“I stopped buying bulk fabrics a long time ago and don’t do seasons any more, for instance,” he says. “Every two to three weeks we have drops of new designs within our collection and that way there is no wastage of fabric at all. There is no such thing as last season’s fabric anymore. We make two or three dresses in one fabric and once that’s gone, we move on.”
He also admits to having changed his own personal buying strategy and tries to limit what he adds to his wardrobe. “It’s a question of retraining people,” he suggests. “The way to do it is have a look and think, ‘Have I already got that in my cupboard?’ and if you have, why are you buying it again? It’s happened to me. I used to buy three or four suits every season and it would be the same thing – black, grey and navy. Then I started thinking, ‘I have that suit or shirt or shoes already’. It’s completely changed my way of thinking.”
He says he’s no longer a fashion snob either – “I used to be!” - and is just as happy teaming a Prada suit with a Primark T-shirt these days – often eliciting compliments from none-the-wiser customers. “If you have an eye and know how to put pieces together, you don’t have to spend £500 on a shirt if there’s a near equivalent at Zara for £30,” he reasons. “I think a lot of customers are beginning to feel the same way and, in fact, they prefer it when it’s not an obvious label. We’re slowly going back to niche dressing away from the big pizzazz brands.”
Interestingly, he says he never actually designed a dress specifically for Princess Diana. “It was always something she’d already seen - right from the very first dress from my winter collection in 1987 when I was part of the London Designer Collections. We may have changed a colour or made a skirt longer or added a sleeve if she was going to the Middle East on a foreign tour, but that would have been the extent of it.”
Unsurprisingly, she preferred the designer’s more body conscious dresses, particularly after her separation from Prince Charles when she was at the height of her fitness and regularly training in the gym. “It was the time of the supermodels and the body con dresses and she was young and part of that glamorous international set and she certainly wanted to look like that,” he recalls fondly. Did he become one of her confidants? “I never got too close,” he insists. “We were very friendly and liked each other tremendously, but I would never phone up and say, ‘Oh, let’s go out to dinner’. Within that friendship there was the respect of the association with a princess.”
What does he think of the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex’s styles? “I think they’re being very careful. Purposefully. They both dress very beautifully within the brackets of a royal princess. There’s nothing headline-making but I think again that’s done on purpose, so as not to get another Princess Diana moment.”
He describes Kate’s style as “very feminine, perhaps even more feminine than Diana”. “She’s definitely [becoming bolder] as time goes on, in the same way as Diana. She’s understanding what looks good on her.” Both Kate and Meghan’s impact on the fashion industry is probably “ten-fold” that of Diana’s, thanks largely to social media, says Jacques. “A lot of the time we weren’t allowed to say Diana was wearing a dress until it actually appeared,” he recalls. “Not like now when it’s on Instagram ten seconds later and, of course, that’s going to make a big difference, particularly if it’s a £69 dress [by ethical label Mayamiko as worn by Meghan during her South African tour with Prince Harry last September before they quit royal duties], which is within most people’s limit. Everybody is going to want that.”
Has he been asked to design gowns for either of Diana’s daughters-in-law? “No, I haven’t, interestingly enough,” he reveals. “Of course, I would be delighted to dress either of them but I’ve never approached them, again because of that designer/royalty respect.”
Another big change he’s witnessed is the rise of online shopping, something he admits to having reservations about, particularly in relation to its long-term commercial viability.
“I think it’s going to have a bit of a backlash; it’s very costly for people in those selling markets and they’re beginning to realise how much it costs to do [next-day] deliveries, returns, packaging and repackaging. All of that is going to be looked into and they will have to make a change.”
As he enters his fourth decade as a designer, does he have any plans to slow down or, dare we mention it - retire? “It has its moments like any business but I still enjoy it; I love finding new fabrics and reinventing all the time,” he says with a laugh. So that will be a ‘no’ then!