by If you’ve ever felt that excitement mixed with a little dread that comes when an invitation to a big event lands on your doormat, think of Samantha Cameron. “With my husband’s previous role, I had to go to a lot of royal events, so I had to struggle with wearing hats,” she tells me, after pulling off some pretty absurd creations. from her head was a burst of fuschia silk flowers. “I love hats and the glamor of them, but they can be a bit intimidating.”
We’re gathered in hat milliner Jess Collett’s Notting Hill studio, where Cameron, founder and creative director of womenswear label Cefinn, and Collett are modeling looks from their new collaboration, a collection of casual wear with hats of all kinds .
The idea for the collaboration came after working together on Cameron’s Coronation costume last year. She wore a red and white dress of her own design with a delicate ruffled floral pattern and frayed edges. The two “local Ladbroke Grove girls”, now Lady Cameron (since husband David’s surprise rise to the House of Lords and appointment as Foreign Secretary last November) turned to Collett to solve her hat dilemma. “The starting point was thinking about what dress I’ll be comfortable wearing that I think is appropriate for the event? There have never been many guidelines,” says Cameron.
“I’m very particular about hats because I have a brim and a small head,” she says. “But I knew Jess would come up with something unique, fresh and just very stylish.” Indeed the simple red and white saucer with striped ribbon detailing helped Cameron look like one of the best dressed guests of the day.
Another of the day’s style winners was the Princess of Wales. When Cameron saw the Princess and her family walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey, she was not the only member of the public who was mesmerized by her combination of ceremonial robes, an Alexander McQueen dress and a delicate floral headpiece made of silver bullion and crystal. . . Princess Charlotte wore a miniature version of the headpiece design. “I was so excited, they looked so chic, especially as mother and daughter,” she says of the royals’ coordinated look.
What made it even more exciting was that Collett also designed the Princesses’ headdresses. “I don’t remember thinking ‘oh, I saw a little something like that around your studio,’ although I don’t mean the one, of course,” she says, turning to Collett, “you were. discreet!”
“I was watching TV and saw Sam first,” says Collett. We speak before the Princess – whose heartwarming thank-you letter to Collett is proudly displayed in her studio – reveals she is being treated for cancer, but both ladies expressed their hope that she is recovering well from she had major surgery in January.
Cameron admits that wearing a hat wasn’t always easy for her (in fact, she reversed the entire process for William and Catherine’s wedding in 2011, making headlines for wearing a hairpin instead). “Jess put me at ease, it’s just about finding the right one for you,” she emphasizes. As well as feeling that she had reached a peak in her personal evolution of her hat with her Coronation selection, Cameron was receiving many requests from customers to find engineering to match her Cefinn event wear.
So now, for £1,600, Cefinn customers can recreate Cameron’s exact look themselves for this summer’s event season. Cameron and Collett have included the hat in their 10-piece range, but you don’t have to go as dramatic (or expensive) as the Coronation number; there’s three pretty braided headbands, a cream trilby, a neat flower-embellished “button” and some understated sockets, with prices starting at £340.
It’s clear why Collett was the woman for the job. She spills plenty of useful tips for anyone who is a bit wary of hats. “If you’re choosing a hat and you don’t know which one to choose, it’s great to take a picture of yourself with them because when you look at a photo, for some reason, it’s easier to see how you look ,” she says, false advice given how many of us are posting our wedding or event on social media anyway, which she believes has led to a hat revival. “There are certain shapes that suit a lot of people,” she says. “If you wanted a small hat, the button shape would fit almost everyone. If you wanted a sun hat, I’d go for the Panama shape.”
Apart from being Lord Cameron’s wife, Samantha has always been a talented fashion entrepreneur. She was creative director of British accessories label Smythson from 1997 until May 2010, moving to an advisory role when her husband became prime minister. During the No 10 years, she studied design, before launching Cefinn in 2017. The label began to offer the kind of versatile workwear that Cameron was always searching for but never found during her busy life juggling her career and motherhood.
Now, she explains, “the business is going down. We still make that day-to-day stuff and the stuff you’d wear to the office or on the weekend and that’s the heart of the brand. But the winter and summer season [covering Christmas party season and summer events] now our biggest season. For whatever reason, the way I designed it has worked very well for us. We’ve had women calling us since February saying ‘when is your summer collection coming out because I’m planning this or that event’.”
Fashion insiders may have sealed the death of the floral dress, but they’re still a big seller for Cameron. “Obviously there’s been a lot of discussion about flowers and whether they’re indoors or outdoors. But this summer so far and last summer, they have been our best selling prints for a long time. I feel very hopeful that people like floral print, whatever that may be. We’re already selling a lot.”
She herself is a convert to them – even if she describes her style as “naturally graphic and minimal” – looking as elegant as ever in the three versions she wears during our interview and photo shoot (after the photos, she changes into the black version of Ophelia’s bias-cut maxi dress which looks just as amazing with the slide sandals she slips on as she does the other styles with a pair of Zara’s beloved old snakeskin heels). She tries to include black or white in every floral print she creates to make them more accessible. Although she is also keen to point out, “If you’re not wearing a dress, I think the hats look great with a really smart trouser suit. It looks so chic, very Bianca Jagger.”
Cameron is clearly engrossed in every detail of her business, apparently ignoring her husband’s recent return to the political scene. “Day-to-day life hasn’t changed much,” she insists. “He’s traveling a lot and he’s up very early, the red boxes are back,” she admits, with perhaps the slightest hint of an eye roll. It must help that their three children Nancy, 20, Arthur, 18 and Florence, 13 (their eldest son, Ivan, who suffered from cystic fibrosis and epilepsy, sadly died in 2009 aged six ) older now – after our interview, she is out of office. to check how Arthur got on packing his bag for a weekend away visiting his sister Flora, who is married to Theo Rycroft, deputy head of mission at the British embassy in Paris. She has yet to manage a party to celebrate her 50th birthday, which was in 2021, but will be heading to Capri for her 53rd birthday next month.
Her time on the world stage has given her unique training in the trials and tribulations of occasion dressing. The lace dress Alessandra Rich wore for a State Dinner at the White House with Michelle Obama was in Marchesa teal – together, the duo created the glory days of First Lady fashion on both sides of the pond.
One of the biggest concerns with event style is adhering to dress codes, both spoken and unspoken. “The only rule I know is that at Royal Ascot in the Royal Enclosure you have to have a 10 centimeter base, all our hats cover that. People get really worried,” confirms Collett, who has seen a “massive Coronation impact” on her business, recently bringing her designs to America.
“I don’t think there should be a code. I think what fits you and what feels comfortable, that’s what I personally want,” says Cameron with the incredible confidence that arming her for six years of having her outfits judged by the press has given her. The world. “You probably wouldn’t want to interrupt someone’s opinion.”
These days, she may be more absorbed in design and her husband engaged in diplomacy, but the soft power skills that Cameron excelled in Downing Street remain. “Those great events like the Coronation, Royal Ascot or royal weddings, we do it better than anywhere else in the world. It’s one of our strengths, that swagger, the dressing up.” And now she has the perfect hats for the occasion.
