Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles, I’m Christon and joining us today is Camilla Bradley owner and creative
director of the CK Bradley brand. Welcome. Thank you, we are
having a big event here and lots of people showed up because your brand is
so popular and they they have said we’re addicts we are addicts I can’t get enough of that
so great tell them tell me more so today we’re going to talk about your design
and style inspiration so what words would you use to describe your brand
well if I do it right on a good year it’s fun it’s alluring and it has like a
zest for life like people put on the dresses and they feel like a different
beautiful fun woman so if I do that then the design and
everything is just that’s exactly what I hope for well this is CK Bradley and I feel like a fun Dynamic powerful woman
myself and I have to say I didn’t actually pick this out your your work family picked this out
for me great team yeah great team I was going to ask you about your team because they’re so loyal they have such tenure
here as an entrepreneur how do you instill that here in this workplace you
know I I ask myself all the time how can I be so lucky I love them I’m so
grateful for them and I hopefully let that shine and let them know as often
sometimes not as often as I should but it must be working yeah things have been
here a long time and they’re so help every one of them they’re so helpful yes and I really feel like it is a family I
don’t have that much family so I’m so grateful for the family that surrounds me here I wanted to ask you about your
family your heritage uh you did Scottish everywhere Scott I got a lot of
Americans yeah no we got a lot of tartans oh a lot of men and Kilt nice
it’s probably where some of my inspiration comes from so Scottish English my mother was British okay so
you have a lot of different styles and lines that you carry it’s not just dresses yes tell me about that well not
everybody wants to wear you know I don’t have a piece for everybody in every sort of
time of the day there’s so many other things that complement what we do and really allow more people you know it’s
such a draw if there’s somebody else that brings you into this store and then you discover us it’s it’s such a treat for me so there’s so many
other styles I wear them as I mean my girls know what else do we have besides
CK Bradley what can I wear everybody in this store is wearing CK about this okay that’s because we paid them yeah but you
also have it no yeah but you also have an athletic line yes that a lot of
people are not familiar with Yes actually it’s getting more robust as we speak
um we do fabulous tennis skirts but really they’re I think they for me they started as as paddle boarding skirts
with little shorts and you know you can be a mom and oops get dragged into the water and then go back to your you know
cocktail party on a boat and still be okay well they also have all of your specific designs and styles yes so let’s
talk a little bit about how you come up with these prints they’re kind of nature
oh interesting well not the one that you’re wearing I was wondering was this a phase no that was that was inspired by
a killum rug oh so I mean don’t you kind of see a little bit of our killum detail
there like the sides you know the border of the rug it really depends I I think about this question often and I was
dying as a as a school you know when I graduated from college to go on to Parsons or fashion design school and my
father vetoed it so quickly I could barely say Parsons and he said get a real job and I didn’t want a real job
and so I just started doing this but I’m so grateful that I didn’t have traditional training because had I I
think I would design the way most people do which is you pick a subject you pick a multi Coast or you pick you know
Cabana and you sort of go off of that and make things really orderly and wonderfully match with that theme I
don’t do any of that okay so quite obviously you might have a Kilim rug next to a garden um I I see inspiration everywhere one of
my favorite prints was inspired by the Spanish tiles of New York Yacht Club if you ever look past that wall you’ll see
these beautiful things or there’s a gate to Marble house that was another print that was a sort of a trellis
um or there’s a ginkgo leaf that I’m like I love Ginkgo leaves and ginkgo trees are so cool you know they leave
they lose their leaves like okay I’ve got to look this up on the Google so yeah so look on the Google but there’s
so many magical things that I see and then it’ll trigger something nothing it’s cohesive only because it’s not
nothing’s cohesive yeah so that’s sort of what brings it together is the inspiration comes from everywhere
everything that was left behind my house is filled with everything Indian carpets and half finished hooked
rugs and Porcelain and mosaics on the walls that my mother did and all of that stuff ends up being in all of these
prints I mean the girls will tell you it’s pretty random and and a lot of vintage inspiration as well how did your
mother inspire you with your designs so I lost my mother when I was two so everything and it was sudden so she
