Frock of ages

DROOPY & Browns is a byword for English elegance in the fashion business. Ball gowns, wedding dresses, long skirts, wide-legged trousers, fitted jackets with a theatrical flourish are what the company is best known for... but it wasn't always so.

The label, which at the height of its success had eight stores across the country, had the humblest of beginnings on York's Newgate Market. It was the brainchild of Jonathan Holmes, his sister Angela and her partner Keith Wilkinson.

Today the company is opening its new store in Blake Street, York, but owner Jonathan still remembers those early days 32 years ago on the market.

"I was 17 years old and in my wisdom thought it would be great to have a market stall," says Jonathan, who at the time was homeless and broke, and sold "anything you could sell" from his pitch. He was soon joined by Angela and Keith, who were an enthusiastic and self-taught dress designing and tailoring team.

Jonathan said: "From a very early age, Angela had a natural ability to design dresses. She would create drawings of women in fantastic clothes and Keith was able to turn her ideas into working garments."

After a cold winter working in Newgate market, the trio opened their first shop in Fossgate - now Zik Zak - selling hippie-era paraphernalia such as perfumed oils, candles, leather bags, records and comics, as well as Angela's clothes and the incredibly popular loon pants - the combat trousers of their age.

In October 1972, they moved again, this time to Stonegate, where they stayed put until this week's move around the corner to 10 Blake Street, formerly the High & Mighty store.

It was from Stonegate that the Droopy & Browns brand was developed and expanded. As for the name, Jonathan would like to clarify there is no Mr Droopy or Mr Brown. He said: "When it came to picking the name, I went through a list of the usual type of boutique names and Angela just curled her lip. She said: 'I want it to be Edwardian: all droopy and brown... that's what we'll call it - Droopy & Browns'."

The shop did well, but it was a different fashion world back then, as Jonathan remembers. "There wasn't a high street like there is today. I remember there was a Miss Selfridge in Debenhams and a Chelsea Girl in Coney Street and a few privately-owned boutiques. We sold fashionable clothes but at high street prices."

Three decades on and things are quite different. Droopy & Browns occupies a particular niche in today's market, creating quality clothes in a hallmark feminine style with echoes of the Edwardian era and with prices at the upper end of the fashion scale. The look can be dramatic and the store is often a first stop for many people seeking occasion wear.

Beverley Chapman, manager of the York store, says the designs cater for a specific type of customer. "They are for people who want to wear a stage or film costume, but for everyday wear. There's an element of glamour to the clothes."

As such, the designs owe much more to styles from the Edwardian era at the turn of the last century and Hollywood starlets than the fickle world of fashion today. Instead of following the ever-changing rules of the catwalk, which insist on a new look every six months or so, Droopy & Browns built its reputation on creating classic clothes which are refreshed regularly.

As such, a best-selling skirt one spring may reappear in the autumn in a different fabric and colour. The cut will be the same because it is the design which the customer loves; this emphasis on giving the customer what she wants has created a loyal following.

The most difficult times followed the death of founders Keith in 1995, and then Angela in 2000. When Angela died many people thought it would be the end of Droopy & Browns. Her vision and her imaginative designs had created its appeal and there was no obvious successor.

Or was there? Younger brother Jonathan was an unlikely candidate. He had no design experience, but stepped into the fold. "We were faced with the fact our designer had died and we had no one to replace her," he says. "So I did a few designs... and they sold very well which surprised everybody, including me."

Successes include his Etoile jacket, with its long lapels and swallow tails which has become a signature look for the latest Droopy & Browns collections.

There's no doubt Jonathan, a tall grey-haired 50 year old, is a mucker-in: he has even been painting the new shop in order to get it ready for today's opening. His own love of fashion is rather understated. Glimpse him and he's just another middle-aged guy in specs, jeans and a T-shirt. Look again and you notice the thick metal framed Dolce & Gabbana glasses, straight jeans with combat loop and pocket details and a grey T-shirt; his short white hair offset with a thin whisper of a sideburn.

This is the man charged with steering the company through the next decade or so. While following Angela's design blueprint and keeping the Droopy & Browns brand alive, Jonathan has tinkered at the edges. He has introduced menswear in the shape of waistcoats and ties. But in the main, he has followed Angela's ethos. The company now has just three stores: St Martin's Lane, in London's theatreland, Windsor and York, where it also manufacturers many of the collections.

Jonathan said he relishes his new role: "You want to create clothes which are attractive, functional and sell. It's rewarding and satisfying."

Equally satisfying has been his ability to keep the name Droopy & Browns going strong.

"Angela would not have wanted it to stop," he said. "And I'm happy that it's more or less continued in a way she'd be comfortable with."

Updated: 17:49 Friday, October 03, 2003