Why Wonder Woman is Katie Hillier’s Hero

“When I was five or six years old, I remember watching Wonder Woman on the telly with my mum and dad and just thinking, fucking hell, girls are cool. In the titles there’s a moment where Lynda Carter gets a piece of metal and bends it to show her strength, and my dad used to go and get a wire hanger and give it to me to bend – like, ‘Go on then, Wonder Woman’. I haven’t watched it since I was a kid; I’m kind of weird about things like that, sometimes you see something and it seems really amazing to you at that point in your life so you don’t want to revisit it and end up with a different idea of what it means. But I did buy a pair of red and gold shoes from Prada a few years ago that looked a bit like what she would wear – and I bought them for that specific reason. I’ve never worn them, but I like having them: they’re my Wonder Woman shoes.”

There are few figures in fashion whose name commands such a consistently buoyant reaction as that of Katie Hillier: a woman whose genius for accessory design, paired with her no-bullshit approach to the industry, has manifested in consultancy and design roles for brands from Marc Jacobs to Victoria Beckham and Sacaï. Most recently, the establishment of her namesake brand, Hillier Bartley, created with close friend Luella Bartley, has channelled the duo’s eclectic approach into everything from the perfectly covetable handbags one would expect from Hillier to pastel-hued kimonos, shimmering lamé trousers and feather-embellished cashmere: a collection of pieces suited to the most wonderful of women.

Hair Shingo Shibata at The Wall Group using Wella; Make-up Laura Stiassni at The Wall Group using Dior Make-up; Photographic assistant Jared Zagha; Styling assistants Rebecca Perlmutar, Kat Banas; Hair assistant Kazuhide Katahira; Post-production Labyrinth Photographic; Production Mini Title; Special thanks to The Standard, East Village.

This article originally appears in AnOther Magazine S/S17.