left everything behind and my dad never changed a thing so half knit half needlepoint things paintings that she’d
half finished um cushions that she had half sewn everything was just
unfinished and so I have barrels and barrels of um fabric that she was buying to do a
room or here and so I just everything I’m surrounded by and and to this day there isn’t a season that I design where
I’m not getting something from the rug at home or you know a palm leaf
that was in a print on my bathroom wall that she hadn’t finished wallpapering yes or and I’ve got it all and it stinks
you know that musty smell my father kept it all and I’m and I have
it all wow so it’s it’s everywhere so how take us through your design process
when you see something do you draw it out yes so it is actually about to start I have to design next fall 24 in the
next month somebody’s not here about to put me in shape by okay four weeks to do
it um but I will pick things that I’m inspired by and often Liz, Leah, Genevieve, Kathy Kathy sends me a lot of sheets pillowcases bed sheets
from the 70s in fact yeah I mean I could show you some inspiration in here that might have come from a sheet
um but I’ll get i’ll take a little tidbits of that and then I draw on an
iPad so it used to be you know napkins on a tablecloth that I would draw little
things on and now I have an iPad that I can really sketch and then repeat patterns and just go from there
well you have to draw it to scale when you’re on a napkin well no you can
draw it any size and actually that’s another really fun thing is you will notice that there are especially in next
year’s line there are many different scales to the print so I might do this print again
huge you’ll never know it’s the same print your prints also come in color palettes how do you choose what color
palettes because they even all interact with each other that is just sheer luck
no I mean I do pick a color palette every year and and it’s I’ve actually
been taking photographs um I found in our backyard the most incredible
um it’s like not a scaparelli pink but it’s a very lilacy pink flower next to
the new green growth um green and then there’s a geranium that’s near it and you know there’s my
photograph so that’ll be the start of next spring so I’ll photograph that stick that in a folder for next spring with fall it’s different
um I’ll sometimes see a car or somebody’s sweatshirt or a rug already
no it really could be you know I mean you see Rainbow stripes or you see some it’s everywhere so I mean all of you
that walk around I might see something that you’re wearing be like oh that’s a great colorway an oil painting
you know picking the colors out of that and it comes from so many places and often
it comes at the last minute because I’m like oh my God I don’t have colors for next season and I just go deep and see
what oil paintings I can pull colors from and to try to get new you know new colors but you have to have some Natural
Instincts for what colors go together yeah so that’s unfortunately I don’t you did that yet so I know that it’s a
talent well thank you my mother had it and I think from birth till now my
father would always say oh your mother went to study with Albers Joseph Albers is the color man and he taught at Yale
you wrote a book on color and if anybody ever took a class in color in college Joseph Albers was the guru and and I
think it must have just been your mother was amazing at color so I was like I gotta be amazing it it it you have it or
you don’t I agree and and I love it so maybe I have a little bit of it and when
I love to cook but not with my kids yeah I was gonna say so your balancing yeah
three boys yeah a husband the designing the designing the production right so
you mean four boys right four boys I didn’t want to say that in case you saw the video four boys
yes and and one of them is 12 weeks old yes you started again just recently yeah
so with all of with balancing all of these things what would you say is your most
proud accomplishment well I love being a mother is the most
incredible gift anybody could ever bestow upon me um I love that what I do is such a
passion for me I may be always working but to me it’s I’m almost never working right because I love what I do so much
and to show that and pass that on to my children so that they can see that you can love what you do as opposed to be a
slave to this or that or have to do something that’s just a gift that I hope they see that there’s hopefully they
find something they’re passionate about maybe it’s taking over this
I was like can you imagine these boys designing these dresses yeah oh I’ve got one that’s like Mom that looks really
pretty on you and there’s one that’s like all the time so you know I mean at least they have their opinions yeah they
have their opinions um so that’s a wonderful gift to to actually I mean as you guys know to be
inspired is one of the biggest greatest gifts we can all have right the feeling of it and how it changes your
perspective when you are inspired be it about meeting somebody or the day or
whatever little moments but to pass on a love for one’s work and you know I just
it’s a gift I’m happy to have found people love the styles that you have
