-sleeved tees designed to work back with the jeans. It is a wardrobe-building collection rather than a set of one-off statement pieces, which fits Delevingne’s own knack for dressing familiar staples in a way that looks distinctly hers.
There is a nostalgia at play, too. For a generation who grew up shopping Topshop on the high street, a collection co-designed by Delevingne taps directly into that memory while updating it for now. The brand has been rebuilding its identity since returning online, and a recognisable, credible co-designer is a smart way to draw attention back to it.
As for what will go first, the pieces designed to be layered and re-worn tend to move fastest, and this collection is full of them. For anyone who has been waiting for Topshop to feel relevant again, Delevingne’s capsule is the clearest signal yet that it is trying to earn that place back.
