Thanks to the extensive media coverage now given to all things fashion-related, young designers can move from cult status to stardom increasingly swiftly. Key to any such meteoric rise to the top, however, are those working behind the scenes.
With this in mind, it is to the legendary fashion PR Mandi Lennard, whose London-based company this year marks its 10th trailblazing anniversary, that many past and present young design talents here owe a serious debt. The designer Kim Jones, for example, worked closely with Lennard even before he graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2001. These days, having proved himself internationally as a serious talent, he is the creative director at Dunhill, and remains good friends with his earliest supporter.
Lennard is not so much a straightforward press officer, however, as a fosterer of fresh talent and a symbol of the more adventurous elements of London's fashion scene. In her trademark caps, dripping in Chanel and Vuitton jewellery and sporting elaborate nail art and parkas from ultra-niche Japanese labels, she is equally at home promoting must-see catwalk shows and events and securing collaboration and sponsorship from major international brands for her often impoverished charges, as she is hanging out with club kids in east London.
On a rare sunny morning in the run-up to London Fashion Week, Lennard's spacious and eccentric Hoxton showroom sounds and looks superb: hip-hop beats from DJ Premier throb at a decibel-defying level and rail upon rail of her clients' ingenious designs vie for attention – including vibrant Cassette Playa clobber and Gareth Pugh's creations – amid well-used pieces of classic 20th-century Italian furniture and walls adorned with works by Tracey Emin or kooky neo-Pop Art prints.
Having grown up in Leeds, she recalls her early fashion experiences when visiting London: "I'd go to Jean Machine on Oxford Street, where staff on roller skates had to go into the window display to get out the baseball jacket with a huge 'M' on it, just for me! The magic I recall from this is how I want guests to feel at our events."
Employed at the local Benetton, she then worked her way up to being an area manager in London, before becoming a buyer at Browns for six years, and starting her own agency in 1998 for the sheer indulgence of working with everything she loved.
"My friend Gil rented me a desk for £20 a week off Bond Street," Lennard remembers. "It was terrific fun – you have nothing to lose when you start a business, although I lost count of the number of times in the first year my head fell on the desk in despair!
"My first client was Dazed & Confused magazine, which paid me £150 a month." Other early clients included Eley Kishimoto: "Mark Eley came to see me with some of their designs and we clicked instantly when I said, 'You've just brought me Emily Bishop's wardrobe to see!'."
Then there was the soon-to-be unveiled Browns Focus boutique: "I told Mr Burstein, the owner, that he was really silly not to use me as I was on his doorstep and he knew me – within five minutes, his daughter called me and asked me to launch Browns Focus."
Current beneficiaries of the Lennard touch make for a who's who and what's what of all that is deemed cool: Aitor Throup, Roksanda Ilincic, the Brazilian footwear label Melissa, David David, Pam Hogg, plus Pop magazine and Bistrotheque (the restaurant, arts space and cabaret bar, with whom she is helping to launch Flash, a temporary eaterie within the Royal Academy of Arts, this November). Not to mention Danielle Scutt, House of Holland and the hot new hatter Nasir Mazhar (all awarded British Fashion Council/Topshop New Generation sponsorship), and MAN (the London Fashion Week menswear event she helped to launch three years ago with Topman).
Lennard has also this year worked with Burberry, Nike, Moët & Chandon, MAC, Colette and Pitti Immagine, and for London Fashion Week she organised some very high-profile parties.
Collectively, then, this stable of clients gives her a strong power base. Hence, every influential stylist, fashion editor and journalist regularly passes through the showroom, and many top recording artists, too: Rhianna, Kylie, Kanye West, Dizzee Rascal, Roisin Murphy and Gwen Stefani have all had their existing style credentials further boosted by a visit.
Lennard's approach to PR is, however, discerning and modern – never desperate or Ab Fab naff: "It's gut feeling. I work on instinct. It's not difficult to get press on my clients so I police the interest in them rather than promote them openly." She continues: "I'm a brand protector – I can't stand hype, so I do everything possible to hold them back. Laying a foundation is key – once you have that, hype can't touch you. As an agency, we are incredibly focused, we don't waste time on stuff that isn't what we want."
And that is? "We want glamour at an international level – W magazine, Japanese and American Vogue – we want to work with top creators. My clients demand this audience; they are working so hard in freezing studios without any bucks."
Surprisingly, perhaps, it initially took some coaxing to persuade her to agree to be interviewed; that less-is-more approach to promotion seemingly carries through into a (very Northern) reluctance for blowing one's own trumpet: "You can hit a brick wall if you do that sort of thing!" she says, laughing. Others in her orbit prove far more eager to big up her achievements, though: Melanie Rickey, fashion news and features editor of Grazia magazine, says: "She supports those who need to be supported with no agenda, but with conviction. And there's not enough of that in this world."
The stylist Thom Murphy is another fan: "I have worked closely with her for 10 years, and she is what most PRs can only dream of being." And Ben Reardon, editor of i-D magazine, enthuses: "I love my Mandi! She sends work emails all through the night – does she ever actually sleep?"
Gareth Pugh (with whom Lennard has worked since his first season in 2005) sums her up thus: "She believes in all of her clients. She works as hard, if not harder, than her designers do. She knows when to say no, and does so, often. Her reputation precedes her. What I love, though, is that she doesn't take herself too seriously."
As the phones ring with increasing frequency, Lennard, amazingly calm amid the storm, needs to crack on with tackling that day's 38 page-long to-do list. Small wonder that the fashion website hintmag.com described her as "London's hottest PR".
"Well, that's nice," she says, with a smile. "But, of course, I don't want to peak just yet, thanks."
Public relations, private lives
Making a living promoting someone else's talent is far from easy. The push-pull of getting clients noticed for all the right reasons, while keeping your own head – and keeping it well out of the spotlight – is a balancing act that not all PRs pull off.
The stock-in-trade of the fashion PR, both real and fictional, includes the wooing and wining and dining (aka bribing) of clients, the choosing of magazines that will be allowed to feature their creations, and the ruthless cutting of guest lists and banning of journalists. These powers are behind the image of the fashion PR as both fawning and ruthless, as embodied by Edina and Patsy in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous'.
It was the late Percy Savage, who died earlier this year, who really created fashion PR, advising Christian Dior to employ Yves Saint Laurent in 1955, and creating the first celebrity whirlwind (now a PR staple) when he persuaded Elizabeth Taylor to wear Lanvin to a film premiere in 1954. He famously said of his trade that "PR is vitally important because it costs so much less than advertising". The fomenting of hype with merely a sighting here and a guest list there is a skill that is hard to learn, but is invaluable – after all, everyone wants to be part of something to which they haven't been invited.
Disciples of Savage know that the first rule of PR is to spin the story, rather than star in it. Someone should have told this to the celebrity agent Lizzie Grubman, the PR Machiavelli behind Britney Spears and Jay-Z, whose cover was blown when she drunkenly reversed her SUV into a crowd outside a club, after shouting, "Fuck you, white trash!". She was charged on 26 counts.
As self-appointed patrollers of profit and propriety, PRs deal with the whims of designers, celebrities and the general public. Many PRs are like mothers to disobedient children; others are spiritual rocks; some are just good friends. Tom Cruise famously ditched his publicist and replaced her with his Scientologist sister. After much ill-advised leaping around on Oprah's sofa, his subsequent film was a flop.
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