Coast’s creative director shares his top race day style tips
As the creative director one of the UK’s most established occasion wear brands, Coast’s Neil Hendy knows a lot about fashion and how to dress for all occasions. He shared with us his top race day tips, who his fashion icons are and where he gets his inspiration for Coast’s new collections from.
Take to the tracks in style
As head honcho at the high street occasion wear specialists, Neil knows how to make yourself look fantastic when it comes to dressing for the races. His top tip is to: “Wear what you feel amazing in- whether that’s a stand out dress or something more understated. As long as you feel good and feel confident.”
Keeping up with race day trends
Coast has adapted and developed their new lines to reflect changing fashion trends in order to keep up to the minute with trends. Changes in style has led to differences in the sales of certain products. An increasing trend of people opting to wear trouser styles and culottes has definitely influenced this.
Hendy said that “I think the first choice for most people will always be an amazing dress however the increased fashionability of culottes and trousers as occasion wear has opened the door to alternatives and people being more comfortable to experiment. For me, creating a look with separates is the trend that will continue to grow.”
He added that this is the same when it comes to the popularity of fascinators, which have sky rocketed over the years. “I think their popularity is based on the fact that our dresses take centre stage and a fascinator complements as opposed to dominate the outfit in the way that a hat sometimes can.”
Cool Kate leading the style stakes
A constant source of inspiration for Coast’s race day looks is the ever stylish Duchess of Cambridge. Hendy commented that: “Kate has a huge influence on what people what to wear and we would absolutely love Kate to wear Coast – I think she would look gorgeous in our styles. She always looks so fabulous in all the different silhouettes that she wears and we echo these in our own ranges.”
Despite this, when asked who his ultimate fashion icon was Hendy explained that he loves all women who have their own confident sense of style and dress to show off their personality. “For me, Olivia Palermo gets it right every time, as does Emma Watson. And of course Alessandra Ambrosio who featured in our latest campaign – she is beautiful and sexy.”
With such an innovative and inspiring creative director, it’s going to be exciting to see just what new styles Coast has to offer for this year’s races season. If you want to be inspired by past fashions take a look here at the styles through the ages.