because they’re so complementary to people’s figures whether they’re short or tall if they can hear they can look
good on everybody so how did you how do you decide what style you’re
going to bring because this specific style where it brings in the waist but it also gives you some length here right
with a little bit of hidden on the arms yeah to me this is the most popular
classic dress but I don’t know if it is in sales but oh no this is this
particular everybody but God if you’ve said puff sleeves four years ago you guys would have looked at me like you
know so like this yeah like so really we’re wearing like Laura Ashley from the age but actually so as much as there are
trends that I enjoy Oscar Wilde said it well he said fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable
that it has to get changed every six months and I and I actually agree yeah so I don’t
this square toe pointy toe fat heel skinny heel T length long forget it to me if it’s
never out of style it’s what I want to design so sure puff sleeves might go out
it’s okay you can rip these off and make it a sleeveless dress but ultimately that’s
that’s my goal and my and Mike’s right so the style of the style can look good on Marin who’s 16
and her mother who’s fabulous and younger than ever
if it can do that and if your mother my dresses then that three generational
span is just it’s what I go for right so it means that nothing is so in that not
every generation would wear it and yet it’s young enough that the new trendsetters the marins of the
world that’s a really good word I hadn’t thought of that but you I mean if you
were looking at your target market it ranges from high school on up yeah to no
age limit I mean the people in the shop today are in every range yes so yeah I
think that’s great I hadn’t thought about that before so as you started in
1999 people might not get that music reference but you look it up
they started in college yes and because you wanted to have something different
set yourself apart how did that whole story it actually it wasn’t even setting myself apart it’s
that I did not want to work for somebody else I experienced it in an Architecture Firm and I I it was really daunting and
I experienced the nine to five I worked downtown and oh God on 14th Street and I
couldn’t believe that this is what everybody did you know it’s really good to have our children work like nine to
five jobs so they can appreciate eight years yeah where they were what it’s going to be like or you know maybe it’s
not like that anymore but um it I couldn’t I couldn’t stop thinking I just wrapped my brain every
night before I go to bed I actually stopped drinking my senior year it’s like I’ve really got to figure this out wow and thankfully yeah
yeah but I racked my brain and the girls from this um Architecture Firm gave me a
brown bag that was wax coated so it looked like a paper bag with handles but
it was wax fabric so it was the paper bag that was never to be thrown out and I hot glued a piece of ribbon around it
and then all the girls every single person had this wax bag and then I came in with a wax bag with ribbon and it
wasn’t preppy it was like a hunter green it was Army and green and Browns it was you know and they were like where did
you get that one and then I realized that I had a knack for changing just slightly tweaking the
things that everybody wore to make them look different and that’s where it started brand was born yes so it’s had a
tweak you know so that not everybody has to look like everybody else it was how to be slightly different which was
important and how did you turn that into a business I I didn’t I think Fortune
came my way because I had hot glued some purses with some ribbon and some girl
from in style saw me and was like at a bar so I was drinking again and she was like where did you get that and and I
said oh I sell them a complete lie it was happily together there was still like hot glue dripping off the side of
it maybe that’s the characteristic she likes better and she goes well I need to photograph
it for the next issue style magazine yeah so I said well this is hot glued but they’re in production and so they
weren’t it was just fake it till you make it yeah and so she took them it I this is how long ago in 1999 we didn’t
get a website you got an 800 number and so I got an 800 number and it rang off
the hook in my bedroom and my dad was like you need your own wine you can’t have the 800 number on on our
line so back when phones were still attached the other reference you’ll have to look
up yeah uh so that’s how it I really it
just the timing was right and preppy wasn’t in and it and it I brought it back
I invented it no um so I just was very lucky yeah so back
to your drawing do you have pictures that you take of things do you put the flowers next to you do you all from your
mind photographs and my mind I I people have asked me often I’m like I
dreamed of it last night I see the dress in my head you know here it is and I’ll and I’ll draw it and my drawings of
dresses are not good you know you can get it done yeah when there’s a will there’s a way yeah so did you start
sewing yourself oh yes with glue it’s called No Sew you know yes but I do
have a sewing machine I can sew curtains yeah a dress yeah so how did you start
