Chelsea Girl, the iconic 1970’s fast fashion retailer that later became River Island, is to be revived as a branded capsule collection within River Island stores.
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The 40-piece range will go on sale in selected River Island stores on March 19 to mark 40 years since the first Chelsea Girl opened. It will also launch in a Chelsea Girl pop-up shop in Selfridges.
The collection has been designed by Lucy Moller - a National College of Art & Design graduate who won a design internship at River Island in 2006 - under the direction of brand director Farida Kaikobad who worked on the original Chelsea Girl collections.
According to an interview in The Times Magazine, Moller is too young to remember Chelsea Girl herself but she raided her mother’s wardrobe of Chelsea Girl items and secured others off eBay for inspiration.
The range is aimed at young girls who want a vintage look, but don’t want the expense or old smell sometimes associated with genuine vintage items, she said.
Chelsea Girl itself started out under a different name, Lewis Separates, in 1948 and became Chelsea Girl in the 1960s. It was rebranded as River Island in 1988 in a bid to tap into the Ralph Lauren colonial feel.
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