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Leopold MMSFW 2006 pics via Six6Photography

Part 3 of Lol B’s interview with Leopold designers Shandor Gancs and Boyd Parry:

How important are the Runway shows for Leopold, and are they a necessary financial investment?

It’s funny, it’s really a double edged sword, on the one hand it’s a lot of money and often you won’t get the press you were expecting out of it, but, on the other hand it’s kind of telling everyone ‘well we’re here’, it establishes you and kinda places you in the market. It’s definitely been really good for us to do that, Sydney fashion week was amazing. We got very little press, only a little bit on blogs and some mainstream reviews of the parade yet the reaction from buyers and word of mouth referrals has brought heaps of people through the door, which is better than heaps of press and not many buyers! It helped us to grow and be taken seriously as designers.

Will you show in Sydney again?

I’d say so. We’re thinking of doing our own show but even the bigger labels sometimes have had difficulty pulling a crowd especially if you’re on late at night. But we have had such a great response in Sydney that it makes sense to keep showing.

How about London, New York or Paris?

We’ve been talking about next February for either New York or London, London is probably whom we’re more suited to at this stage. But we are definitely keen to show oversees.

Tell me about your next collection

Autumn/Winter 2007, well it’s a step up from our last winter collection, with a lot of dark fabrics, again a lot of black, geometrics and cashmere knitwear. The fabrics are lush; we’ve gone all out on fabrics and moved them up a notch. There’s a lot more tailoring and we’ve introduced suiting. We’ve introduced a couple of different cuts and we’ve played with the lapels on some. We have a Prince Of Wales check and a pinstripe, the check is a beautiful brown, black and grey and we’ve had a great reaction to them people just wanting to come up and touch them!.

I read somewhere that Leopold are hoping for Global domination….

(Shandor and Boyd both laugh loudly and heartily at this suggestion) Well not quite, but we do have some definite goals such as a store in every major Australian city and they say another 10 stores or so around the globe. I suppose at the end of the day though we both want to get some financial security, it’d be great to have some stores ticking over.

So, will we see a Leopold store in the near future?

Yes, we are looking into that. We’ve seen quite a few locations so we’ll keep you posted!

Have you considered getting financial backing?

I think we are going to need to at some point to take the business to the next level. We’ve been approached by many people but we’re keen to find the right fit, we think that’s really important. It’d need to be someone who understands our vision and who will get what we are trying to do. We want people who know and understand our demographic. On the other hand we could sell our share in the company and retain say 10%, then go off and buy a nice house(both laugh), but it’s not really what we’re about. We’re very lucky in that we are passionate about what we do and we really enjoy it. We’ve had days when we’ve not been able to pay our rent or eat too well so we are definitely not doing it for the glory! Things are definitely evolving though.

After the interview I scooted across the road to one of Leopold’s stockists, Louie on Greville, to see if I could grab one or two pieces from their winter collection that were now on sale. I got a great pair of slim fit check pants for my partner which fit like a glove (lot’s of brownie points for me!) and a dark pink Cardigan which I decided to keep for myself! (He’s not happy). You can find Leopold stockists via Leopold’s website.