The Essentials With Charlotte Beecham: Ditching the Traditional Fast Fashion Model

Before turning 30, Charlotte Beecham had already established herself as a trend-setting designer. Having developed and fine-tuned her idea for Charlotte Simone while still a student at New York University, Beecham, who grew up in Hampstead, officially introduced the world to her playful take on outerwear accessories when she was just 24. Fashion it girls including Alexa Chung, Olivia Palermo and Gigi Hadid quickly took notice after the 2011 launch, sporting Charlotte Simone pieces like the colorful Popsicle Scarf and the pom pom-adorned Sass Cap, further helping to catapult the brand into the public sphere, and eventually push Beecham to expand to vintage-inspired coats.

“Prior to Covid, we had worked to a very traditional timeline, doing four collections a year and working to wholesale demands,” Beecham tells Observer of finding herself stuck in a “hamster wheel” of churning out collections. But when the 2020 pandemic hit, the London-based designer, now 35, lost her wholesale accounts practically overnight. To ensure the survival of her brand, Beecham began posting photos of her latest candy-colored accessories and coats to Instagram, where she quickly realized that the slower pace was exactly what she needed. “Taking that time and breath allowed me to reflect and speak directly to customers on our social,” explains Beecham, who ultimately decided to transition to her Drop model, which sees the brand opening its online store of small-scale produced outerwear designs just three times each year. “I wanted to slow everything down and create something that feels special, considered, sustainable and something that you’re really going to want to purchase and wear time and time again.”

Adopting the Drop model has also given Beecham more creative freedom. “When we needed to order a certain amount of fabric to adhere to wholesale customers, it was limiting in a way,” she says. “Now, for example, we came across this amazing tiger print fabric in a German teddy bear factory that only allowed for 80 coats because it had been discontinued. I felt super confident in the fabric, and I was like, that’s what’s going to make it so special; only 80 of our customers are going to be able to own this coat,” she shares of the design, which hasn’t made its way to a Drop just yet. “It feels really exciting and liberating, as a designer, to be able to be creative without borders.”

Beecham seems to have hit on something. This winter alone, Charlotte Simone coats were spotted on pop stars spanning every decade—from Madonna and Christina Aguilera to Dua Lipa, Charli XCX and Taylor Swift. It’s Swift who has brought Charlotte Simone the most attention, with the brand garnering a 220 percent increase in U.S. sales after Swift was first spotted in the Penny coat in 2023. More recently, the singer-songwriter has made Charlotte Simone her outerwear brand of choice while cheering on her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. “When Taylor came out to that Chiefs game, she wore a bucket hat, a tight and a boot, but it’s the red Lulu coat that is just cloaking the entire outfit,” Beecham says. “We’re lucky that when someone wears Charlotte Simone, it’s such a statement piece that it kind of dominates that paparazzi shot.”

Though the business model has changed, the designer’s driving force hasn’t shifted much from her NYU days, when she first dreamt up Charlotte Simone. “I was always personally saving up for one statement accessory,” Beecham recalls of her time studying literature and art in New York City. “I would have wardrobe staples that I would wear on rotation—a tee, a pair of jeans, sneakers—and then I’d always be looking for that one piece that would elevate the everyday. So that’s what I wanted Charlotte Simone to be: an investment piece that can elevate those wardrobe stables and feel seasonless.”

Ahead of her next Drop on March 26 (which Beecham calls “a treasure trove” of never-before-seen development pieces), Observer chatted with Beecham about her essentials—from the London bakery with the best treats to her favorite spot in the South of France to soak up the sun.