The Vampire’s Wife Falconetti fan club register reads like an A-Z of Hollywood elite. A galaxy of stars has fallen for the charms of brand founder Susie Cave’s sweet, ruffle-trimmed dresses that ooze retro glamour. Kate Moss, an early admirer of her fellow ’90s catwalk queen’s work, describes Cave’s frilly-hemmed frocks as “Little House on the Prairie dresses” gone luxe. Florence Welch, who wears the old-fashioned designs on and off-stage says, “They make you look like you’re practising witchcraft in a very romantic cult”. Princess Beatrice, Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Aniston have all emulated Cave’s gothic heroine-meets-Victorian lady sensibility in the Falconetti. And, circa 2018, there was not a red carpet that didn’t witness its ethereal sisters – the Festival, the Cinderella and the Belle – swishing past the cameras. The Vampire’s Wife’s unassumingly sexy dresses looked good everyone. We all wanted in.
Now, thanks to a collaboration with Swedish high-street giant H&M, The Vampire’s Wife dresses are available to the masses. “It seems to me like an act of magic,” Cave tells British Vogue of taking her signature “street sweepers” into the mainstream just in time for Halloween. Inspired by the dark tales of the medieval town of Lewes, where 17 Protestant martyrs were famously burned in the 16th-century, this shadowy past informed the moody palette and Victoriana aesthetic of the dresses. Cave’s signature feminine silhouette is realised in bewitching black lace, rich velvet and iridescent silver embroidery that also brings to mind the Ballets Russes – one of Cave’s other passions. Styled with fishnets and stacked talisman jewellery – designed by her husband, the formidable musician Nick Cave – each piece is “full of memory and dark history” promises Susie.
To ensure high-street customers receive the same quality and care that goes into The Vampire’s Wife dresses, which cost upwards of £1,000, Cave worked very closely with H&M’s designers – albeit via Zoom. “The team took great pains to find the very essence of what The Vampire’s Wife is about, and then realised my dreams to my exact specifications,” asserts Cave, who was thrilled with the prototypes. “To design a dress at The Vampire’s Wife and get it through to the finish line is extremely difficult, miraculous really, as we are a small company. H&M is extraordinarily powerful in that respect.” The retailer even introduced Cave to new sustainability processes to broaden the indie label’s green outlook.
The iconography on the jewellery, which Cave describes as “little visual treasures that mean so much” to her and Nick, adds to the personal feel of the collection. As Ruth Chapman of Matchesfashion.com, which has been stocking The Vampire’s Wife since 2015, once said, “Susie has effected that very difficult thing of making you feel as if [her designs] are one-offs, like she’s made something just for you.” The passion that goes into The Vampire’s Wife – Cave describes her home studio like Warhol’s Factory, a “hub of creative activity” – ensures the H&M edit has this originality at its core.
During a year that has seen “midriff-flossing” join the fashion lexicon, it’s reassuring to see a polite dress quietly reign supreme throughout the decade. The Vampire’s Wife x H&M is a high-street collaboration worth its salt.
Shop The Vampire’s Wife x H&M collection in select stores and on Hm.com from 22 October.
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