‘British Made Excellence’

The Development & Growth of Fashion Business: Holland Cooper

So, you’ve left a secure university, ditched a prosperous course and abandoned any chance of gaining a degree. According to Jade Holland Cooper all you need is thirty tweed miniskirts and a whole lot of hard work and stamina. 

Holland Cooper the garments, the brand, the woman. Jade Holland Cooper, 31, founder and owner of luxury tweed and country clothing store ‘Holland Cooper’ has become a drop out sensation. After starting up a single country stall at Badminton Horse Trials, selling only thirty unique tweed miniskirts, she now owns a £10 million fashion business with consumers buying all over the world. 

After pulling out from her international equine and agricultural management course at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, she noticed a gap in the market for country clothing and tweed wear and therefore launched herself into the fashion void. Naming the brand after herself in 2008 Holland Cooper Ltd was born and let’s just say she now exercises control in the tweed market sector. 

Jade’s roots are embedded within the countryside and this was certainly evident from the beginning in the declination of her offers from both leading UK fashion universities; London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins. As an only child it’s apparent that Jade’s support for her parents reflect in the label. Her mother, Miranda Cooper, is a designer who made clothes for the likes of Elton John and her father, Oliver Cooper, is an arable farmer in Suffolk. Jade has created a style that combines fashion and farming and yet it still excites city customers. 

Her continuous love for the outdoors was showcased in the miniskirts and continues to be displayed throughout her designs even now. She gave the countryside a style up; suiting up men in full shooting sets and tailoring women in jackets fit to be flaunted in the fields. 

Lets look at her journey…

It’s been ten years since the brand was formed, ten years since the media caught on to this luxurious brand and ten years since tweed was made the new 21^st century fashion craze and here’s the low down. In 2012, the brand started to open up to city consumers as it’s attendance at principal Polo events expanded its market. Just two years succeeding, Holland Cooper had over seven UK mills sourcing out fabrics and two factory stores open, one being Harrods to which it was placed opposite the likes of Ralph Lauren and Canada Goose. 

Now Holland Cooper has custom built headquarters, a Capsule Luxury ‘sports line’, five factories, an all-new website, five stores and nine stockists, hundreds of employees, royalty wearing the brand and an amazing founder who continues to thrive. 

Continuing its long list of achievements, HC was nominated for ‘Premium Brand of the Year’ and ‘Best Store Design’ at the ’Drapers’ Magazine Awards 2018, and has had many a feature article written about them in the likes of Cotswold Life, Living Magazine, The Sunday Telegraph and Grazia. 

Her growth in business is one of the most recognised as she built and developed the business in such a short amount of time. She once squeezed her small stand into Badminton now shows such as ‘The Game Fair’ and ‘Cheltenham Race Meetings’ are requesting her brand for a stall. She represents female business power. 

Amy Neville, 25, international model and blogger, has been modelling for 8 years now with four of those years being with Holland Cooper. Her email sent to me about her work with HC voiced just how much she admires the brand. Full of exclamation marks and capital letters she had nothing but positivity to tell me about HC and its backbone business founder Jade. “I feel super happy to be part of such an amazing brand and to have seen the growth too, I always feel when you model in products you love, it shows”

Amy’s collaborations with Holland Cooper include shoots, video promotions as well as endorsing the brand through her own social media platforms and fashion businesses. ‘I think there are no brands out there with the same style and quality as Holland Cooper. It is so unique, and I think that is one of the reasons it is so popular’. Her recent promotion is the ‘Holland Cooper Haul’ that features on her fashion and lifestyle YouTube channel. 

Her relationship with Jade has blossomed from just business workers to close friends and Amy just continued to praise Jade and her endurance, ‘I did one of her campaigns at the beginning four years ago, one of my good friend’s Tory Smith was the photographer on the first campaign I did for them and she actually recommended me to Jade and we have been working together ever since.”  

If you look at the clothing, but careful I did once and now I’m addicted, the designs symbolise Great Britain. From the stitching on the fabric to the silk label embedded in the article their range truly lives up to its slogan as ‘British Made Excellence’. The tweed patterns are unique to the label and epitomise what it means to be from the country. Emma Dixon, member of ‘Yorkshire Ladies Shooting’ and frequent consumer of the brand, described Holland Cooper as her favourite brand, ‘I feel it brings class, elegance and comfort to my wardrobe and to my shoots. Their statement pieces are well made and certainly get heads turning. 

For all those new to Holland Cooper or just for anyone indecisive about what to buy Amy gave me the low-down of her best-loved HC items, “previously it was the amazing capes she did they were my ultimate fave, the black collars were amazing… now I would say my puffa with faux fur hood is the best! It’s super easy to wear on a day to day basis whatever outfit your wearing underneath”. 

So next time you’re around Edinburgh, Oxford see what the brand has to offer and emerge yourself into Holland Cooper.