Amidst all this talk of winter, hygge and festive cheer, we can’t help but pine for balmier days: Think floaty frocks and light-as-a-feather fabrics wafting ever so ethereally on the summer’s breeze...
For Ukrainian designer, Anna October, such garments have become her raison d'être – a signature aesthetic, which has seen her nominated for the LVMH Prize in 2014 and subsequently win the Mercedes-Benz award for Best Designer in 2016. Combining comfortable, natural materials that feel luxe to the touch, and double-take silhouettes that are rife with hidden details and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments of style genius, it’s little wonder that Anna’s designs were the ubiquitous dresses of Fashion Month this season gone.
So, while the mercury may still be plummeting, we’re warming ourselves up to a season of looks that are fit for "drinking, dancing, and laying in the grass" – and meeting the woman who's responsible for them.
Your dresses were here, there and everywhere at London Fashion Week! Anyone who’s anyone seemed to be wearing one...
I am a dress person, and I enjoy making them: Everyday dresses, garden dresses, and summer dresses. I usually buy a lot of printed styles, and generally in life I wear dresses and heels almost every day. Like me, the Anna October lady is more traditionally feminine.
Has this always been your style DNA?
I am from a small industrial city in Ukraine. They didn’t have any connection to fashion or to art or to any kind of inspiration, so this was all happening in my head. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have my own brand and for that I had to know how to explain it to others. I started to see colours just after studying Fine Art. I wanted to understand colours, because before I was an all-shades-of-grey person. My first collection was full of beige and khaki, and was completely different! Now, colours are my main inspiration and one of the messages that I’m translating. I believe that they influence our thoughts, and that beautiful colours and unexpected combinations can make us feel happier.
How do you go about translating this love of colour into flattering and wearable garments?
My favourite way of working is from the fabric. I touch one piece of fabric and start to wrap it, drape it and cut it and introduce other details. This is more real; I feel like I’m in my element. It’s more truthful, more practical, more inspiring and more true to the body. It’s like you’re becoming a sculptor. 
Do you think that’s why your designs resonate with so many women?
I want my clothes to feel like they exist, not in a way that you’ve seen before, but in a way that feels harmonious in the environment – something that doesn’t feel like it came from another space, but instead feels… Not nostalgic, but familiar. I just want to feel comfortable and make other women feel comfortable.
Make your deskside daydreams a reality. Shop Anna October here:
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