Nora: Gingham Goes to the Country

Nora: Gingham Goes to the Country

I have loved gingham for as long as I can remember.

Our summer Nonni collection took me straight back to childhood. To my nana's house, immaculate gingham tablecloths, steamed-up windows and the smell of carrots and turnips cooking. Nonni was the nostalgia and fun of being a little girl.

Nora is different.

Nora reminds me of the woman I am now, with exactly the same naughty glint in my eye.

She is gingham grown up. A little wild around the edges. Quietly confident. Country rather than cottagey. She has very good taste but isn't particularly interested in proving it.

Her only glamour is her Bibi boa.

Meet Nora

If Nora were a woman, she would live rurally in an old country pile with a leaking roof.

She'd have pink cheeks from walking across fields, probably red hair blowing everywhere and an old battered green Land Rover that smells faintly of wet dog, whether she owns one or not.

Fresh bread and cheese would be wrapped up somewhere in the back.

She listens to Celtic music. Writes poetry that nobody knows about. She's artistic, bohemian, outdoorsy and just eccentric enough.

Old money. Not because she necessarily has any — that roof still needs fixing — but because she understands the best things don't need to shout.

That was the mood behind Nora.

Wild rural landscapes. Country house weekends. Castles, old estates, muddy paths and rooms that have been beautiful for hundreds of years without anyone thinking they need to redecorate them beige.

There is nothing slick about this collection.

That's rather the point.

A Completely Different Gingham

Nora and Nonni share a check. That's about where the comparison ends.

For Nora, I wanted to create a winter gingham unlike any we had used before, so I designed the fabric myself.

It is a bespoke three-tone woven gingham, exclusive to Laundry b, made from brushed cotton. The yarns are dyed before weaving, creating the check within the cloth rather than printing it onto the surface.

The scale was increased dramatically. I designed it specifically for the four Nora shapes, working down to the millimetre to get the proportion of the check right.

Then it went off to Italy.

And I more or less designed the rest blind.

For all the technology we now have at our fingertips, I couldn't get anyone at the mill to send me a decent photograph of the fabric on the roll. The request kept getting lost in translation. I had five tiny scraps of fabric and eventually... finished garments.

Not exactly how the design textbooks tell you to do it.

But sometimes you have to trust your eye.

Then I Touched It

This is where Nora really makes sense.

The cotton is brushed until the surface becomes soft, peachy and almost like a very light flannel. It has warmth without weight and incredible softness.

It moves beautifully.

That's important. A winter fabric can easily become heavy and cumbersome, particularly when you start layering it. Nora isn't. It's cosy enough to keep the wind at bay but, being pure cotton, it still breathes and lets heat escape.

For women who want to layer without feeling buried under their clothes, that's a big deal.

And it is soft from day one. No waiting for ten washes for your trousers to finally behave themselves.

The minute you touch Nora, you know you're going to wear it on repeat.

Proper Gingham is Woven

A little fabric geekery, because this matters to me.

Gingham is traditionally created by weaving pre-dyed yarns across the warp and weft. Where those colours cross, the familiar gingham check appears.

It isn't a pattern sitting on top of the fabric. The pattern is the fabric.

That is also why a beautifully woven gingham can be reversible.

Nora is.

For trousers, this gives you another little styling trick. Roll the hem, and you're not exposing an ugly printed reverse. Combine that with our soft elasticated pull-on waists, and you can play around with where your trousers sit and where they finish.

Five Colours, No Favourite

There are five Nora colour stories, and I'm not choosing a favourite.

I gave up trying to predict which colour you Laundry b ladies would love most years ago. You surprise me every time!

And frankly, if I didn't love a colour, I wouldn't have had it woven.

Most of the palette is earthy, muddy and dark, drawn from the countryside rather than the city. The black, blues and olive are tonal and quiet. The brown and aubergine have more contrast, with a romantic blush worked into the aubergine.

The brushed surface softens every colour. Nothing feels hard or overly graphic.

These aren't shouty checks.

They have that slightly faded, lived-with quality I associate with old country houses. Colours that sit together because they always have.

Nora and Paloma Tela

I can't really talk about Nora without talking about Paloma Tela.

They were designed together.

Nora is our beautiful brushed winter cotton; Paloma Tela brings the complementary shirts, tops, and our bubble-hem Paloma skirt. I've designed three white shirts specifically to wear with Nora, as well as tonal options, and of course we've kept those beloved shirring cuffs.

For me, these are two of the finest expressions of Italian cotton in the Laundry b winter wardrobe, doing completely different jobs.

One has texture and warmth. The other gives us the layers, volume and contrast.

Put them together and everything starts talking to everything else.

That's how I prefer to design a collection. I don't want you buying a pair of trousers that only works with one particular top. Nora can be worn as a full co-ord, broken up, layered with Paloma Tela, put with denim, worn with your existing Laundry b pieces or pulled out again next winter and approached completely differently.

Cost per wear matters.

A good wardrobe should get better as you add to it, not require starting again every six months.

Four Shapes

We've cut Nora into four very different silhouettes: our Classic Barrel trouser, the Kick trouser, our iconic Frock Coat, and a new flared waistcoat.

The trousers have the Laundry b essentials: pull-on elasticated waists and, of course, pockets.

An elasticated waist in brushed cotton feels like an extra treat.

Our Frock Coat gives Nora those wonderful long lines and, worn with a coordinating gingham trouser, creates that unmistakable Laundry b silhouette. The new flared waistcoat does something different again. Long, easy, slightly dramatic.

Then come the collars.

Because if the rest of Nora is behaving herself, something needs not to.

The coordinating Paloma Tela pieces bring exaggerated Peter Pan collars and neckerchief ties into the story. They're deliberately oversized and a little eccentric.