production New York City yeah but you know you couldn’t google
anything you literally had to so I was in the right place I luckily was born and raised in New York or I knew where
to go and I found great sewers and learned the business you know by trial
and error wow yeah that’s pretty difficult because you can end up with a bad manufacturer pretty quick oh oh it’s
happened I think you remember when buttons just started you know people would be like and then
scenes would come apart oh yeah okay I’ll never forget going to the orange ball you know the Dutch people love
orange they’re Queens it’s their color in Holland okay and Dutch people are very attractive and they’re tall and
they know how to dance so I was at the Dutch people it’s on my bucket list yeah yeah
so I’m at the Dutch ball and I they Oh I thought I was we can’t do this dance
move but next time we should practice it’s just through the legs on my tummy and I can’t really do it right now with
having just had a baby but maybe that would help um my zipper split
and you know that’s that’s when you don’t want malfunctions exactly when
you’re performing an amazing move on the dance floor but I wore a tablecloth for the rest of the night and that was
actually even better than the dress I was wearing yeah so well you could pull it off yeah
so yes there have been many malfunctions there was a print that we did that as soon as you took in the dry cleaner it
completely faded lost all of its color oh really and we had to convince people that that was actually the beauty of it
was that you had one dress this way and then when it lost all its copper no but it looked like this was good faded I
mean we really had to sell that hard but many people kept them and they they look racated yeah but oh my gosh um do you
want to pull a couple pieces and talk about them well I noticed that you have everything from fun flowy to
conservative you can wear your clothes in business and so you have a wide variety this one right so this is fall
which has always been a little bit of I don’t want to say it’s a struggle because the more you say something’s a struggle the more of a struggle it is so
I’m saving right and
you know I love mixing media mixing stuff and I also when I design a dress I
kind of think of it as architecture for the body so you have different Landscapes that the architecture has to
complement right so this is one landscape this is a very fitted body contrast I I wouldn’t want to wear
this right now but boy is it sexy with the right woman um so this is a very personal piece I
hope I pull it off oh there you go but then there’s the you know the more flowy Captain
um yeah with some trims that make it fun
and the border at the bottom and the high split and the high split yeah to me a lot of the clothing I really do it’s
art I think of it as architectural but maybe I’m the only one um
there’s two different another Styles yeah so actually one of the fun things is this this is
the same exact style right oh but I’m nervous yeah can you notice yeah
but I love doing that so taking a summer style and making it fall with the fabric
the trim you know maybe the Hem length um you know we could make this a mini
but that’s nice those are similar and then this is you know this has a waist but then flow
and pockets are essential um a lot of people are buttoning up all the way these days I really like to open
it up but the younger people are buttoning all the way out so this offers you both options
um so tell us about this print this print was actually designed 15 years ago
and this ended up in last season’s is it last season’s or this season last season last season
baby brain in last season’s um quiver of
Prince because it just spoke to we’d never done it before and it just spoke to me and I’ve designed so many prints
that sometimes they just get forgotten and then I’ll go back and bring them back for instance I bet you I use the
arm on this trim as an embroidery on a dress for next fall you know like taking
photos yes taking little pieces from all these these things and even this print
um this is our this is called Wildflower but this would make a beautiful embroidery on something
so I might completely repurpose this print taking just this out and you know
it could be added with one of these leaves it could just be a totally different thing it’s a lot of fun I really like
this dress that Wendy has on the colors yeah
is beautiful so tell us about the colors
so again this is actually yeah this is from our Resort collection
and this print actually we’re gonna do a lot with this print because this can get
blown up you have no idea what’s on here no I would like to know it’s a dragon inquiring minds yes there’s a dragon on
here I I don’t want to point out the face in the wrong place but he’s got some fierce
the top of his head is right here okay but it’s hard to see because the print is broken up but that’s something I love
it almost looked somebody said was Paisley the other day I thought it right but if you blow that up I have no idea I
love the color and technically here comes in petites because I’m barely five feet tall we just wear platforms
