‘I love Claudia Winkleman’s Traitors kilts and coats,’ says North Yorkshire tweed designer Isabelle Randall

She put out calls on social media and called on friends of friends. “I wanted all age groups in there, just to show how easy these clothes are to wear and mix and match,” she says.

The Isabelle Randall label is well worth a look if you cannot help but swoon - and who cannot help but swoon? - at the kilts, tweed jackets and coats that Claudia Winkleman has been sporting in BBC1’s The Traitors.

"I love Claudia Winkleman’s look,” Isabelle says. “It feels strong, confident, masculine and rebellious. Kilts on women always feel cool when worn with knits, wools and boots. That silhouette has real impact, yet is so easy to wear.

“My Kilt skirts, in wool or vegan leather, are inspired by the traditional kilt shape but with my own twist. They have a side zip, a yoke to flatter the stomach (tummy) area, pleating on one side only, and an asymmetrical hem to elongate the figure.

“I wanted to create a skirt that works effortlessly with pieces women already own. It can be styled easily with a favourite band T-shirt and trainers, my relaxed linen shirts, a chunky knit or layered with one of my Yorkshire tweed gilets and knee-high boots. The vegan leather skirt is light enough to cross seasons, but fully lined in satin so it still feels substantial and beautifully made.”

Originally from Dewsbury, Isabelle is now based in Scarborough, but has also spent much of her life in Scotland, and her beautiful, characterful and practical designs bear the influence of all this rich heritage.

Male model Jake wears a coat in the shoot. “My goodness, that coat gets so much attention,” Isabelle says. “If I've got a stand, like at York Races, all the men come up. It's incredible how popular that design has been.”

Isabelle has been playing with tweeds. “Especially the Yorkshire tweeds,” she says. “Some Harris tweeds, so I'm buying from Scottish Mills but mainly from Yorkshire Mills, playing with the different weights of tweed and what I can do with them to create that versatility.”

The Mint Collection is named after the dominant colour featured but is also a pun. “That's gorgeous, that's mint. People used to say that,” she says. “I wanted this collection to be cool, to be really wearable. A big part of the inspiration of the actual construction and design details comes from my love of denim jackets and bomber jackets, so I did a lot of patch pockets and top stitching and fluorescent thread colours and lots of panelling, and the yokes that you get with the denim jacket.”

Isabelle attended her first fashion show, by Batley School of Art, at the age of 12, and decided there and then that she wanted to be a fashion designer. At 16, she went to the college to do a BTec diploma in Fashion Design, then studied for a degree in Fashion Design at the University of Leeds, followed by an MA at the Royal College of Art in London, after which she worked for couture designers including Roland Klein, Bella Freud and Hussein Chalayan.

In 1997, her brother suggested that she come up to Aberdeen, where he and their father worked in the oil industry. She went, stayed and decided to make use of her design skills by transferring them to web design. Her new career took her to Brussels for four years, then back to Aberdeen.

All the while, she was designing and making bespoke clothing, as she had since her Batley days, gaining a reputation for tailoring and her use of colour and texture.

In 2004, she decided to launch her own label. She moved back to Yorkshire in 2021, so she could be close to her mother, author Linda Randall.

Having mainly worked bespoke, last year she launched ready-to-order designs in standard sizes. “There's so much work that goes into a bespoke and with that a higher price,” she says.

“I'm very keen to work with British manufacturers, especially with things like coats. On the whole I think we can all pick up a coat quite easily off the rails.”

Clients tend to come from across Yorkshire, Lancashire and Scotland. “My pieces are ageless. I have young clients in their late teens and early twenties that love my pieces as much as clients in their sixties and seventies.

“Some love going to the races, and you associate tweed straight away with that. Other clients are city goers, and they love to throw on a tweed coat with jeans and boots and go meet their friends in town. They see it in a completely different way.”

Last September, she moved the business from Wood End in Scarborough to a larger space at Coldyhill Business Centre, a former Territorial Army barracks.

“All of this space, all of this light, and a lot of my friends are also here, so I was excited by that, because we've become like a family. It's so supportive and I think, when you work alone, you can just open the door, walk down the corridor and know you have friends in other units. There are graphic designers here, photographers, web as well, so lots of creatives on my floor. We all know each other so it just feels like a great community.

“My room was the entertainment's room, so there was a bar here, there was a projector.

“I made sure that the cutting table was right in the middle of the room because it's the heart of the business - without the cutting table, there are no patterns, there are no garments, and it's lovely to show people the work in progress.”

The designs are ready to order in standard sizes, and it takes three to six weeks for them to be delivered to the customer.

“I would like to do more open events at the studio, and host fashion shows, whether it's here or in different venues. At Christmas time, I was invited to do a pop-up shop under the York Fashion Week umbrella on Feasegate. I was given a shop window, and what a difference that makes. I had one of my doggy coats displayed as well, and the amount of people that stepped in because of that window.

“There are so many empty shops and empty windows. If I could hire a window in York or Harrogate or Malton just to display and change once a month. One, it would brighten up the street and two, it would be a great advert for me to be seen more.”

Isabelle works alone but wants to grow the business to the level at which she can work with a British manufacturer on the standard orders.

“Nowadays, how do you reach people? It's social media, but then you're choked by the algorithm, or you've got to pay for Facebook ads. Who are you targeting? Are you in front of the right people? That is always the key question. Are your products in front of the right people - people that love fashion, that love dressing up, that value clothes, that care about where the clothes come from, where they're made, where the fabric's from - that's everything that I'm about, that the brand is about, and it's getting that message out there.”

Doggy coats, which start at £65, are proving very popular. “They were just a fun extra, but people love them. The one I had in the window at the pop-up shop sold outright. Someone came in, tried it on their dog, it fits, I'll buy it, and just walked off with the dog wearing it.”

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