Very Nora.

One Size, Because We Are Many Sizes

Our clothing is relaxed and designed to work approximately across UK sizes 10–20, depending on the individual garment, your body shape and — something fashion often forgets — how you actually like to wear your clothes.

We don't design around the idea that a woman's body remains one fixed size.

It doesn't.

Women fluctuate. Sometimes considerably, sometimes from one day to the next. We lose weight. We gain it. Bodies change with age, hormones, life and everything else we're getting on with.

I want clothes that come along for the ride.

Elasticated waists, relaxed cuts, volume in the right places and fabric that moves allow Nora to accommodate the body rather than asking the body to accommodate Nora.

That's the Laundry b secret.

Comfortable clothing that doesn't look like comfortable clothing.

How I'd Wear Nora

Knitwear first.

Nora was made for it. The softness of brushed cotton against knit is just right for winter. My safe first choice for a little print mixing would be a Fair Isle.

But I'm reluctant to start giving you rules.

You're Laundry b, ladies. Be creative.

Remember, Nora has aristocratic blood. Eccentricity is practically compulsory.

A crisp white Paloma Tela shirt with the gingham is beautiful. Tonal layers make the whole thing quieter. Denim immediately knocks the country-house formality out of it.

On the feet, I'd wear a chunky-soled ankle boot or a loafer for that proper country feel. A trainer makes it instantly more casual and modern.

And yes, please wear gingham head to toe!

A Nora Frock Coat with the coordinating trousers looks put together but somehow still effortless. That's the sweet spot.

I would generally keep the Nora gingham itself within one colour story per outfit, then use Paloma Tela, denim and knitwear to move everything around it.

But if you want to ignore me, please do. They're your rules — put your own spin on it.

A Little Bit of Gingham History

Gingham has travelled a very long way to reach Nora.

The name is generally believed to have come from the Malay genggang, meaning striped. The early cloth arriving in Europe was indeed striped rather than checked. Over time, European weaving developed the balanced, checked gingham we recognise today.

Its strength was never grandeur.

Gingham was practical. Cotton made it breathable and washable. The woven pattern meant it was useful on both sides. It found its way into homes, workwear, aprons, children's clothes and everyday wardrobes.

Perhaps that's why so many of us have a gingham memory.

Mine was my nana's tablecloth.

Another might be the little pleated kilt attached to a nylon vest that seemed to be inflicted on generations of children. Add an itchy ribbed polo neck and tights that bunched around your feet and quite a few women born in the 60s, 70s and 80s have just shuddered.

Sorry.

But that's the thing about gingham. It belongs to ordinary life.

From Working Cloth to Country Cloth

Checks have long had a practical relationship with rural life. Hard-wearing woven cottons suited clothes that had to be washed, worked in and worn again. Simple checked shirts became part of the everyday wardrobe of agricultural workers, fishermen and working communities in different parts of the world.

That practicality is still somewhere in Nora.

We've just taken the idea somewhere else.

Our Nora fabric is woven in Italy, then cut and made into the finished garments there too. Italian textile manufacturing gives us the ability to take something historically humble and be extraordinarily precise about it: the yarn, the scale, the colour relationships, the brushing, the handle and finally the cut.

That is my kind of luxury.

Not a logo.

Not something recognisable only because it cost an absurd amount of money.

Real luxury, to me, is paying a sensible price for something that does the same job and looks way beyond its price tag.

Nora gets that.

Gingham Barrel Pants for Winter

If you've found us because you're looking for gingham barrel pants, Nora's Classic Barrel is probably the easiest place to begin.

The larger check works brilliantly across the curve of a barrel leg. It gives the shape presence without making it rigid, while the lightweight brushed cotton keeps the silhouette moving.

The pull-on elasticated waist allows you to adjust where you wear them, and because the woven gingham is reversible, you can turn the hems to alter the length.

Wear them with a white shirt. Add knitwear. Put denim with them. Go tonal. Add the Frock Coat when you're feeling brave.

Don't save our Nora for special occasions. Wear the whole lot to drop a parcel at the Post Office on a Tuesday afternoon.

One Size Italian Clothing, the Laundry b Way

People searching for one size Italian clothing in the UK often arrive at Laundry b expecting one size simply to mean oversized.

That's not what I'm interested in.

A successful one-size garment needs proportion, movement and enough cleverness in the cut to work differently on different women. Where the volume sits matters. So does the rise of a trouser, the position of an elasticated waist, the length of a coat and the way a fabric falls away from the body.

Our approach shares some of the freedom people associate with lagenlook clothing, but Laundry b has its own handwriting.

Relaxed, yes.

Swamped, no.

We want shape. We want drama. We want comfort. And occasionally we want an enormous collar.

The Woman I Am Now

Something has changed at Laundry b.

Our original customer has grown with us, but increasingly I'm seeing women in their 30s and 40s discovering the same clothes. I love that.

Good design shouldn't suddenly become appropriate or inappropriate because somebody had a birthday.

There is a difference between trying to look young and looking modern.

Trying to look young is holding onto youth. (I'm going to exclude my Botox from this statement, lol.)

Looking modern is embracing your age without compromising your style.

That's where Nora sits for me.

Nonni reminded me of the nostalgia and fun of my childhood. Nora reminds me of the woman I am now.

She's comfortable with herself. She's not trying too hard. She's probably got windswept hair and muddy boots somewhere near the back door.

But that mischievous glint in her eye hasn't changed one bit.

Nora is grown-up gingham for women who grew up, but never became boring. If you're reading this, I think you've found your people. Welcome to Laundry b and all that sail in her.

Joanna
xx