It’s hard to think of a more harmonious collaboration than one between Batsheva Hay and Laura Ashley. A fan of the chintzy British textiles brand since her childhood, Hay remembers a sweet Laura Ashley dress she wore, much to her delight, at the age of four. The company’s print archive is the place the former lawyer’s mind wanders to in daydreams; it is her version of heaven.
“There’s nothing I’ve been dreaming about more,” says Hay of the 15-piece edit of Victorian-inspired dresses she designed with painfully-cute mini-me versions, layered skirts, blouses, and a cutesy apron and oven mitt set. “To me, Laura Ashley embodies an unpretentious beauty. I like to wear things that are comfortable and functional and have pockets and come in cotton, but at the same time I want a transportive experience; I want to become a different version of myself that’s elevated, fun and adventurous. I am not a minimalist.”
“I am not a minimalist,” says Hay.
Hay’s world is not all frills. The darker side to the joyfully democratic Laura Ashley aesthetic that influenced the cultural psyche in the ’80s chimes with her self-professed weirdness. She recalls running into one of Laura Ashley’s original employees in an art gallery, and hearing a first-hand account of the businesswoman who was not the “straightforward country woman” people assumed her to be. “She was interested in punk,” enthuses Hay. “She liked to shoot her dresses with beaten-up old boots and things like that.”
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