you wear it well so then you know with some Greek the print needs um I always do sort of
an organic print and then I need the what’s the word geometric so the kind of the blending of the organic with the
geometric what do we have here yeah there’s geometrics organic so and the
colors I I had no idea
okay so I’d like to know if you have any OCD tendencies that somebody might say
oh that’s so Camilla do you want to come sit down in the
chair I don’t know uh no I don’t wipe the countertops too
much uh chapstick I put ChapStick a lot are you a Chapstick
well some people will have to you know they step on lines with the same tennis
okay playing tennis I need to bounce the ball three times and then I like touch
it roll it and then I’m you know but obviously I’ll lose the game if I don’t do that I got you but as far as you wear
the same stinky socks every time no no and I don’t and I do change my underwear for good matches today
no there’s nothing I do to be lucky in business besides just being grateful
every day oh that’s really sweet is there anything that you would like to tell us that we haven’t touched on so far uh I don’t I don’t know does anybody
have anything anybody have any questions that we haven’t talked about yet I think Kate has one
I have a request oh yeah would you bring the Bermuda bag back
oh so somebody would like to know if we bring the Bermuda bag back and funnily
enough it’s funnel even a word um we had to empty our warehouse because we had a big leak this winter and
literally 23 years of accumulation had to go out the door and then come back in
so our dumpsters full and actually so much CK Raleigh stuff was in there I was like if anybody came by this dumpster
because I was like I can’t handle all these belts and they went in the dumpster should have put a call out
and fabrics and everything I was like I can’t the dumpster’s still put yeah I can’t I just have too much stuff yeah so
the Bermuda bags a huge vengeance that we still have so I mean if you
really want one I think I have a all right she looks so happy and and we do have bins of belts the the men in our
lives still need them and I think that maybe I don’t know eventually our we’re gonna see a generation where the ribbon
belt comes back yeah yeah now you’re carrying men’s swim trunks now will you
be carrying other men’s Lines no I don’t make much money with them then okay I think women when they buy something like
to buy something for their husband to feel less guilty but at the end of the day that doesn’t pay for the the cost of
anything you know the the swim trunks I literally make because I have three four boys okay yeah so I need to outfit them
with something and with designing so many prints it’s just so easy to slap them on swim trunks well I’m curious if
you’re gonna do a home goods line that’s what or right so uh we actually do have
a few prints that can be custom printed in any color um locally at Griswold who does
Brunswick and feed they do count and tout they do all you know some really high-end Fabrics so something to be
doing with the option oh yes so people get special requests if somebody wants to come yeah okay
what’s your what’s your Potter League
um
um I’m a panther in a totem like my totem animal is a panther I gotta know
how to yeah how that happens so do you have animals at home we have a
German Shepherd okay and I grew up the logo for CK Bradley is a parrot that I
grew up with and his name is Tigger I’m at this B and there were all of our labels and he
literally was at the store in fact having received everything back from our warehouse there’s still hats that have
remnants of Tigger on them because Tigger would just be popping along the hangers and you know sometimes he’d
leave a little Mark and sometimes anyway we know exactly what you’re
talking about yeah but animals are a huge part of my life having grown up
with turtles that my dad used his door stops for guests so that the guests would think it you know would be like oh
my God my doors turtle that would be walking away I mean snakes in the sofas yeah yeah a lot of
crazy yeah tiny Alice is six foot rat snake she lives in her basement sorry
guys wow who’s here okay all right my dad had two baby
leopards in New York City back in the 70s when when it was legal well it was illegal to have one but he’s like they
didn’t say it was illegal at two so we had two and they were named Abercrombie and that’s it well he named the female
but that wasn’t derogatory it was just a female
and I have all these fabulous pictures with these leather collars around these leopards that they would walk down Park
Avenue wow that was crazy I would like to see these pictures yeah so a lot of animals good animals and
difficult animals together well they’re like people yeah summer easier than others
any other questions Murray
okay [Laughter] well where can people find you on on
your retail and also online so we are in Newport this is our flagship store which
is 182 Bellevue and online at ckbradley.com
wonderful thank you so very much for joining us today and telling us all about your inspiration for design and
Style thank you and thank you for looking so beautiful and everything you do you make it easy
We look forward to seeing you on Newport Living and Lifestyles
