LONDON — Topshop and Kate Moss will resume their design partnership with a new collection that will launch in April, WWD has learned. An announcement is expected today.
The range will be made up of about 40 ready-to-wear styles. It will be sold in the retailer’s stores in 40 countries; via Topshop.com and through wholesale partnerships including 41 Nordstrom stores, and Galeries Lafayette in Paris.
Moss has already begun work on the collection, spending a few days a week working with Topshop’s creative director Kate Phelan, the in-house design team and her longtime friend and collaborator Katy England.
Sir Philip Green, owner of Topshop, said he was pleased to be working with Moss again, adding, “The first time around was such a lot of fun, and she has been sorely missed.” Noting Topshop’s global expansion since the first Moss collection launched in 2007, Green said that this global launch would also involve “pop-ups in department stores around the globe.”
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Moss said, “I have really missed being involved in the design process, and working with the team at Topshop.” She added that she is looking forward to creating a new collection that bears her name. “Now more than ever, with London being at the forefront of fashion…it feels like I’m back home working with Topshop.”
According to an industry source, Green and Moss decided to launch the new line when they were on holiday together in the South of France in August. The source said Moss suggested to Green the time was right to resume their fashion collaboration, which wound down in November 2010.
“Kate was talking about London as a style city, and how it was becoming ever more relevant on the international stage,” said the source. “She’s friends with Philip, so they said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
No details of the collection or its price points have been released but it is expected that, like the previous collections, it will be inspired by the model’s style and wardrobe. It is still to be confirmed whether this will be a long-term deal.
Phelan said she was looking forward to working with Moss on the collection, describing her as “a fashion superstar who sets the trends and influences style.”
The first Kate Moss for Topshop collection was unveiled in September 2006, and went on sale in May 2007 amid great hype and scenes of frenzied shoppers.
The final collection landed in shops in November 2010. At the time, Green said that their relationship hadn’t ended. “We now need to go away for a while, and think about how to do things differently. This collection takes a lot of hard work — she wants to do other things, and so do I — but our relationship is as strong as ever,” he said at the time.