Talia Byre’s story begins with a family tree. “Can you give me a pen?” Asks Talia Lipkin-Connor, founder and only designer of the fashion brand. Its lineage is full of successful seasiders, designers and boutiques owners. But in the last 80 years, the British fashion scenario, full of new challenges and opportunities, has changed. Unable to rest on her family’s laurels, she is starting from scratch.
So far, Lipkin-Connor has done well. Its 5 -year -old mark, sold in stores such as Browns Fashion, Farfetch and Ssense, was selected this week to the prestigious BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund. She also introduced her autumn-winter 2025 collection as part of London Fashion Week.
Sitting in her studio at East London, she begins to sketch her inheritance on paper. “So there were three brothers,” she tells the CNNdrawing a horizontal line on the page. Her great-grandfather Saul and two Bisvós Sam and Campbell uncles had three Liverpool tailors between the 1930s and 1980s. Called The Abrams Brothers, it was a pillar of the Liverpool Men’s Fashion scene, having even received visits from her first shows on Legendary Cavern Club.
However, little remains of the business, and Lipkin-Connor finds it difficult to follow the events. “All my great-aunts simply intervene randomly like, ‘Don’t you remember that?’ It’s like, ‘no. This was 70 years before I was born, ‘”he said.
Family success continued during swinging sixties with his grandfather Ralph, who made his name in women’s fashion. In the mid -1960s, Ralph opened Lucinda Byre, a boutique that sold clothes of various brands, including the Pioneer of the Mary Quant miniskirt in downtown Liverpool, which then expanded in northern England. (The name was a combination of his noble relative, Lord Byre, and a fictional character named Lucinda).
“They were one of the first to sell (Vivienne) Westwood or Mulberry,” said Lipkin-Connor, pointing to a film photograph of one of the salespeople wearing a play from the Westwood debut collection in 1981. Boutique also had its own line Cashmere’s meshes and shoes-whose remnants are widely scattered throughout the outstretched family wardrobe. Some pieces found their way to London, with friends discovering items in thrift stores in the historic Portobello Road.
Lucinda Byre was so loved that Lipkin-Connor even inherited some of her customers, who send photos of their estimated pieces and describe happy memories.
“Challenging Times”
With the British facing disturbances after Brexit, as well as other challenges, including increasing studio costs, low salaries in the sector and lack of government funding, Lipkin-Connor is sailing in a very different environment from its predecessors. “It’s something we discussed a lot in my family at the dinner table,” she said. “In terms of financing and access to many things, it’s simply more difficult.”
Amid the increase in import and export rates, as well as the elimination of Vat’s reimbursements for tourists in the UK, several independent brands have moved to Paris or Milan to ensure their survival. “This makes the UK very isolated,” said Lipkin-Connor, who uses manufacturers in Italy to avoid a high price by sending to EU customers.
Following the footsteps of their fashion ancestors is also difficult due to high costs and bureaucracy. Cleaning his grandmother’s apartment in Liverpool, Lipkin-Connor found fabric rolls of the traditional Dugdale Bros & Co. fabric trader, which previously provided the ABRAMS Brothers store. Hopeing to do the same with his own brand, Lipkin-Connor visited the British supplier, who provided him “many flaps and materials.
That’s what we started with, but now unfortunately it is not sustainable for us to use this fabric because it is based on Britain, ”making him expensive to send to Italy for production, he explained.
The challenges for UK -based designers are at the top of the concerns of Caroline Rush, CEO at the end of the British Fashion Council, who used his opening speech at London Fashion Week as a call to action for more investments and government support . “As we all know, they are challenging times,” she told press, buyers and other participants in the parade on Friday (21) in the morning.
“Looking to the future, I just want to note that more support from our government is absolutely crucial… Our creativity is really the envy of the world, let’s make our businesses too.”
A SOUL STORE
The new Lipkin-Connor collection, presented on Friday, refers to Lucinda Byre’s items-for example, a cacharel print dress, bought at the store and rescued by her mother. She was also inspired by vintage meshes, adding her own touches. “When it was in Liverpool, we found an old Mary Quant knitting piece that used to be sold (at Lucinda Byre) with this pocket detail. So we thought, “Oh, should we add a small pocket?”
But Lipkin-Connor takes care not to be excessively influenced by the past. “We are aware that there is a lot of history there, but it could easily become very nostalgic. And that’s not the goal, ”she said. “Lucinda byre was really visionary … so it’s very important that it still seems current.”
Its ultimate goal is to relive the excitement of shopping shopping through a physical store. “People still yearn for it,” she said. “There is no place, especially for me and my sister, where we would shop in London.” If Lucinda Byre’s main store was crowned with a French bistro (where Lipkin-Connor’s father was interrogated by her grandmother about marrying her family), what could Talia Byre offer one day? “Someone the other day said we should have a wine bar,” she laughed. This could fit well into your view of a multifunctional space with showroom, store and a studio “that has soul.”
There is something about Talia byre – with its peculiar approach to overlays and shirts with stylized puffy sleeves on models with discolored eyebrows and black lips – which seems distinctly of this century. But intrinsic modernity of the brand also seems to be harmoniously with its deep and winding roots. It is a duality that Lipkin-Connor itself recognizes and embraces. “The same woman who bought (at Lucinda Byre) is the same woman who buys with us now,” she said. “It’s just a different period of time.”
